Norman Gene Macdonald[i] (October 17, 1959[ii] – September 14, 2021) was a Canadian stand-up comedian, actor, and writer whose style was characterized by deadpan delivery, eccentric understatement, and the use of folksy, old-fashioned turns of phrase.

In between periods of school and before starting in comedy, he worked a variety of manual labour jobs, including as a chokerman for a logging company.

[22] In 1992, Macdonald served as a writer for the only season of The Dennis Miller Show, working on a staff that also included Barry Crimmins, Nick Bakay, John Riggi, Eddie Feldmann, and Mark Brazill.

[31][32] Macdonald joined the cast of NBC's Saturday Night Live (SNL) television program in 1993, where he performed impressions of Larry King, Burt Reynolds, David Letterman, Quentin Tarantino, Clint Eastwood, Charles Kuralt, and Bob Dole, among others.

[33][22] His version of Weekend Update often included running jokes about prison rape, "crack whores", and the success of American actor-singer David Hasselhoff in Germany.

Macdonald would occasionally deliver a piece of news before taking out his personal compact tape recorder and leaving a "note to self" relevant to what he just discussed.

He commonly used actor-singer Frank Stallone as a non sequitur punchline and absurdly blamed him for such events as toxic waste or high unemployment rates.

[35] On the Weekend Update aired on February 24, 1996, Macdonald joked about John Lotter's sentencing for the murders of Brandon Teena and two others:[36] "And finally, in Falls City, Nebraska, John Lotter has been sentenced to death for attempting to kill three people in what prosecutors called a plot to silence a cross-dressing female who had accused him of rape.

[38] After the announcement that Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley planned to divorce, Macdonald joked about their irreconcilable differences on Weekend Update.

"[40] In early 1998, Don Ohlmeyer, president of NBC's West Coast division, had Macdonald removed as Weekend Update anchor, citing a decline in ratings and a drop-off in quality.

[9] Ohlmeyer claimed that Macdonald was mistaken, pointing out he had not censored Jay Leno's many jokes about Simpson on The Tonight Show.

[8] Robert Wright, Ohlmeyer's boss, later overturned the decision not to show ads for the movie on NBC, but did leave in place the ban on playing it during SNL.

[45] Macdonald complained to the New York Daily News about NBC's removal of advertising for his film, calling Ohlmeyer a "liar and a thug.

Earlier in 1999, he made a cameo appearance in the Andy Kaufman biographical drama Man on the Moon, directed by Miloš Forman.

[citation needed] In 2000, Macdonald played the starring role for the second time in a motion picture alongside Dave Chappelle, Screwed, which fared poorly at the box office.

On November 12, 2000, he appeared on the Celebrity Edition of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, winning $500,000 for Paul Newman's Hole in the Wall Charity Camp, but could have won the million if he had ignored the advice of host Regis Philbin.

The pilot, whose cold opening parodied the suicide of R. Budd Dwyer, featured as a cast member Rob Schneider and never turned into a series.

[67] On February 26, 2011, he became a commentator and co-host (with Kara Scott) of the seventh season of the TV series High Stakes Poker on Game Show Network.

[69] Clips for the unaired pilot published by The Washington Post resemble a sketch comedy show in the vein of Back to Norm.

[citation needed] In August 2015, he succeeded Darrell Hammond as Colonel Sanders in TV commercials for the KFC chain of fast food restaurants.

[84] In September 2016, Macdonald's semi-fictional memoir Based on a True Story was published by Random House imprint Spiegel & Grau.

[90] In September 2018, Macdonald sparked controversy after the publication of an interview in which he appeared to criticize aspects of the #MeToo movement and defend friends and fellow comedians Louis C.K.

[91] In 2019, Macdonald appeared on Lights Out with David Spade and claimed to have changed his mind on O. J. Simpson's guilt, alleging that he could have rushed to judge the man.

[93] That summer, he had a stand-up set prepared for a final Netflix special, and he taped his audienceless dry run with the intention of filming it professionally to an audience.

He had a recurring role as Yaphit, a gelatinous engineer, on the Fox science fiction series The Orville, whose third season, subtitled New Horizons, premiered in June 2022; Macdonald appeared posthumously in his last casting.

[95] Macdonald said his influences included the comedians Bob Newhart,[96] Sam Kinison,[97] Rodney Dangerfield,[97] Dennis Miller,[98] and the writers Leo Tolstoy[99] and Anton Chekhov.

[101] During an interview on CTV News with his sister-in-law, Joyce Napier, Macdonald talked about his belief that imitation was the highest form of flattery and his distaste for the "low-hanging fruit" of Donald Trump jokes.

[108] While judging on Last Comic Standing, Macdonald criticized a contestant for a joke about the Harry Potter books and the Bible, saying: "I think if you're going to take on an entire religion, you should at least know what you're talking about."

[115] He disclosed his diagnosis only to his family, agent, and producing partner, fearing that revealing his condition to the public would "affect the way he was perceived", according to his brother Neil.

[115] In July 2021, Macdonald entered the City of Hope National Medical Center in Duarte, California, for a round of chemotherapy, where he developed an infection.