In the months before his death from cancer in September of last year, stand-up comic Norm Macdonald recorded a final stand-up performance.
His former SNL co-star, David Spade, revealed as much in an installment of his Fly on the Wall podcast with Dana Carvey.
“We went to a memorial…and it was supposed to be more of a celebration, we never had a funeral for him,” recalled Spade, who noted Netflix cameras were documenting everything for an upcoming project.
“The audience was peppered with SNL people, writers, comedians, Conan O’Brien hosted, Bill Murray from SNL, comedians, [Adam] Sandler…,” Spade told Carvey.
Afterward, Spade and five others were “sequestered” in a private room, and watched the last stand-up set Macdonald ever performed.
“He just said, ‘You know, I keep trying to do my set,’ and he was getting weaker, which we didn’t know,” Spade of Macdonald before his death. “They keep shutting down theaters [for COVID], and they wouldn’t let him go, so then he goes, ‘I’m just gonna run it once, just kind of say it out loud.'”
Spade described the footage, shot by Macdonald’s assistant, with no audience, featured, “classic Norm stuff,” but added some of it was unpolished. “But for what he does, it was perfect. I was excited to be a witness for that,” Spade said.
“I definitely cried,” he admitted. “…You’re watching a guy…he looks a little different, a little gaunt, [but] he was better than my special,” Spade added with a laugh.
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