Saturday Night Live Pays Tribute to Norm Macdonald With His Greatest Weekend Update Jokes

Just over two weeks ago, news surfaced of Norm Macdonald’s passing. The Saturday Night Live alumnus had been fighting a private battle with cancer for nearly a decade, and he passed away at 61 years of age. With the Season 47 premiere of SNL on October 2nd, current Weekend Update hosts Colin Jost and Michael Che closed their segment out by offering a tribute to the late comedian.

For the last minute-and-a-half of this week’s segment, NBC played some of Macdonald’s best jokes as host of the sketch. You can see the tribute at the end of the video above.

Macdonald spent five seasons on the show and hosted Weekend Update for three years. After he left the show in 1998, he even returned once the very next season to host the series. His latest appearance on the show came during a cameo in a May 2009 episode.

“Today is a sad day. All of us here at SNL mourn the loss of Norm Macdonald, one of the most impactful comedic voices of his or any other generation,” Saturday Night Live producers offered in a statement immediately following the comedian’s death. “There are so many things that we’ll miss about Norm – from his unflinching integrity to his generosity to his consistent ability to surprise. But most of all he was just plain funny. No one was funny like Norm.”

His death was initially announced by his management company and longtime producing partner Lori Jo Hoekstra.

“He was most proud of his comedy,” Hoekstra said in a statement. “He never wanted the diagnosis to affect the way the audience or any of his loved ones saw him. Norm was a pure comic. He once wrote that ‘a joke should catch someone by surprise, it should never pander.’ He certainly never pandered. Norm will be missed terribly.”

Cover photo by Mary Ellen Matthews/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal