What’s funnier? The long, winding joke where the punchline is but the last of many laughs throughout the journey? Or the short staccato one-liner? If, like me, you love both, then there was one comedian whose decades of work — from his standup and his own quirky TV shows, to his stint on Saturday Night Live (more on that in a moment) and frequent late night talk show guest spots — stood above the rest. Norm MacDonald was, quite simply, one of the best comics of the age. And now, to the shock of so many, he passed away last week at age 61.

Although a fixture in the standup circuit (which was always his preferred venue) MacDonald was elevated to prominence as the deadpan and fearless host of SNL’s Weekend Update. He is, perhaps, as famous for being fired from that post as he was for the stellar work he did in the three years he sat behind the fake news desk. And the reason for his termination, if never officially stated, gives us an insight into his belief in the integrity of comedy and how staying true to himself and his craft mattered most to him. As the story goes, NBC executive Don Ohlmeyer was friends with O.J. Simpson and had grown irritated by MacDonald’s relentless Weekend Update jokes aimed at the accused murderer during and after the trial. But the more management pressed the comic to back off, the more his audiences were treated with savage jokes at the Juice’s expense. “In his book, O.J. said that he would have taken a bullet or stood in front of a train for Nicole. Man I’m gonna tell you, that is some bad luck when the one guy that would’ve died for you kills you.”

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