Months after Norm Macdonald’s passing, fans will get a final farewell with the premiere of his last comedy special, Netflix announced Thursday. “Norm Macdonald: Nothing Special” will be released on May 30.
The special will give viewers a glimpse at Macdonald’s hidden battle with leukemia and his uncompromising comedic nature. The Hollywood Reporter called the special “a postmortem last joke and testament from a comic who relished defying” convention.
Macdonald’s career ranged from “Saturday Night Live” to his sitcom “The Norm Show,” to the Netflix special “Hitler’s Dog, Gossip & Trickery” and series “Norm Macdonald Has a Show.” He died in September 2021 at age 61.
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Macdonald had a hospital visit in summer 2020 — during the heat of the pandemic — which yielded bad test results and a procedure, Lori Jo Hoekstra, Macdonald’s longtime producing partner, told THR.
The comedian, worried about his health and unable to perform onstage with venues closed, taped the special in his living room.
“He wanted to get this on tape just in case — as he put it — things went south,” Hoekstra told THR.
He filmed the hour-long comedy special himself, and “being Norm, he did it in one take,” Netflix said in the press release.
Meanwhile, the medical procedure went well, so Macdonald continued with the original plan for the Netflix special. That is, until he became very sick at the end of summer 2021.
“He remembered he had shot this and asked me to find it so he could watch it,” Hoekstra told THR. “He ended up watching it before he passed away.”
The special will feature bonus tributes from some of Macdonald’s friends — Dave Chappelle, David Letterman, Conan O’Brien, Adam Sandler, Molly Shannon, and David Spade — filmed in Netflix’s recent “Netflix is a Joke: The Festival.”
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“It makes me so happy that I can share it, but also so sad that we can’t share it with him,” Hoekstra told THR.
Shanna Kelly can be reached at shanna.kelly@globe.com.Follow her on Twitter @shannakelly_19.