Revealed – The Joke Norm Macdonald Considered to be ‘Perfect’

Those of us who love laughter lost a good friend earlier this week with the passing of Norm Macdonald. The comedian passed away after a very quiet nine-year battle with cancer. I say very quietly because I don't think anyone outside of his closest friends and family even knew he was ill.

Macdonald was a staple on NBC's Saturday Night Live and the segment of the show known as Weekend Update. It was the "news" portion of the show and nobody was better at the deadpan dry delivery of "the news" the way Macdonald was.

Since his passing friends and former co-workers, as well as fans, have been sharing some of their favorite Norm Macdonald moments. One of those moments was particularly intriguing to me. Macdonald was asked about the kind of jokes that he found funny. 

In fact, Macdonald had told interviewers through the years that he was always in search of what he called the perfect joke. And, one night on Saturday Night Live during the weekend update he found and delivered that joke.

Macdonald was always a fan of jokes where the punchline mimicked the setup of the joke. So without further adieu, here is Norm Macdonald and the "Holy Grail" of Jokes.

The joke that Macdonald identified as the Holy Grail was the quip about Julia Roberts and Lyle Lovett's divorce. You can see if you watched the video that he used a similar set-up to lampoon Billy Joel and Christie Brinkley too.

And there you have it. the perfect joke delivered by a man with a great sense of timing and humor. It proves once and for all that comedy in its purest form is not mean and vicious but playful and observant. I think we all wondered what Julia Roberts saw in Lyle Lovett but none of us knew a funny way to say it until Norm Macdonald did.

Chances are if you remember Norm Macdonald on SNL then you might remember some of these changes that happened here in Lafayette over the past two decades or so.