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Turd Ferguson: Here's how Burt Reynolds felt about Norm MacDonald's SNL impression
It's funny. It's a funny name.
Not a lot of writing exists about Burt Reynolds' self-effacing nature. He could take a joke, at least according to a 2016 interview with NYC's Downtown magazine. The character trait isn't exactly inconsistent with the rest of his persona, but it is an interesting (if underrepresented) fold in an otherwise well-documented life.
This is great news for the late, great comedian Norm MacDonald, who satirized the famous movie star in a series of sketches on Saturday Night Live. While the caricature wasn't nearly as caustic as MacDonald's news-based "Weekend Update" jokes, he also didn't paint Reynolds as a genius. Still, it was a loving portrayal.
"I wanted to do Burt Reynolds on SNL because I could do an impression of him, and I knew that if I did an impression of him it would get a laugh because he has such great comic timing and delivery," MacDonald told Paste Magazine.
"So it was really stealing his persona to get laughs, you know. But I could never figure out a way. This guy that I wrote with, Steve Higgins, who’s now the sidekick on Jimmy Fallon, me and Higgins came up with putting him on Celebrity Jeopardy because then we could [do impressions of] any celebrities."
So, did Reynolds view the parody as the loving tribute that Norm MacDonald intended?
"I really did," Burt told Downtown.
"If anybody can take the time and trouble and put in the effort to do something like that, you have to look at the fun side of it. I loved it. We even worked together on the TV show, he played my son on My Name Is Earl."
While Reynolds and MacDonald would have the chance to act together on Earl, it hardly changed MacDonald's perception of his childhood hero. To Norm, Burt Reynolds was still a monumental figure, even from up close.
"When I grew up as a little boy he would be on Carson," said MacDonald.
"Later when I knew him I told him he was so funny on Johnny Carson, and he said that actually hurt his career, because a movie star is supposed to have a mystique, you know, and be unknowable, or whatever. And he was the first guy to just go out and be self-deprecating and funny in that way."
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