O.J. Simpson in his TV pitchman days

As so much of the news coverage this week indicates, former football star and acquitted murder suspect O.J. Simpson died Wednesday of cancer. Simpson was preceded in death by comedian Norm MacDonald, who also died of cancer, in 2021. However, the connection between Simpson and MacDonald is much stronger than just their both having had cancer.

MacDonald was “Weekend Update” anchor on NBC‘s Saturday Night Live (SNL) from 1994-1998, coinciding with the period in which Simpson was on trial for murdering his ex-wife, Nicole Brown, and her friend Ron Goldman. Taking advantage of the the unprecedented news coverage of the Simpson trial, MacDonald made a cottage industry out of mocking what he believed was the very guilty Simpson. MacDonald’s many hard-hitting jokes about Simpson’s guilt have been collected on YouTube and can be found here and here. Perhaps MacDonald’s most infamous O.J. joke on SNL came after the jury acquitted Simpson of murder in 1995. MacDonald said: “Well, it is finally official: murder is legal in the state of California.” Eventually, this relentless mockery of Simpson led to Norm being fired, reportedly because NBC West Coast division President Don Ohlmeyer was a close friend of Simpson and could no longer stand to see his buddy kicked around on TV by MacDonald. As the previous link indicates, Rolling Stone magazine dubbed NBC’s MacDonald firing number four on its list of “The 50 Worst Decisions in TV History.”