Wednesday evening, former Saturday Night Live cast member Norm Macdonald took to Twitter to discuss his time last week preparing for the SNL 40 anniversary special. The majority of his story involves the process he went through with writers Steve Higgins and Lori Jo Hoekstra in writing the “Celebrity Jeopardy!” sketch that aired during the show.
Macdonald revealed that Higgins had the idea to have Eddie Murphy appear as Bill Cosby during the Video Daily Double question.
When he speaks, he is Cosby. Eddie Murphy doing a perfect Cosby impression. The audience does not let him finish. The sketch ends.
— Norm Macdonald (@normmacdonald) February 19, 2015
The problem was that no one thought Murphy would want to do the sketch, so they contacted director Brett Ratner — who was apparently the middle man with Murphy and SNL.
So, the talks were underway. “Brett says Eddie doesn’t feel comfortable”, “Eddie says ‘maybe it’s ok since he’s doing pre-allegation Cosby” — Norm Macdonald (@normmacdonald) February 19, 2015
By Saturday, the writers still did not know if Murphy would play Cosby during the sketch. After he arrived to the set on Saturday evening, they found out what many already suspected, Murphy would not be playing Cosby during “Celebrity Jeopardy!”
Eddie decides the laughs are not worth it. He will not kick a man when he is down.
— Norm Macdonald (@normmacdonald) February 19, 2015
Eddie Murphy, I realize, is not like the rest of us. Eddie does not need the laughs. — Norm Macdonald (@normmacdonald) February 19, 2015
The part of Cosby was ultimately played by Kenan Thompson. Here is the full sketch from SNL 40:
Macdonald also took a swipe at Rob Sheffield, the Rolling Stone writer who ranked Macdonald 135 out of 141 SNL cast members:
He doesn’t deserve to be named and his book was sentimental nonsense meant to look like something Dave Eggers would write.
— Norm Macdonald (@normmacdonald) February 19, 2015
Head to Macdonald’s Twitter feed for the full account of his week working on SNL 40.
