Photo Illustration by Kelly Caminero / The Daily Beast / Getty / Max
Norm Macdonald is widely considered to be the greatest “Weekend Update” anchor of all time. But according to former Saturday Night Live writer Jim Downey, Macdonald almost lost that job to Bill Maher.
Downey, who started writing at SNL in the very first season in 1975 and became head writer in the mid-’80s, joined his old friend and SNL colleague Al Franken’s podcast over the weekend to tell their shared history of the iconic sketch show.
And while he was there, Downey surprised Franken by revealing more details than had previously been known about the search to replace Kevin Nealon at the “Update” desk in 1994.