The Inescapability of O.J.
Yes, that O.J.
O.J. Simpson may seem like a random topic, but in the nearly 30 years since his murder trial, this character has stayed firmly ensconced in the public imagination, more so than even most high-profile defendants. The officially unsolved murders of Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman will be exactly 30 years ago come June 12, so in a sense I’m just getting out ahead of all those inevitable retrospective pieces—and there actually is a good amount to retrospect about.
Of course, you may recall that in my introductory post, I made a big deal about avoiding political and politically “adjacent” topics. I admitted at the time that my interest in history was pretty darn close to politics-adjacent, but as anyone who’s followed Dave Chappelle’s recent career knows, sometimes standup comedy also gets pretty close, too.
The reason I missed that initially is apparent from the three comedians I listed as my favorites. Two of them, Mitch Hedberg and John Pinette, never touched politics in their acts. The third one?
Norm Macdonald
Norm Macdonald definitely touched politics, but for the most part that was limited to “Weekend Update” on Saturday Night Live, which is a very reasonable place for political humor. Bill Clinton was president at time, so Norm did a lot of Bill and Hillary jokes on SNL.
That extended to one crazy time on The View. We can see, or at least guess, that Norm is trolling, but it’s quite funny watching Barbara Walters, Joy Behar, and Co. struggle to control the interview. But, as Conan O’Brien and David Letterman knew, controlling Norm Macdonald was pretty much an impossible task for any TV host.
Macdonald was less political in his actual standup (even if he did title one of his specials “Hitler’s Dog”), but Norm really did push the norms of comedy.
And, of course, his infamous handling of O.J.’s trial is possibly the most obvious and famous example of that push. As you have probably guessed, I am not willing to risk ramifications. Norm was willing to get fired over it. And did.
But he got the last laugh, as always. The executive who fired him, Don Ohlmeyer (whose son I worked with very briefly), now has that decision called out in the very first paragraph of his Wikipedia page.
Chuck Klosterman
It used to be you were afraid of the first paragraph of your obituary. One of my favorite video introductions ever was from author Chuck Klosterman’s segment on O.J. in a 2010 NFL Films production, which ranked Simpson the 40th best NFL player in history. Obviously, the NFL had to find a way to segue into Simpson’s football career and Klosterman, who at first seems to be kind of a random person ask do such a thing, ends up being perfect for the task of covering the… you know… without directly mentioning it:
If you start a conversation about O.J. Simpson and you begin by talking about what a great tailback he was, initially people are confused… and then they get mad!”
Klosterman ends his introduction by mentioning Simpson’s obit to make the point about what happens to our reputation when one bad thing overshadows all the good: “Football player now is mentioned in the first paragraph, but they don’t talk about USC or the Bills until paragraph five.”1
It’s the same effect as with Ohlmeyer, not that firing Norm Macdonald—which, for the record, only made paragraph 12 in Ohlmeyer’s New York Times obituary—is the moral equivalent to deciding to “kill your wife and a waiter.” Yes, that’s the seemingly flippant way in which Norm himself described the Brown/Goldman murders at the 1998 Espy Awards, in front of an audience that included Senator Bill Bradley and a quite upset Ken Griffey, Jr. Once again, Macdonald’s manic energy strikes.
If nothing else, Norm was always dedicated to the bit, that November 2000 appearance on The View being another example. He told the story later that he was even disinvited from an after-party because he’d upset Griffey so much at the 1998 awards show.
Nowadays, the point is, you’re at least equally afraid of what the first paragraph of your Wikipedia page might say than your obituary. Unlike most obituaries, you might actually be alive to see your Wikipedia entry published. It’s the worst. I imagine.
Me and You
Anyway, I don’t have a Wikipedia page, but I’m at a perfect age for the O.J. trial to have had a memorable, yet simultaneously trivial, effect on me: The news broke into my after-school cartoons to report about it. Probably The Animaniacs—I’d have guessed Histeria!, but apparently that didn’t start until 1998.
Of course, I am aware now of all the implications that the Trial of the Century held, including, yes, for race relations in America. It’s kind of interesting that Norm, who must also have known, didn’t care. If he thought the guy was guilty, he was guilty.
If you’re older than me, you quite likely also understand all the layers to the trial.2 If you’re younger than me, you might not remember your cartoons being interrupted, and if you’re a certain amount of younger than me, you weren’t born yet.
So which category are you in? My posts won’t get political, but you in the comments sure can! (I just won’t participate myself in those either.)
And Everyone Else
O.J. became so notorious that people would soon come to understand references to his lawyers. An entire Seinfeld character was built around a parody of Johnnie Cochrane and made his debut just two days after the trial ended.3
And don’t forget, this is a show that brought in 76 million viewers for its finale in 1998.
But on no show was O.J. himself more inescapable than Saturday Night Live. Ohlmeyer could try and put the kibosh on it, but he left SNL in 1999, pretty quickly after forcing Norm out. In 2008, when Simpson’s Nevada robbery case was going to trial, the SNL writers couldn’t help but notice the unlikelihood of finding truly unbiased jurors.
And finally in this section we come back to Dave Chappelle. If you’ve forgotten in the past couple years what a great storyteller he is, this set of four clips from 2018 should remind you.
Whether O.J. Simpson was winning the Heisman Trophy in 1968, traded from Buffalo to San Francisco in 1978, or appearing in The Naked Gun in 1988, and whether you were watching Seinfeld in 1998, SNL in 2008, or Netflix in 2018: You just can’t escape this guy.4 What could be coming in 2028?5
And no, I haven’t forgotten about American Crime Story. It’s not just that funny.
Today’s Takeaways
The line between tragedy and comedy is thin in ways that aren’t necessarily obvious. Some of Norm’s best SNL material happened thanks to the Simpson trial, to the point where he almost made it too easy to forget that the actual premature deaths of two innocent people were involved.
Perhaps that’s why it worked so well. One of the not-so-secrets of comedy is that premises for bits often stretch the truth. But Norm didn’t have to create absurdities for the O.J. jokes. They were already there.
And by the way, O.J. has to rank among the top three most famous American football players of all time, right? I suppose Travis Kelce surpasses him as long as he’s dating Taylor Swift. The point is, they are people even non-football fans have heard of—albeit for two completely different reasons.6
Jury selection can be a pain in the ass.
Grid Of The Week
Immaculate Grid is a Sports Reference game involving a 3x3 grid. The objective is to name nine unique players in the history of a sport, one fitting each square of the grid, in just nine guesses. It is available in 6 sports.
The January 21, 2024 football edition had a Buffalo Bills–San Francisco 49ers intersection, which if you’ve gotten this far you have no excuse to get wrong!
Your Turn
What do you remember about the murder trial? Do you have a favorite Norm Macdonald Weekend Update joke about it? Do you still think the case is relevant today? Feel free to comment!
Another funny thing, for me at least, about the video is that O.J. looks kind of old in his highlights. It’s a pretty simple reason, I would think: Most athletes receive maximum exposure in their 20s and 30s, so we remember them that way, but that’s not the case with Simpson. He was 47 when he stood trial and, to me, it actually makes him look older retroactively.
Acquittal was announced October 3, 1995, and “The Maestro” aired on October 5.
Insert Norm-esque joke here about who else, specifically, couldn’t escape O.J.
Setting up another Norm punchline.
Although, wouldn’t you know it, another cross-reference towards the end of this sketch.
I was an 8 year old boy when the murders happened. I vividly remember watching the NBA Finals and they had a live feed of the white Bronco in the corner of the screen. I had no clue who OJ was or why are people cared so much about him. It wasn’t until many years later that I fully understood the context and cultural significance of everything OJ.
But he is indeed inescapable. A heinous human obviously but a fascinating case study in the allure of certain famous people in the collective psyche of a culture. I’ve personally used the phrase “If the glove don’t fit you must acquit” several dozen times just because it puts a grin on my face.
Norm MacDonald was a comedic genius and his bravery in bluntly mocking the most sensitive topics (ok mostly just OJ) is something I wish more comedians would emulate.