“SNL” icon Jim Downey recalls O.J. Simpson calling every Sunday to complain about ‘Weekend Update’ jokes at his expense

Key Points

• Saturday Night Live writer Jim Downey reflected on his time on the show during a panel discussion at the Tribeca Film Festival on Saturday.

• According to Downey, O.J. Simpson would call the head of NBC over jokes Norm Macdonald made at his expense on “Weekend Update,” which Downey helped write.

• Downey and Macdonald were eventually fired from the show.

O.J. Simpson? The disgruntled Saturday Night Live target?

During a panel on Saturday for the world premiere of the documentary of Playing POTUS — about the art of presidential parody — legendary SNL writers Robert Smigel and Jim Downey were asked if any politicians ever complained to them about how they were portrayed on the sketch series.

The writers’ answer was not a president, but a “celebrated football player”: the late O.J. Simpson. Even after the NFL legend was acquitted of the murder of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown, and her friend Ron Goldman in 1995, Norm Macdonald often called him a murderer during “Weekend Update” segments, which were co-written by Downey.

“O.J. used to call up Don Ohlmeyer, who was the head of programming at the network, every Sunday after ‘Update,’ to do the, ‘What the hell, Don? I thought you ran this network,'” Downey said. “And that would get communicated back to [creator] Lorne [Michaels].”

Downey said that Simpson and his team never tried to talk to him directly because “they felt like that was a waste of their time,” and instead put “unrelenting pressure” on Michaels. Downey credited Michaels for supporting him and Macdonald, especially considering their “mean” style of comedy was a “little rough” for him.

“I remember him taking me aside, because he was clearly hearing it,” Downey recalled. “He said, ‘What makes you and Norm so certain that O.J. is guilty?’ And I just went, ‘Lorne, come f—ing on.’ And he said, ‘Okay. I think it might be hurting us with our African American audience.’ He didn’t tell me not do it, I think he just had to let me know that, ‘You have no idea what I have to go through.'”

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Simpson and Ohlmeyer eventually won out, with both Macdonald and Downey being fired from SNL in 1998, believed to be due to their refusal to ease up on the Simpson jokes. In 2021, Conan O’Brien revealed that Ohlymeyer also unsuccessfully tried to ban Macdonald from guesting on O’Brien’s Late Night.

“Don, being good friends with O.J., had just had enough,” Downey said in 2014. “That’s the thing I kind of liked about Don, actually: His friendship with O.J. was so old-school. It was so un-showbizzy. He ended up firing me, as well as Norm, but I can’t honestly say that a part of me doesn’t respect Don for his loyalty. Most people in show business would sell out anyone in their lives, for any reason at all, including for practice. Don was the opposite. He threw a party for the jurors after the 1995 acquittal. And he stuck with O.J. through it all.”

Downey was rehired in 2000 by Michaels, following Ohlmeyer’s retirement, and he went on to write for SNL for a total of 30 years. Michaels and many SNL stars have hailed him as the best writer they’ve ever worked with.

“I don’t know that Norm enjoyed the experience of the firing quite as much as I did, but to me it was exciting,” he said. “It was certainly the best press I ever received. We got tremendous support from people I really admire, some of whom are friends and some I didn’t really know that well, but who stepped up and called me. It was a fun time.”aid

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