More than other TV comedians, Norm MacDonald seems to delight in thumbing his nose at network bigwigs. Tonight it was CBS' turn, via David Letterman's Late Show. At least the audience had fun.

Many believe MacDonald was fired from Saturday Night Live's Weekend Update for constantly making jokes premised on his conclusion that OJ Simpson was guilty of the murders he had been cleared of at his initial trial. (Imagine that. Wacky!) Simpson was friends with an NBC entertainment executive.

When MacDonald returned to NBC for an appearance on one of Conan O'Brien's last Late Night episodes in February, he was scarcely more sparing, impersonating Jay Leno and saying the outgoing Tonight Show host, in moving to a 10 p.m. slot, had "outfoxed... red-headed-rube" O'Brien for prime placement in night-time variety shows. Then he dropped an f-bomb for good measure. (See video here.)

MacDonald stayed true to form on Late Show tonight, starting with a risque reference to euthanasia before making a clearly-out-of-bounds joke involving hard-core narcotics. To his credit, Letterman clearly enjoyed MacDonald's rule-breaking far more than O'Brien, even as he rushed to cover up the narcotics reference with something more palatable.

Then, as always, MacDonald dropped another f-bomb or three, for good measure.

Hopefully someone on cable will give MacDonald a show, because otherwise it may be quite a while before he's on the network airwaves again.