SALON: Norm Macdonald has a show. But when hasn’t he? That’s the problem.

Macdonald hasn’t been in our faces, per se. Sure, he’s enjoyed a recent stint as one of the rotating Colonel Sanders on those KFC commercials, worked as a golf commentator, and we can occasionally catch his “Weekend Update” segments when they pop up on repeats of classic “Saturday Night Live” episodes. He’s also the voice of Pigeon on “Mike Tyson Mysteries.” He’s managed to stick around, but not in an overt way.

But what I’m saying is, the world has always been ruled by some version of Norm Macdonald. That’s why so many people love him.

Ladies, you know what I’m talking about. Chances are some jovial galumph that resembles Macdonald has been a part of your life at some point. You may have met him at college. He could be a work colleague. He’s that guy who holds the door open for you and buys you lunch sometimes and apologizes for his good pal Bill when Bill drunkenly pinches your boob at after-work gatherings.

Because he knows Bill, see? He can vouch for Bill, who didn’t mean anything by it. Bill’s just joking around, old school. It’s not worth making a scene by pressing assault charges against Bill. Don’t get so worked up!

Maybe your Macdonald has been known to drop a joke that diminishes people in a punchline — he’s one-sixteenth Irish, he can do that! — but is otherwise OK to be around and anyway, he’s from the Great White North where nobody means to be offensive.

This fictionalized Macdonald sounds like a well-meaning, imperfect guy with a good sense of humor — and we can’t have that.

No worries, however. It won’t be long before the last laugh has been wrung out of comedy.