Edward Regan "Eddie" Murphy is an American comedian, actor, writer, singer, and director. Box-office takes from Murphy's films make him the 4th-highest grossing actor in the United States
BGOL Black Man of the Day: Eddie Murphy - Actor, Singer & Comedic Genius
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Edward Regan "Eddie" Murphy is an American comedian, actor, writer, singer, and director. Box-office takes from Murphy's films make him the 4th-highest grossing actor in the United States
Eddie Murphy to receive the Kennedy Center's Mark Twain Prize for American Humor
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts will bestow comedian and actor Eddie Murphy with its 18th Annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor at a gala on Oct. 18, the center announced Thursday.
“We look forward to paying tribute to Eddie Murphy’s important and lasting impact on American culture,” said Kennedy Center President Deborah F. Rutter in a statement.
The award honors people who have had an impact on American society in a similar way to 19th-century novelist Mark Twain. “Through his appearances on Saturday Night Live, groundbreaking stand-up comedy, and work as a movie star, Eddie Murphy has shown that like Mark Twain, he was years ahead of his time,” Rutter said.
Murphy, who joined the cast of SNL at age 19 in 1980, has had a diverse and successful career that has consisted of multiple $100 million films, such as Beverly Hills Cop, Daddy Day Care, and the Shrek movies. He’s also a revered a stand-up comedian, having starred in specials Raw and Delirious, and releasing a self-titled comedy album in 1982. “I am deeply honored to receive this recognition from the Kennedy Center and to join the distinguished list of past recipients of this award,” Murphy said.
Past honorees include Whoopi Goldberg, Steve Martin, Will Ferrell, Ellen DeGeneres, and Jay Leno.
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts will bestow comedian and actor Eddie Murphy with its 18th Annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor at a gala on Oct. 18, the center announced Thursday.
“We look forward to paying tribute to Eddie Murphy’s important and lasting impact on American culture,” said Kennedy Center President Deborah F. Rutter in a statement.
The award honors people who have had an impact on American society in a similar way to 19th-century novelist Mark Twain. “Through his appearances on Saturday Night Live, groundbreaking stand-up comedy, and work as a movie star, Eddie Murphy has shown that like Mark Twain, he was years ahead of his time,” Rutter said.
Murphy, who joined the cast of SNL at age 19 in 1980, has had a diverse and successful career that has consisted of multiple $100 million films, such as Beverly Hills Cop, Daddy Day Care, and the Shrek movies. He’s also a revered a stand-up comedian, having starred in specials Raw and Delirious, and releasing a self-titled comedy album in 1982. “I am deeply honored to receive this recognition from the Kennedy Center and to join the distinguished list of past recipients of this award,” Murphy said.
Past honorees include Whoopi Goldberg, Steve Martin, Will Ferrell, Ellen DeGeneres, and Jay Leno.
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The first evolution of Eddie Murphy was as a young bold and brash stand up comedian and break out performer in the early 80s on Saturday Night Live. He quickly captured the imagination and hearts of a generation and rocketed to stardom. Murphy took his place among stand up comedian legends like Richard Pryor and Bill Cosby before he was thirty. Today's generation really may not fully understand just how big Eddie was in the 80s. Take Will Smith, Jay Z and Chris Rock's fame and star power at the absolute height of their popularity and put that into one person in 1985 and you now see what Eddie Murphy was dealing with back then. The leather suits and rock star swagger he embodied was something that was rarely seen in its full form in a black man in mainstream entertainment.
There weren't too many black celebrities who could pull it off in the way that Murphy did before the 80s. Not even Micheal Jackson had it quite the same way Murphy did at the time. Don't get me wrong, Off The Wall was big and Thriller was phenomenal but Jackson's swagger was more on the soft quiet side. Murphy once joked in Delirious:
"Sing ! 'cos all you got to do is sing. Michael Jackson, who can sing,
and is a good looking guy. But ain't the most masculine fellow in the world. That's Micheal's hook, his sensitivity ! That's when women be sayin: "Micheal's just so sensitive..."
Eddie Murphy was anything but "sensitive". He wielded his fame and popularity in much the same way Elvis and Mick Jagger did. And up to that point it was very rare to see a black celebrity do that. Most usually played the humble role like Nat King Cole or Sidney Poitier and even though Sammy Davis Jr. was a swinging cat back in the 50s who thumbed his nose at society by dating and marrying white women and cavorting with known Hollywood rabble rousers like Peter Lawford and Dean Martin, his celebrity was tied closely to Frank Sinatra, leader of the Rat Pack. Sinatra more or less had to cosign Sammy's boldness in a "it's okay, he's with me..." fashion. Richard Pryor was the precursor to what Murphy would become but he never quite made it to the mainstream leading man level that Murphy had. There was very briefly Jim Brown who definitely wasn't sensitive either, Brown was as bold, confident and masculine as they came back then but he never really attained leading man mainstream superstar status either. The only other person I can think of who flaunted his celebrity as brazenly as Murphy had would be early 20th century heavy weight boxing champ Jack Johnson.
Johnson was not only rich but dated and married white women and publicly flaunted his wealth at a time in American history when black men were being lynched at astounding rates in the south. The most flamboyant black entertainer today couldn't hold Johnson's jockstrap in comparison.
And you wouldn't see that kind of conspicuous display of arrogance and conceit by a black man in quite the same way again in mainstream entertainment until the 1980s. And like Johnson, it would all come down to one person pretty much holding it down for the whole group. Chris Rock made the observation that before Eddie there was a sidekick way of acting in the past that other black actors did that Murphy never subscribed to. Make no mistake, 48hrs and Trading Places were Nick Nolte and Dan Akroyd lead films. Eddie just shined brighter. His star quality was so big by that time that when the third film he worked on, Best Defense, tanked at the box office people were saying it was his first bomb when in actuality it was a Dudley Moore film. His first leading role was in his fourth movie, Beverly Hills Cop.
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He has a plethora of movies that I like but I could watch Coming to America any damn day of the week. That movie is fucking hilarious!
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Who’s Afraid of an Eddie Murphy Comeback?
By Dave Schilling
Dolemite Is My Name allows Eddie Murphy to reclaim a potent swagger that made him both inescapably magnetic and undeniably threatening. Photo: Netflix
In the new Netflix film Dolemite Is My Name, a dramatization of the real story behind a 1970s blaxploitation classic, Eddie Murphy’s Rudy Ray Moore is faced with the daunting task of performing a sex scene in front of the ragtag crew he’s assembled to bring a soon-to-be-cult movie to life. Moore is a paunchy, middle-aged, borderline sexless man who has nonetheless made a career out of boasting about his sexual prowess, posing nude with models on the covers of his raunchy comedy albums. But now, he’s being asked to illustrate that imagined prowess for the camera. Instead of playing the scene for titillation, Moore decides to lean into the joke. He rocks the bed violently, causing pictures to bounce up and down on the walls. A piece of the ceiling falls. Dolemite’s libidinous power is off the charts. He might not look like much, but under the right circumstances, he can make the Earth move.
Black masculinity in movies, especially comedies, was and remains a dicey subject. When the original Dolemite was released in 1975, only eight years had passed since Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner became the rare Hollywood movie to depict an interracial relationship. In that film, Sidney Poitier plays an eerily perfect example of an upper-class African-American man, nary a rough edge to be found. The image of John Prentice would go on to define black sexuality in pop culture for years after, and while the line from Poitier to Will Smith is not a clean one, an idea persisted: for a black actor in 20th century Hollywood, placidity was the key. Otherwise, you don’t get the girl. Outside of romantic dramas, many of the great black comedic film actors of the era were pulled into this cinematic paradigm. Richard Pryor was a massive star for years, but in movies like Brewster’s Millions, the white female co-lead was his cheery confidant rather than a lover. Before Bill Cosby was outed as a sexual predator, he appeared in movies like Leonard: Part 6 and Ghost Dad, where he was a doddering parental figure rather than a romantic lead.
In the pre–My Name is Dolemite career of Eddie Murphy, we see how hesitant Hollywood and audiences alike could be when it comes to black male sexuality on screen. You can count the number of sex scenes he’s performed on one hand — largely as the romantic lead in unpopular fare like Vampire in Brooklyn or Boomerang. Audiences never quite embraced his virility the way they fell for his wit, energy, and sexless charm in Beverly Hills Cop or Trading Places. The box-office grosses for Murphy’s romantic films paled in comparison to the mega-bucks successes of movies like 48 Hours. In Trading Places, it’s not Murphy but Dan Aykroyd who gets the girl at the end. In Beverly Hills Cop, Axel Foley is “just a friend,” eliminating any chance of him bedding the leading lady when the bad guys are all dead. Murphy’s biggest hits were R-rated films filled with provocative language, nudity, and violence, yet sex was less than an afterthought. Axel Foley could go to a strip club and crack wise around countless exposed breasts, but it was as if these things were happening behind glass.
The black movie stars that came after Murphy, now 58, had more success developing romantic personas. Namely, Will Smith, who could sublimate any threatening aspects of his persona to seduce Margot Robbie in Focus. Predominantly black romantic comedies like The Best Man began to spring up with more frequency. While all of this was happening, Murphy was either slathering himself in makeup for kids’ movies or struggling to keep up with Smith, now 51, in sci-fi comedies like The Adventures of Pluto Nash.
Murphy’s superpower was extreme confidence and unflappable wit. Smith has that, but he also possesses a remarkable capacity for vulnerability; he’s not especially tough or particularly menacing. Above all, he feels safe. In Coming to America, arguably Eddie’s most successful attempt at being a romantic hero, he has to play a naive fish-out-of-water to be credibly romantic to moviegoers. His inherent street smarts are negated by how alien his character is made to feel. The film was surely a triumphant moment in Murphy’s career, but the part was far from the flashy talker people fell in love with on SNL or in his stand-up concert films.
Part of what makes Dolemite Is My Name so revelatory is that it allows Murphy to play a character who was, unequivocally, sexual over four decades ago. It was, after all, the blaxploitation films of the 1970s that took Poitier’s portrayal of acceptable blackness and blew it all to hell. These movies were violent, crass, and explicit. They gave white audiences a glimpse of a different kind of hero. Dolemite, as with contemporaneous characters like Shaft, demanded a sexual gaze. But by the time Eddie Murphy became the most recognizable black face in late 1980s movies, mainstream acceptance of those transgressive stories had waned significantly. Movies reflected the new Reagan-era conservatism that gave us the non-threatening, buttoned-up Cosby Show.
Only in blaxploitation could black sexuality be truly unleashed. Of course, those blaxploitation characters usually had to be pimps or lotharios hopping from bed to bed. The original Dolemite film was about a falsely imprisoned pimp and nightclub owner coming back to reclaim his territory. His only real ally is another, female pimp named Queen Bee. Romance can be beside the point or blatantly irrelevant in blaxploitation; it’s sex as trade or sex as conquest, which plays into damaging stereotypes about black men that still persist. Nonetheless, in films like Dolemite and Superfly, there was something revolutionary — which Murphy brings to the fore. In a way, Murphy playing Rudy Ray Moore playing Dolemite presents an alternate universe version of the actor, who he might have been in an era when black sexuality was in vogue.
Because the role of Dolemite represents the antithesis of what Murphy did in Coming to America. (Murphy will be reprising both the roles of Akeem and Axel Foley in 2020’s Coming 2 America and the not-yet-dated Beverly Hills Cop 4, respectively.) Dolemite is brash, angry, clever, and unflappable, prepared to be the baddest, coolest person in any room. That’s who Eddie Murphy was in the 1980s, and that’s often what people expect from black men in America. It’s worth nothing that Moore himself was never married and didn’t have any children, which led to rumors that he might have been gay. If he was, it was a cruelly inhospitable time to live as an out gay man, particularly while portraying Dolemite. (Remember that comics like Murphy often used homophobic material to get cheap laughs in the ‘80s.) Black masculinity can be so retrograde, reactionary, and intolerant in part because of what we wrongfully deem to be our most redeeming qualities; our edge, our hipness, and our confidence is what some outsiders have decided gives us our worth. Part of the joke of the bed scene in Dolemite is that it dramatizes exactly what white audiences are afraid of, that black men are sexual dynamos that can make the ceiling collapse in your bedroom.
Dolemite Is My Name is Eddie Murphy reclaiming an aspect of himself that he seemed to have lost, that incredibly potent swagger that made him both inescapably magnetic and undeniably threatening. It’s what made him one of the greatest, if not the greatest, black movie stars. It was when he downplayed it or saw it as a hindrance that his influence faltered. Playing Rudy Ray Moore allows Murphy, for once, to wield black masculinity without fear, to make the earth move with his power.
By Dave Schilling
Dolemite Is My Name allows Eddie Murphy to reclaim a potent swagger that made him both inescapably magnetic and undeniably threatening. Photo: Netflix
In the new Netflix film Dolemite Is My Name, a dramatization of the real story behind a 1970s blaxploitation classic, Eddie Murphy’s Rudy Ray Moore is faced with the daunting task of performing a sex scene in front of the ragtag crew he’s assembled to bring a soon-to-be-cult movie to life. Moore is a paunchy, middle-aged, borderline sexless man who has nonetheless made a career out of boasting about his sexual prowess, posing nude with models on the covers of his raunchy comedy albums. But now, he’s being asked to illustrate that imagined prowess for the camera. Instead of playing the scene for titillation, Moore decides to lean into the joke. He rocks the bed violently, causing pictures to bounce up and down on the walls. A piece of the ceiling falls. Dolemite’s libidinous power is off the charts. He might not look like much, but under the right circumstances, he can make the Earth move.
Black masculinity in movies, especially comedies, was and remains a dicey subject. When the original Dolemite was released in 1975, only eight years had passed since Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner became the rare Hollywood movie to depict an interracial relationship. In that film, Sidney Poitier plays an eerily perfect example of an upper-class African-American man, nary a rough edge to be found. The image of John Prentice would go on to define black sexuality in pop culture for years after, and while the line from Poitier to Will Smith is not a clean one, an idea persisted: for a black actor in 20th century Hollywood, placidity was the key. Otherwise, you don’t get the girl. Outside of romantic dramas, many of the great black comedic film actors of the era were pulled into this cinematic paradigm. Richard Pryor was a massive star for years, but in movies like Brewster’s Millions, the white female co-lead was his cheery confidant rather than a lover. Before Bill Cosby was outed as a sexual predator, he appeared in movies like Leonard: Part 6 and Ghost Dad, where he was a doddering parental figure rather than a romantic lead.
In the pre–My Name is Dolemite career of Eddie Murphy, we see how hesitant Hollywood and audiences alike could be when it comes to black male sexuality on screen. You can count the number of sex scenes he’s performed on one hand — largely as the romantic lead in unpopular fare like Vampire in Brooklyn or Boomerang. Audiences never quite embraced his virility the way they fell for his wit, energy, and sexless charm in Beverly Hills Cop or Trading Places. The box-office grosses for Murphy’s romantic films paled in comparison to the mega-bucks successes of movies like 48 Hours. In Trading Places, it’s not Murphy but Dan Aykroyd who gets the girl at the end. In Beverly Hills Cop, Axel Foley is “just a friend,” eliminating any chance of him bedding the leading lady when the bad guys are all dead. Murphy’s biggest hits were R-rated films filled with provocative language, nudity, and violence, yet sex was less than an afterthought. Axel Foley could go to a strip club and crack wise around countless exposed breasts, but it was as if these things were happening behind glass.
The black movie stars that came after Murphy, now 58, had more success developing romantic personas. Namely, Will Smith, who could sublimate any threatening aspects of his persona to seduce Margot Robbie in Focus. Predominantly black romantic comedies like The Best Man began to spring up with more frequency. While all of this was happening, Murphy was either slathering himself in makeup for kids’ movies or struggling to keep up with Smith, now 51, in sci-fi comedies like The Adventures of Pluto Nash.
Murphy’s superpower was extreme confidence and unflappable wit. Smith has that, but he also possesses a remarkable capacity for vulnerability; he’s not especially tough or particularly menacing. Above all, he feels safe. In Coming to America, arguably Eddie’s most successful attempt at being a romantic hero, he has to play a naive fish-out-of-water to be credibly romantic to moviegoers. His inherent street smarts are negated by how alien his character is made to feel. The film was surely a triumphant moment in Murphy’s career, but the part was far from the flashy talker people fell in love with on SNL or in his stand-up concert films.
Part of what makes Dolemite Is My Name so revelatory is that it allows Murphy to play a character who was, unequivocally, sexual over four decades ago. It was, after all, the blaxploitation films of the 1970s that took Poitier’s portrayal of acceptable blackness and blew it all to hell. These movies were violent, crass, and explicit. They gave white audiences a glimpse of a different kind of hero. Dolemite, as with contemporaneous characters like Shaft, demanded a sexual gaze. But by the time Eddie Murphy became the most recognizable black face in late 1980s movies, mainstream acceptance of those transgressive stories had waned significantly. Movies reflected the new Reagan-era conservatism that gave us the non-threatening, buttoned-up Cosby Show.
Only in blaxploitation could black sexuality be truly unleashed. Of course, those blaxploitation characters usually had to be pimps or lotharios hopping from bed to bed. The original Dolemite film was about a falsely imprisoned pimp and nightclub owner coming back to reclaim his territory. His only real ally is another, female pimp named Queen Bee. Romance can be beside the point or blatantly irrelevant in blaxploitation; it’s sex as trade or sex as conquest, which plays into damaging stereotypes about black men that still persist. Nonetheless, in films like Dolemite and Superfly, there was something revolutionary — which Murphy brings to the fore. In a way, Murphy playing Rudy Ray Moore playing Dolemite presents an alternate universe version of the actor, who he might have been in an era when black sexuality was in vogue.
Because the role of Dolemite represents the antithesis of what Murphy did in Coming to America. (Murphy will be reprising both the roles of Akeem and Axel Foley in 2020’s Coming 2 America and the not-yet-dated Beverly Hills Cop 4, respectively.) Dolemite is brash, angry, clever, and unflappable, prepared to be the baddest, coolest person in any room. That’s who Eddie Murphy was in the 1980s, and that’s often what people expect from black men in America. It’s worth nothing that Moore himself was never married and didn’t have any children, which led to rumors that he might have been gay. If he was, it was a cruelly inhospitable time to live as an out gay man, particularly while portraying Dolemite. (Remember that comics like Murphy often used homophobic material to get cheap laughs in the ‘80s.) Black masculinity can be so retrograde, reactionary, and intolerant in part because of what we wrongfully deem to be our most redeeming qualities; our edge, our hipness, and our confidence is what some outsiders have decided gives us our worth. Part of the joke of the bed scene in Dolemite is that it dramatizes exactly what white audiences are afraid of, that black men are sexual dynamos that can make the ceiling collapse in your bedroom.
Dolemite Is My Name is Eddie Murphy reclaiming an aspect of himself that he seemed to have lost, that incredibly potent swagger that made him both inescapably magnetic and undeniably threatening. It’s what made him one of the greatest, if not the greatest, black movie stars. It was when he downplayed it or saw it as a hindrance that his influence faltered. Playing Rudy Ray Moore allows Murphy, for once, to wield black masculinity without fear, to make the earth move with his power.
6 of Eddie Murphy’s Most Iconic SNL Sketches
By Dave Schilling
It’s too hot in the hot tub! Photo: NBC
The news that Eddie Murphy is hosting an episode of Saturday Night Live this season and returning to stand-up has comedy fans of a certain age breathless with anticipation. By “a certain age,” I mean someone over 50. This is not a slight against Murphy or his level of celebrity. It’s just that a confluence of the passage of time, the circumstances of Murphy’s tenure on the show, and his hesitancy to return to host again has rendered his work on Saturday Night Live more obscure than it should be.
The era of SNL that Murphy lorded over was tumultuous at best. Dick Ebersol had taken over as the producer from Jean Doumanian, who had the unenviable task of trying to reboot the show after the departure of Lorne Michaels. The cast around Murphy was talented, but full of names that faded into obscurity or became famous for work outside Studio 8H. Robin Duke, Tony Rosato, and Gary Kroeger are names known to SNL obsessives and sketch-comedy completists. Julia Louis-Dreyfus came and went, then took off on Seinfeld. Tim Kazurinsky is a name you might recall as the actor who played “Sweetchuck” in Police Academy. Joe Piscopo is best known for being a resident of New Jersey.
In short, there’s a reason you haven’t seen much of Eddie Murphy’s work on Saturday Night Live. Besides the sketches Murphy was in, the show kind of stunk. He was so crucial, so powerful, and so undeniable on SNL that instead of padding the show with extra material in case the show ran short, Ebersol would just send Eddie out in front of the crowd to ad lib on live TV. He’s also the only cast member who’s ever hosted the show while being an active member of the cast, when he filled in for Nick Nolte in 1982.
In lieu of combing through the four Murphy-led seasons, we’ve compiled a list of some of his best sketches to prepare you for his triumphant return.
James Brown’s Celebrity Hot Tub Party
If there’s a joke to be had in “James Brown’s Celebrity Hot Tub Party,” it’s that there’s really no joke. Nothing much happens, save for Murphy’s only mildly committed James Brown impression. In a way, this was a direct progenitor of Kenan Thompson’s “What Up With That?” recurring sketch: a series of escalating musical absurdities in lieu of the talk-show premise you’ve been promised.
That said, there’s plenty of pyrotechnics to keep your attention. He dances, sings, and mugs for the camera, but what sticks with you is Murphy’s knowing smile. He gets that this is a completely ridiculous premise that goes nowhere, but he’s having fun anyway. His obvious joy at getting to play pretend R&B star is completely and utterly disarming. This is one of many SNL moments where Murphy carries a thin premise on star power alone. It’s not memorable because it’s clever. It’s memorable because it’s Eddie Murphy.
Buckwheat Dead: America Mourns
Photo: NBC
www.nbc.com
Today, SNL isn’t known for running jokes that carry from sketch to sketch. Each piece exists on an island, designed to be enjoyed by someone flopping on the couch after a night out or a person aimlessly rummaging through YouTube. Whether it was due to the change in producers or the fact that the show was in danger of losing its place in the pop-culture zeitgeist, the Eddie Murphy era of SNL took chances with the form. The death of Buckwheat was a runner that lasted through the March 19, 1983 episode and into the following week, taking the form of news bulletins hosted by Joe Piscopo as Nightline host Ted Koppel.
Ostensibly a parody of America’s fascination with celebrity and the macabre, Murphy’s immensely popular recurring character, an adult Buckwheat from The Little Rascals, is murdered. Eddie plays both Buckwheat and his assassin, John David Stutts, who is also murdered on the next episode. Both daring and hilariously dark, the Buckwheat saga is one of the rare sketches from this era that would fit comfortably next to anything from the first five years of SNL. (Watch it here.)
Mister Robinson’s Neighborhood
As the only African-American cast member on Saturday Night Live at the time, Murphy had both the burden and the opportunity to be the show’s standard-bearer for the entire culture. “Mister Robinson’s Neighborhood,” a parody of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, was likely one of the only windows many Americans had into a black world. The first appearance of Mr. Robinson was on the February 21, 1981 episode, which is infamous for being the episode where the late Charles Rocket said “fuck” on live TV and ensured he would be let go when Ebersol took over SNL from Doumanian.
Instead of teaching kids
about manners and kindness, Mr. Robinson schools his viewers on the harsh realities of getting by in the inner city — drug deals, theft, unpaid bills, and the ever-present threat of violence. Yes, this is comedy. Its ability to mine racial injustice for laughs makes Mr. Robinson (and “urban” movie reviewer character Raheem Abdul Muhammad) resemble a sketch from In Living Color more than anything you’d usually see on SNL.
The Gumby Story
Like Buckwheat, Murphy’s impression of beloved children’s character Gumby was both wildly popular and completely irritating. That could be said of many of SNL’s recurring characters from the past. They capture the public imagination and then ossify into dull catchphrase machines designed to sell T-shirts at Spencer’s Gifts. Murphy’s Gumby — the claymation hero reimagined as a salty New York showbiz castoff — was a sensation. In what’s perhaps the best Gumby sketch, Gumby directs his own biopic, smoothing out the edges of his life and presenting himself as a plucky romantic hero rather than a surly comedian perpetually chomping on a cigar. The “Gumby” sketches might not have been brilliant comedy, but they showed audiences that Murphy could disappear into a role, both with accents and impressions, but also in layers of makeup and costume trickery — a preview of things to come in his career.
Velvet Jones
Photo: NBC
www.nbc.com
I hate that I love Velvet Jones. It’s easy to look at this recurring character — a slow-witted pimp selling how-to books on becoming a sex worker — as an anachronistic, misogynistic bit of garbage that should be buried in the same desert where Atari left all those extra copies of the E.T. video game. And yet … I laugh every time he says, “Hi, I’m Velvet Jones.”
In the span of three months, Velvet Jones was on SNL four times. Eddie Murphy doing a funny voice and alluding to prostitution was good enough in 1981. And 1982, when the character was retired. And 1983, when he was brought back to sell a porno tape masquerading as an exercise video. Murphy was so famous that all you had to do was put a wig on him and you had a successful TV show. (Watch it here.)
White Like Me
Where sketches like “Velvet Jones” or “Gumby” are relatively toothless on the page, the very idea of this pre-taped short film from the December 15, 1984 episode remains incendiary. In a precursor to his work in whiteface in Coming to America, Murphy plays himself going undercover as a white person for a day. His whole life becomes different. He’s given newspapers for free, his bus commute turns into a party, and his boss treats him like an old country-club chum. From Dave Chappelle to the Wayans brothers, “White Like Me” influenced the way generations of comedians talk about the racial divide in America.
By Dave Schilling
It’s too hot in the hot tub! Photo: NBC
The news that Eddie Murphy is hosting an episode of Saturday Night Live this season and returning to stand-up has comedy fans of a certain age breathless with anticipation. By “a certain age,” I mean someone over 50. This is not a slight against Murphy or his level of celebrity. It’s just that a confluence of the passage of time, the circumstances of Murphy’s tenure on the show, and his hesitancy to return to host again has rendered his work on Saturday Night Live more obscure than it should be.
The era of SNL that Murphy lorded over was tumultuous at best. Dick Ebersol had taken over as the producer from Jean Doumanian, who had the unenviable task of trying to reboot the show after the departure of Lorne Michaels. The cast around Murphy was talented, but full of names that faded into obscurity or became famous for work outside Studio 8H. Robin Duke, Tony Rosato, and Gary Kroeger are names known to SNL obsessives and sketch-comedy completists. Julia Louis-Dreyfus came and went, then took off on Seinfeld. Tim Kazurinsky is a name you might recall as the actor who played “Sweetchuck” in Police Academy. Joe Piscopo is best known for being a resident of New Jersey.
In short, there’s a reason you haven’t seen much of Eddie Murphy’s work on Saturday Night Live. Besides the sketches Murphy was in, the show kind of stunk. He was so crucial, so powerful, and so undeniable on SNL that instead of padding the show with extra material in case the show ran short, Ebersol would just send Eddie out in front of the crowd to ad lib on live TV. He’s also the only cast member who’s ever hosted the show while being an active member of the cast, when he filled in for Nick Nolte in 1982.
In lieu of combing through the four Murphy-led seasons, we’ve compiled a list of some of his best sketches to prepare you for his triumphant return.
James Brown’s Celebrity Hot Tub Party
If there’s a joke to be had in “James Brown’s Celebrity Hot Tub Party,” it’s that there’s really no joke. Nothing much happens, save for Murphy’s only mildly committed James Brown impression. In a way, this was a direct progenitor of Kenan Thompson’s “What Up With That?” recurring sketch: a series of escalating musical absurdities in lieu of the talk-show premise you’ve been promised.
That said, there’s plenty of pyrotechnics to keep your attention. He dances, sings, and mugs for the camera, but what sticks with you is Murphy’s knowing smile. He gets that this is a completely ridiculous premise that goes nowhere, but he’s having fun anyway. His obvious joy at getting to play pretend R&B star is completely and utterly disarming. This is one of many SNL moments where Murphy carries a thin premise on star power alone. It’s not memorable because it’s clever. It’s memorable because it’s Eddie Murphy.
Buckwheat Dead: America Mourns
Photo: NBC
Watch Saturday Night Live Clip: John David Stutts - NBC.com
Watch Saturday Night Live highlight: John David Stutts - NBC.com
Today, SNL isn’t known for running jokes that carry from sketch to sketch. Each piece exists on an island, designed to be enjoyed by someone flopping on the couch after a night out or a person aimlessly rummaging through YouTube. Whether it was due to the change in producers or the fact that the show was in danger of losing its place in the pop-culture zeitgeist, the Eddie Murphy era of SNL took chances with the form. The death of Buckwheat was a runner that lasted through the March 19, 1983 episode and into the following week, taking the form of news bulletins hosted by Joe Piscopo as Nightline host Ted Koppel.
Ostensibly a parody of America’s fascination with celebrity and the macabre, Murphy’s immensely popular recurring character, an adult Buckwheat from The Little Rascals, is murdered. Eddie plays both Buckwheat and his assassin, John David Stutts, who is also murdered on the next episode. Both daring and hilariously dark, the Buckwheat saga is one of the rare sketches from this era that would fit comfortably next to anything from the first five years of SNL. (Watch it here.)
Mister Robinson’s Neighborhood
As the only African-American cast member on Saturday Night Live at the time, Murphy had both the burden and the opportunity to be the show’s standard-bearer for the entire culture. “Mister Robinson’s Neighborhood,” a parody of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, was likely one of the only windows many Americans had into a black world. The first appearance of Mr. Robinson was on the February 21, 1981 episode, which is infamous for being the episode where the late Charles Rocket said “fuck” on live TV and ensured he would be let go when Ebersol took over SNL from Doumanian.
Instead of teaching kids
about manners and kindness, Mr. Robinson schools his viewers on the harsh realities of getting by in the inner city — drug deals, theft, unpaid bills, and the ever-present threat of violence. Yes, this is comedy. Its ability to mine racial injustice for laughs makes Mr. Robinson (and “urban” movie reviewer character Raheem Abdul Muhammad) resemble a sketch from In Living Color more than anything you’d usually see on SNL.
The Gumby Story
Like Buckwheat, Murphy’s impression of beloved children’s character Gumby was both wildly popular and completely irritating. That could be said of many of SNL’s recurring characters from the past. They capture the public imagination and then ossify into dull catchphrase machines designed to sell T-shirts at Spencer’s Gifts. Murphy’s Gumby — the claymation hero reimagined as a salty New York showbiz castoff — was a sensation. In what’s perhaps the best Gumby sketch, Gumby directs his own biopic, smoothing out the edges of his life and presenting himself as a plucky romantic hero rather than a surly comedian perpetually chomping on a cigar. The “Gumby” sketches might not have been brilliant comedy, but they showed audiences that Murphy could disappear into a role, both with accents and impressions, but also in layers of makeup and costume trickery — a preview of things to come in his career.
Velvet Jones
Photo: NBC
Watch Saturday Night Live Clip: Velvet Jones: I Wanna Be a Ho - NBC.com
Watch Saturday Night Live highlight: Velvet Jones: I Wanna Be a Ho - NBC.com
I hate that I love Velvet Jones. It’s easy to look at this recurring character — a slow-witted pimp selling how-to books on becoming a sex worker — as an anachronistic, misogynistic bit of garbage that should be buried in the same desert where Atari left all those extra copies of the E.T. video game. And yet … I laugh every time he says, “Hi, I’m Velvet Jones.”
In the span of three months, Velvet Jones was on SNL four times. Eddie Murphy doing a funny voice and alluding to prostitution was good enough in 1981. And 1982, when the character was retired. And 1983, when he was brought back to sell a porno tape masquerading as an exercise video. Murphy was so famous that all you had to do was put a wig on him and you had a successful TV show. (Watch it here.)
White Like Me
Where sketches like “Velvet Jones” or “Gumby” are relatively toothless on the page, the very idea of this pre-taped short film from the December 15, 1984 episode remains incendiary. In a precursor to his work in whiteface in Coming to America, Murphy plays himself going undercover as a white person for a day. His whole life becomes different. He’s given newspapers for free, his bus commute turns into a party, and his boss treats him like an old country-club chum. From Dave Chappelle to the Wayans brothers, “White Like Me” influenced the way generations of comedians talk about the racial divide in America.
Let’s be honest, nothing will beat Eddie Murphy casually revealing to Jerry Seinfeld on Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee that Sammy Davis Jr. (allegedly!) told him he worshiped the devil, but his entire career’s worth of incredible Hollywood anecdotes all deserve their time in the spotlight. While a guest on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon Friday night, ahead of his return to Saturday Night Live tomorrow, the actor and comedian graciously played a round of “How Did This All Happen to One Person?!,” confirming or denying a host of Eddie Murphy “folklore.”
So, are you a big enough Eddie Murphy fan to know what Prince’s roller skates look like? Or what scene in 48 Hours led to his friendship with Marlon Brando? Or why in God’s name Eddie Murphy turned down the role of Eddie Valiant (eventually played by the illimitable Bob Hoskins) in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? If you didn’t know these answers already, congratulations, and enjoy this brand new (to you!) Eddie Murphy trivia.
Vanity Fair’s Hollywood Issue 2020: Eddie Murphy, Renée Zellweger, Jennifer Lopez, Laura Dern, Antonio Banderas, and Many More
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Eddie Murphy tells his side of Prince basketball game immortalized on 'Chappelle's Show'
Game, Blouses! Watch Eddie Murphy recall the famous Prince basketball game as told by his brother Charlie on 'Chappelle's Show.'
Eddie Murphy has met plenty of icons over his long career, but no interaction is more famous than his unexpected pickup basketball loss against Prince and "the Blouses."
During season 2 of Chappelle's Show, Murphy's older brother Charlie, who passed away in 2017, delivered one of the sketch series' most memorable segments with "Charlie Murphy's True Hollywood Stories," in which he recalled a 1985 night out that started at the club and ended at Prince's house with a game of basketball and pancakes. Appearing on Thursday's Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, Eddie confirmed the hilarious tale.
"That is totally and absolutely accurate," he told Fallon of the sketch, before describing Prince's very Prince and very non-basketball attire for the showdown. "My brother was like, 'Okay, it's going to be shirts against blouses.' [Laughs] The blouses won, they beat the s--- out of us. We had one dude on our squad Larry who could play and he didn't have no shoes so Prince gave him some sneakers. And Prince wore like two, three sizes smaller than Larry, but Larry was so excited to have Prince's sneakers on, he put those tiny sneakers on his feet and he couldn't do his game right. So we lost. The one dude who could play, Prince's shoes had him shutdown."