Eddie Murphy

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“I’m Very, Very Beautiful”

March 2, 2014 in Videos | Permalink

Great Little Richard performance and interview on a 1970 Dick Cavett program.

If Eddie Murphy had ever played the often-androgynous music sensation in a drama as was rumored at times and not just in the SNL “Little Richard Simmons” mash-up, it would have likely been an incredible performance. Based on comments Murphy made back in the day, he was uncomfortable with the role because of the self-proclaimed Bronze Liberace’s homosexuality, though in retrospect it seems Murphy’s discomfort was largely with himself.

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“Murray Acts As A Kind Of Father Figure To The Saturday Night Live Alumni”

February 13, 2014 in Excerpts, Film | Permalink

Bill Murray’s interview with Charlie Rose a couple days ago was a nice complement to his recent Ask Me Anything. I thought the most interesting part was when he explained to the host how he caught “Oscar fever” at the time of Lost in Translation. Murray, of all people, being disappointed in not winning an Oscar was a disappointment in itself, so it’s great he has more perspective now.

The opening of “The Rumpled Anarchy of Bill Murray,” a 1988 New York Times Magazine article by Timothy White, which misunderstood the comic’s cerebral nature for a Zen-like one, and opens with the first-ever reunion of SNL alumni:

“AS HOLLYWOOD parties go, the one in full swing this past spring in a handsome, Georgian Revival home off Sunset Boulevard was an anomaly.

No agents circulated, no studio executives haunted the hallways. The food was lasagna and fried chicken; the beverages, Mexican beer and bottled seltzer – with the seltzer proving the more popular. Instead of dizzying references to ‘gross points,’ ‘back-end deals,’ scripts ‘in turnaround’ and multimillion-dollar movie deals, the talk concerned the fortunes of Chicago sports teams and New York rock bands, and the only ‘creative products’ under scrutiny were baby pictures.

If any aspect of ‘the industry’ was being bantered about, it was the return to the employment ranks of the party’s co-host, Bill Murray, who had, earlier that day, finished filming for Scrooged – an outlandish adaptation of the Dickens Christmas classic that will be released on Wednesday. Coincidentally, three other film comedies featuring other former Saturday Night Live regulars were then nearing completion: Coming to America, starring Eddie Murphy; Caddyshack II, starring Chevy Chase, and My Stepmother Is an Alien, starring Dan Aykroyd. To celebrate this serendipitous event, Murray and Peter Aykroyd, an actor-composer who is Dan’s younger brother, had decided on this first-time-ever gathering of Saturday Night Live alumni.

A picture of genial abandon in rumpled khakis, football jersey and sneakers, Murray was urging Dan Aykroyd, Laraine Newman and Chevy Chase to drop their ‘reserves of cool’ on the dance floor and ‘get down!’ Murray’s warmth is disarming. Chase, for instance, once considered Murray a rival, and the feeling was mutual. Murray was hired at Saturday Night Live in January 1977, just five weeks after Chase left for a movie career. The pressure Murray felt in trying to supplant his predecessor flared into backstage fisticuffs when Chase returned as a guest host for the third season of Saturday Night Live. Now, the two are thoroughly at ease with each other. Even Eddie Murphy, a Saturday Night Live latecomer whose box-office magnetism eclipses that of most of his associates, is meek in Murray’s presence.

Bill Murray is considered by his colleagues to be a man who has made peace with any private demons he might have had, someone who has brought his personal life and his career into enviable concord. Slightly disheveled and projecting what Richard Donner, the director of Scrooged, calls ‘a woolly Zen wisdom,’ Murray acts as a kind of father figure to the Saturday Night Live alumni.”

 

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“I Thought You Were Going To Say That There Were Various Parts Of The Country Where They Enjoy Hearing Someone Say That On Television”

May 22, 2012 in Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

Dick Cavett and Eddie Murphy discussing the use of the N-word in Huckleberry Finn, both freely saying the whole word repeatedly. I would assume this is the Cavett show iteration that aired on USA cable in 1985-86, but it looks as if it could have been shot in his garage in front of hobos. Lousy audio but worth it.

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Bill Simmons’ Funniest Person Alive List

July 24, 2010 in Excerpts | Permalink

Dane Cook: I didn't make the list, did I? (Image by Lindsey8417.)

I just read Bill Simmons’ latest Mailbag on ESPN, and he veers off into one of his patented brilliant-idiot tangents about comedy. The sports and pop culture enthusiast offers up a year-by-year list, starting in 1975, of the Funniest Person Alive. The caveat is that he only gives the title to comics who have broken through to the mainstream rather than cult favorites (e.g. Bill Hicks, Mitch Hedberg, etc.). You can have a look at the whole list here (scroll down a little more than halfway in the column to find it). An excerpt of 1975-1985:

“1975: Richard Pryor

Best stand-up comedian alive (and the most respected). Also crushed his only SNL hosting gig ever with its first legitimately great show and water cooler sketch.

1976: Chevy Chase

SNL‘s first breakout star as it became a national phenomenon. He also made the worst move in Funniest Guy history by leaving the show as he was wrapping up his Funniest Guy season. Even The Decision was a better idea.

1977-78: John Belushi

Replaced Chase as SNL‘s meal ticket in ’77, then had the single best year in Funny Guy History a year later: starred on SNL (in its biggest year ever, when audiences climbed to more than 30 million per episode); starred in Animal House (the No. 1 comedy of 1978 and a first-ballot Hall of Famer); had the No. 1 album (the Blues Brothers’ first album). No. 1 in TV, movies and music at the same time? I’m almost positive this will never happen again. And also, if you put all the funniest people ever at the funniest points of their lives in one room, I think he’d be the alpha dog thanks to force of personality. So there’s that.

1979: Robin Williams, Steve Martin (tie)

Mork and Mindy plus a big stand-up career for Williams; The Jerk plus a best-selling comedy album plus ‘official best SNL host ever’ status for Martin.

Rodney Dangerfield: If you give me respect, that ruins my act, genius. (Image by Jim Accordino.)

1980: Rodney Dangerfield

His breakout year with Caddyshack, killer stand-up, killer Carson appearances, a Grammy-winning comedy album, even a Rolling Stone cover. Our oldest winner.

1981: Bill Murray

Carried Stripes one year after Caddyshack. Tough year for comedy with cocaine was ruining nearly everybody at this point.

1982-84: Eddie Murphy

The best three-year run anyone has had. Like Bird’s three straight MVPs. And by the way, Beverly Hills Cop is still the No. 1 comedy of all time if you use adjusted gross numbers.

(Random note: Sam Kinison’s 1984 spot on Dangerfield’s Young Comedians special has to be commemorated in some way. At the time, it was the funniest six minutes that had ever happened, and it could have single-handedly won him the title in almost any other year. It’s also the hardest I have ever laughed without drugs being involved. Sadly, I can’t link to it because of the language and because it crosses about 35 lines of decency. But it’s easily found, if you catch my drift.)

1985-86: David Letterman

Went from ‘cult hero’ to ‘established mainstream star,’ ushered in the Ironic Comedy Era, pushed the comedy envelope as far as it could go, and if you want to dig deeper, supplanted Carson as the den father for that generation of up-and-comers and new superstars (Murphy, Leno, Seinfeld, Michael Keaton, Tom Hanks, Howard Stern, etc.) … and, on a personal note, had a bigger influence on me than anyone other than my parents. One of two people I could never meet because I would crumble like a crumb cake. (You can guess the other.)”

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