He knew the laughs would bring the house down. Eddie Murphy knows what will work on SNL better than any one. Eddie decides the laughs are not worth it. He will not kick a man when he is down. Eddie Murphy, I realize, is not like the rest of us. Eddie does not need the laughs. Eddie Murphy is the coolest, a rockstar even in a room with actual rockstars.
Wednesday, February 18, 2015
LETITSNOW: Norm MacDonald just tweeted a hell of a reminiscence about SNL40, including the fact that Eddie Murphy was originally approached to portray Bill Cosby in the Celebrity Jeopardy skit, which would have killed beyond all comprehension. But:
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
This was riveting stuff. The behind the scenes dish? Dayenu. The deep dive into/deconstruction of Celebrity Jeopardy was absolutely fascinating.
ReplyDeleteI loved the whole thing, but did find the Murphy kicker to not be inspiring, but deflating. The takeaway from me was really that Murphy thinks he is too cool to play. And that makes me sad. Also, maybe I'm just the world's worst cynic, but I found some of the tidbits suspect - I like Myers just fine and thought the Wayne's World sketch was great, but the notion of him as never settling for an easy gag and always digging deeper . . . does not resonate with some of his output. I found myself wondering if McDonald was putting forth some bone-dry sarcasm there.
ReplyDeleteupon further reflection, murphy was right not to play cosby - the audience would have overreacted to murphy's presence and that would have killed the timing.
ReplyDeleteAssuming Norm's account is accurate...Eddie was maybe right to not do Cosby. I don't think you can exactly LOSE not doing Cosby. Not because of not kicking a man when he's down--that doesn't apply in this case. But it's an easy laugh. I can imagine being disappointed if that had been the only way Eddie had chosen to make us laugh. But also, I don't think it would have been more disappointing than his choice NOT to try to make us laugh at all.
ReplyDeleteI did think the Wayne's World sketch was surprisingly tight. The whole thing was surprisingly entertaining. But Murray, Curtin, Rock, Myers, and Carvey (specifically in character as Garth--not so much elsewhere) were the only 20+ year veterans that showed they'd retained much comic timing at all.
Well, Lovitz did just fine with the role he was assigned. And I'd include Martin Short in that group as well.
ReplyDelete"He will not kick a man when he is down."
ReplyDeleteThen why did he follow Pluto Nash with Daddy Day Care, the Haunted Mansion, Norbit and Meet Dave?
"Eddie does not need the laughs."
Oh.