I Miss Eddie Murphy

In my last post (Saturday Night Live Shows Its Age), I mentioned, almost in passing, Eddie Murphy's disappointing cameo in SNL's 40th anniversary episode. Since then, many other people have made similar complaints about Murphy's apparent decision to appear but not perform on the SNL special, and a popular question everyone's posing to each other is "Eddie Murphy: unwilling or unable?"

I'll address that question in a moment, but first, it's important to acknowledge that between my most recent post and this one, Norm MacDonald has taken to Twitter to partially explain Murphy's lack of more active involvement with the anniversary special. MacDonald revealed that he was the producer and writer of the "Celebrity Jeopardy" sketch (which was, by far, the funniest segment of the entire production) and that he had approached Murphy to play the role of Bill Cosby, who appears briefly in the segment, ultimately played by current SNL cast member Kenan Thompson.

MacDonald went on to explain that Murphy had gone back and forth about whether to do the Cosby cameo, and ultimately decided against it, because he couldn't bring himself to "kick a man when he's down." MacDonald, though no stranger to sarcasm, seems to be sincere when he asserts that he views the reasons behind Murphy's decision as classy. Regardless of where you stand on the current Bill Cosby scandal, there is surely also a very personal aspect to Murphy's decision: Despite the stylistic differences between Cosby and Murphy -- Murphy even poked fun at this in some of his own stand-up material back in the day -- Murphy has never been shy in telling people that Cosby was one of his idols.

Okay, so now we know that Murphy was supposed to play Cosby, and we know his reasons for turning it down. But that still doesn't answer the original question: Why wasn't his involvement anything more than a few "thank you"s? No jokes, no sketches, no anecdotes about his glory days at SNL, nothing. One thing's for certain: Lorne Michaels and the other decision makers, who have been trying to get Murphy to return to SNL for 35 years, surely would have allowed him to do more if he had wanted to. And so we ask again, Eddie Murphy: unwilling or unable?

The idea that a man once commonly described as "fearless," a man who started his showbiz career as a stand-up comedian and then rose to fame by doing a live national TV show, has developed stagefright, seems, at first, to be a ludicrous idea. But he hasn't done stand-up in decades, and when he was supposed to return to the format as the host of the Oscars a couple of years back, he did back out at the last minute. Same as he did with SNL's 40th. Methinks I spy a pattern developing.

Back when he was an SNL cast member (then, as now, the cast did much of their own writing) he was nothing short of brilliant. Thirty-five years later, and people still talk about it, they still quote his SNL characters. Then he and the other big-name SNL star at the time -- Joe Piscopo -- both left to conquer Hollywood. Piscopo quickly faded into obscurity as a result, but Murphy became the biggest money-maker for Paramount Pictures in the entire history of the studio's existence.  Not only that, but most of those movies weren't just mind-numbing heaps of stupidity that still somehow managed to earn tons of money; on the contrary, most of those movies were actually good, and still stand up today.

So what happened? Don't get me wrong. Eddie Murphy can still be funny. But he's no longer event funny, no longer exciting funny. Some of his movies fail, some succeed, but people generally don't flock to the theaters to see an Eddie Murphy picture anymore. His struggle to become mainstream succeeded all too well, at the expense of being cutting edge. It's not entirely his fault, that's just what happens sometimes with exposure. But still. SNL 40 was a prime opportunity for him to shine, and there's no argument that all the anticipation, all the build-up, to his return was sorely, grievously, enormously disappointing. If he had done a sketch or stand-up routine that proved to be unfunny, that might have been sad in a way, but it still would have been welcome to have him back. But he didn't even try. Eddie Murphy: unwilling or unable?

Saturday Night Live Shows its Age

There is something seriously wrong when you collect dozens of the most talented and accomplished actors, comedians, and musicians for one televised presentation, and the highlight of the evening is somehow Miley Cyrus. And yet, somehow, that's exactly what happened when Saturday Night Live delivered an all-night, star-studded celebration of being at the forefront of American popular culture.

Cyrus, lately known far more for cheap publicity tricks and flaunting her sexuality than for exhibiting any real talent, turned a 180 and reminded us that she does still have talent after all, with a confident, fun, and vocally skilled performance of Paul Simon's "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover," a performance that balanced respect for the original recording (a rarity in cover performances these days) with putting a new stamp on the song.

Contrast that with Simon's own performance of the thematically apt "Still Crazy After All These Years." While it was initially a pleasure to see Simon just for nostalgia's sake, he looked old and tired, and more to the point, his voice was old and tired, resulting in a lackluster performance that the younger Simon would have cringed at. Ditto for Paul McCartney's equally vocally tired performance of "Maybe I'm Amazed," which was at least redeemed by his still-rockin' keyboards, and the note-perfect, excellent performance of his lead guitarist. Please note that I have nothing but respect for McCartney and Simon, who have both accomplished many amazing feats of music in their decades-long heydays. But this show simply did not represent them anywhere near their best.

Now, I know this is a comedy show and I seem stuck on the music, but in a way, the problems with McCartney's and Simon's performances are a reflection on what was wrong with the evening: The show was more interested in trotting out legends just for their own sake rather than entertaining us with them. This was true with every moment, every aspect of the show, starting with the "Catch-Phrase Medley" duet between Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake that opened the show. The song was clever enough in how it squeezed so many memorable SNL moments into one song, but note how the segment didn't have anything funny or interesting to say about the catch-phrases. It was basically just a list set to music.

The whole show seemed interested in making lists, with one montage sequence after another, showing brief clips of the "best of" sketches rather than any one of the sketches themselves. It's odd: I had previously thought that we'd seen enough of the same old "best of SNL" sketches to last a lifetime, but I now realize how wrong I was, as watching at least a few of these sketches in their entirety would have been much more fun than watching one hastily rushed "hey here's a few seconds of this one, and here's a few seconds of that one, now let's move on!" montage after another.

Another example of "presenting legends for their own sake rather than for the sake of entertaining us" was the much-touted, but highly disappointing cameo by Eddie Murphy. Chris Rock was impolitic but basically accurate in his introduction to Murphy, when he emphatically declared that Murphy pretty much single-handedly saved SNL from cancellation in the early 80s. (People tend to forget that Joe Piscopo was also immensely popular at the time, but even Piscopo ended up riding on Murphy's coat-tails.) Yet after Rock went on and on about how funny Murphy is, Murphy finally came out to take a bow -- and didn't even try to be funny. Lorne Michaels has been trying to get Murphy to come back to SNL for decades, and when he finally succeeds . . . Murphy really doesn't do anything. He makes a brief "thanks for your applause" speech and then leaves. Is this really what we've been waiting for decades to see?

As for the sketches, they were just sad. Going back yet again to that "legends for their own sake" theme that defined the evening, Dan Aykroyd and Laraine Newman did a  nearly word-for-word remake of "Bass-o-Matic," which has oddly been long considered one of Aykroyd's best skits, despite the fact that it was never funny. The only thing that was impressive about the sketch was Aykroyd's amazing rapid-fire delivery, and that one good thing about the sketch was missing in last night's re-do, as a now relatively elderly Aykroyd delivered the same lines, but slowed to a crawl.

Meanwhile, the recurring "The Californians" sketch was pretty much a disaster. Once you get past the very mildly funny concept that all of the characters in the faux soap opera talk in exaggerated So-Cal accents, you quickly realize that the only point of the sketch isn't humor, but rather just to see how many random celebrities you can squeeze into the thing. What's worse, "The Californians" proved a point made by a couple of comedians during the show, that SNL sketches have a tendency to drag. The sketch makes its one joke, repeatedly, and then had nowhere to go.

"Celebrity Jeopardy" fared a bit better, thanks, as usual, to the always creative repartee between the hapless Alex Trebek (Will Ferrell) and the delightfully offensive Sean Connery (Darrell Hammond). Jim Carrey also scored a couple of points here with a reprisal of his spacey Matthew McConaughey impression.

All in all, though, SNL's 40th celebration was so much more interested in self-congratulation than in entertaining its audience that I wonder if it should have even been televised; the whole thing was so full of back-and-forth praise and in-joking that it felt more like watching other people have a party than it felt like a show intended to benefit the viewing public.