Laugh Track: Eddie Murphy’s Concert Films – Forgotten?

Eddie Murphy used to be one of the most raw, dirty comedians around. Hard to believe, right? In his prime during the 1980s, Murphy was bigger than any rock group and sold out stadiums on a regular basis. He was also the last of the rock star comedians. Over the past two decades his career has taken a different path. After a series of box office bombs, he turned to family films as a way to revamp his career.

But before he went clean, Eddie Murphy was a unique comedian. He had the ability to draw people in as he made fun of them– an ability few people possess. Eddie Murphy got his start doing stand up in the late 1970s, claiming he was inspired after listening to Richard Pryor’s act. He didn’t really become successful until he landed a role as a performer on Saturday Night Live in 1980. While it was a bastion of creativity in the mid-1970s, by 1980 SNL had lost much of its momentum and was languishing in the ratings. Murphy’s joining the cast brought new life into the show and renewed it’s popularity by drawing in a much larger audience.

Murphy’s fame grew and in 1982 he starred in 48 Hours with Nick Nolte. The following year he released his first concert film, Eddie Murphy Delirious. The film debuted at number one at the box office and launched Murphy’s stand up material into the public spotlight in a way that SNL hadn’t been able to do. In the film, he takes shots at such celebrities as Mr. T and Michael Jackson.

For the next few years, Murphy starred in a series of successful films before releasing a second stand up concert film, Raw. Raw showcases Murphy at the top of his game and continues his successful string of impressions, this time bringing in Richard Pryor and Bill Cosby. Raw was even more successful than it’s predecessor and is the most successful stand up concert film of all time. It also contained 230 instances of the word “fuck”, the most uses of the word in a single film at the time of it’s release, surpassing Scarface. It wasn’t until the release of Goodfellas in 1990 that a movie contained more uses of “fuck”.

Since the 1980s, Eddie Murphy has left his stand up career behind and hasn’t released a new album since 1989. In the 1990s and 2000s, he focused more on his acting career. After dwindling box office receipts, he remade his image into a family friendly performer (a path that Ice Cube would follow years later) and has had success with.

It’s too bad because when Eddie Murphy was at his prime, he was one of the best stand up comedians out there.