Episode 1207 - Eddie Murphy

**Marc Maron** (0:00)
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All right, let's do this. How are you, WTFers, WTF buddies, WTFineers, what's happening? You all right? You holding up? You okay? You locked in? If you're new to this show, this is a good day to be here. Eddie Murphy is here. Well, I talked to him, and the recording of that is here. Couple of things before we get to Eddie, before I set that up. I don't know if I won or not. Okay, I'm recording this the day before the Critics' Choice Award. So today, those results would be out. So what I'm going to do now is tell you how I'm feeling heading into that because I have to do that show from my dining room.
Here's how it's been set up to me. And if any of you watched it, you'll know. Maybe, I don't know what the fuck. I could have a heart attack shortly after I record this, but it was going to be, I think it was me and Patton and Hannah and Fortune and Michelle, Jerry Seinfeld. Do you need last names? Patton Oswalt, Fortune Feimster, Hannah Gatsby, Michelle Bateau and me and Jerry Seinfeld. I'm nominated for End Times Fun. I'm proud of that.
Took a long time to put it together. It's a beautiful, beautiful, special collaborative effort by me and the late great Lynn Shelton who directed it. But I never win anything. I'm gonna be doing standup comedy professionally. That means making a living at it one way or the other for 33 years come August, this August. So add another three or four to that ish from starting out. So 37 years, 36 years, I've been doing this. And the only real award I can remember winning for my standup comedy was coming in second place in the WBCN Comedy Riot in 1988 And that's what started me working.
That was the last time I think I won a prize for my standup of any value.
I'm prepared to lose and I'll be there on camera losing.
So you will have seen that.
And if I win, it would break a historical losing streak for me and any sort of award. So that's where I'm at. I'll tell you, I'll let you know how I feel after the show on Thursday. So look, Eddie Murphy, there was a time when we were younger, all of us, and there was nobody, nobody bigger than Eddie Murphy. Eddie Murphy was the biggest star in the world for a long time. Nobody was bigger than Eddie Murphy. And I don't even think we remember when the media and entertainment universe was smaller what that meant. But those first few movies like Beverly Hills Cop, 48 Hours Trading Places, SNL, Delirious, the comedy special, huge global domination. And the truth is he has stayed a vital part of show. He's had a career in show business for what, 40 years or something?
But the interesting thing about him, outside of him being naturally fucking hilarious, and then there was those years where people were like, people are always like, is he still funny? Is he going to be funny? Is he going to act funny? They'd see him on shows. Would he act funny? Even back in the day, he would make a choice whether he was going to act funny or not, what he would and wouldn't do, however he felt. Sometimes he was sort of dickish about it, and sometimes rightfully so. I mean, I watch a lot of stuff just to get Eddie in my head. It was just very interesting to see him on old Johnny Carson clips where his talent and his sort of demeanor was so huge. He was so effortlessly funny, and he was so sort of at odds just naturally and for personal reasons and probably for racial reasons with the entertainment industry in a way. Just to see him with Carson and to see Carson trying to goad him into doing a Bill Cosby impression, just Eddie sort of like, not going to do it, and deciding he wouldn't do it just because he didn't feel like it. He didn't want to be told what to do. It really was reflective of the sort of weird expectation that he definitely played with the racial expectation of black entertainers at that time. You know, on several appearances on Letterman, on Carson, where they would constantly get him to try to do impressions or they would ask him what he does with his money, and he brought to their attention that these were specifically questions that were unique to black guests.