Finally!!!!
The man who became one of the biggest stars that Saturday Night Live produced, Eddie Murphy announced this morning that he will return to the scene of his greatest television triumph when he appears on the upcoming 40th Anniversary Celebration.
The biggest movie star of the 1980s, Murphy has not appeared on SNL since December 15, 1984. For years, people have wondered if Murphy would ever appear on SNL’s stage again. In an interview with Roland Martin for News One Now, Murphy discussed his long-awaited return to the show that made him famous.
“It just never worked out where the timing was right for me to do it,” Murphy said when asked why he hadn’t appeared on “SNL” in decades. “They’re actually having a 40th anniversary, I think, in two weeks. I’m going to that, and that’ll be the first time I’ve been back since I left.”
Murphy’s acrimonious history with the show dates back to a joke David Spade made about him on Weekend Update during the 1990s, when Murphy’s career had hit a low point after Vampire in Brooklyn. (“Look, children, a falling star.”)
“[T]hey were shitty to me on Saturday Night Live a couple of times after I’d left the show. They said some shitty things,” Murphy said in an interview with Rolling Stone in 2011. “There was that David Spade sketch. I made a stink about it, it became part of the folklore. What really irritated me about it at the time was that it was a career shot. It was like, ‘Hey, come on, man, it’s one thing for you guys to do a joke about some movie of mine, but my career? I’m one of you guys. How many people have come off this show whose careers really are fucked up, and you guys are shitting on me?’ And you know every joke has to go through all the producers, and ultimately, you know Lorne or whoever says, [Lorne Michaels voice] ‘OK, it’s OK to make this career crack.'”
Murphy added that he felt unhappy about that for years. “I wouldn’t go to retrospectives, but I don’t let it linger,” he added. “I saw David Spade four years ago. Chris Rock was like, ‘Do you guys still hate each other?’ and I was like, ‘I don’t hate David Spade, I’m cool with him.'”
The last time Eddie Murphy made an appearance on Saturday Night Live was Dec. 15, 1984. Thirty-one years later, it appears Murphy will finally return to the show that helped make him a star.
The Saturday Night Live 40th Anniversary Special will air on February 15, 2015 on NBC.
A representative for NBC was not immediately available for comment.