Name: Eddie Murphy Was Crushed By A Rumor About Dave | Letterman
Uploaded: 2022-02-18T13:00:21.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Eddie Murphy Was Crushed By A Rumor About Dave | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-02-18. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Eddie Murphy Was Crushed By A Rumor About Dave | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-02-18. Transcript available.

It's a pleasure to welcome my first guest to this program.
Actually, my second guest to this program.
The man with the toys was number one.
This will be number two.
He is currently starring in a film called Beverly Hills Cop.
Please welcome Eddie Murphy.
Eddie, Eddie, Eddie.
Nice to see you, sir.
Thanks for being here.
Nice to see you.
Thanks for being here.
The folks are very excited about you.
Why?
Well, they heard you were going to be here,
and they know you, and they love you,
and they thought it would be...
You came in town to do Saturday Night Live over the weekend?
I live right in New Jersey, so right over the weekend.
Now, have you lived there all your life?
No, I grew up in Roosevelt, Long Island.
Yeah.
We all didn't grow up in no Roosevelt, Long Island.
And why did you select New Jersey?
Because I wanted to be close to my mother,
but I wanted to be far from Roosevelt.
I got kind of like...
It's not too far away and not too close.
It's perfect.
Now, at some point when you started out doing comedy,
your mom was probably thinking,
well, I guess it's better than him being in trouble
with the law.
She still says that.
The stuff that I do is controversial, so...
But what does she think of this unbelievable success?
She's happy for me.
Most parents are happy for their children
when they're successful.
It's not like, shame on my boy.
He made something of himself,
and I can't live with that.
She's happy for me.
Because I was real bad in school,
so if things didn't work out here...
And how were you bad?
Explain that.
I just didn't go to class.
I used to...
So it would be like...
Can you pull the car up so we can get all the soap on it?
If I didn't...
You want the hot wax, that kind of thing?
I was real bad in school.
But, you know, Eddie,
the kind of success that you've had
in a very short period of time
is the kind of thing that I don't...
I never remember this happening to anybody before.
So I'm just thinking that your mom,
I mean, doesn't she have to walk around
and sit down every few minutes
and think, oh, my God,
this is just unbelievable?
I guess she does.
Let's get mom out here.
Is mom here?
No, she's home.
And she's up in my house in New Jersey.
You just can't shake, mom.
I left Roosevelt.
No, I asked her to come up to the house
and spend some time with me.
She's up at the house in Jersey.
Now that you're going to move to Hollywood
and leave mom behind?
No.
My mother's moving to Jersey.
So she can be close to me.
She's moving out to New Jersey,
and I'm staying...
We're going to be Jersey people now.
How was it Saturday night?
Being back there.
It was scary,
because I hadn't done it in so long,
and I was a little nervous.
But the show came out okay.
It wasn't...
I mean, you watch the show,
and sometimes it's okay.
And the last Saturday was okay.
It didn't suck like it does sometimes.
No, because sometimes...
Can you say suck?
Yeah, no, you can say anything you want.
You can say anything you want.
It didn't...
That's what's going to come up.
But it was okay.
But now, why were you nervous?
What was the...
Because I hadn't done it in so long,
and...
You mean you haven't done working
on live TV before in a while?
Yeah, and plus,
everybody expected the show
to be fantastic when I...
like when I hosted,
like, oh, we're going to see
all those old characters.
And it was just okay.
And so I was nervous.
But it was pretty...
It was a couple of funny things in the show.
Well, I think you're probably
being hard on yourself.
I always am.
Yeah.
Are you really?
Yes.
Now, when you go see a film
like Beverly Hills Cop,
are there things that you look at in there
that make you kind of...
Now I don't.
Now if I go see 48 Hours now,
I'll sit there and I'll go,
ooh, how can I...
Because there you see growth now.
When I go see Beverly Hills Cop,
it looks fine to me,
but three years from now,
I'll probably go and see that
and say, how can I do it?
I'm nervous now.
You know what?
Two years ago,
how long have you been on?
Three years, two, three years?
This is like, to me,
like the hippest show on television.
It is.
It is.
And the reason I never came on
was because, you know,
those Hollywood rumors?
I got a rumor that they said,
you know, David Letterman doesn't like you.
And I was crushed.
I was like, David Letterman?
That's why I never came on the show before
because I thought you didn't...
Do you like me?
Well, yeah.
Well, you know,
the deal of it was
you became such an unbelievable star
in such a short period of time
that there is a group of people
that you would love to have on the show,
but you know there's no way
in hell to show up.
And you were in that group.
You know, we just figured,
yeah, well, save your time.
Don't waste a phone call.
We and David stroking each other.
Well, your show is so wonderful.
Anyway, we have a little gift for you.
We'd like you to take this blimp
back to New Jersey.
What is this?
This is a remote-controlled blimp
that the guy from Hemmacher Schlemmer
won't turn loose of.
Here, you want to...
Why don't you send that out
into the audience?
I'll untether it here.
Oh!
Now, this one,
this is up and down.
There you go.
What's down?
What's down?
This is down.
You push it up and it comes down.
Whose is this?
The man from Hemmacher Schlemmer.
It's about $500.
Really?
Yeah.
Is this one for sale?
This one, I think, yeah,
this probably is for sale.
I'm sure you get a sizable discount
for this one.
Well, because it's you.
Yeah.
All right, you figure that out.
We'll do a commercial
and then we'll come back
more with Eddie Murphy here.
Tell me about your...
We got the blimp stuck, by the way.
Yeah, I see.
Tell me about your music career.
You've done one album, right?
I did two albums.
You've done two?
But they were comedy.
And I'm working on a music album now.
You know, what happens is
after a while,
you start...
I guess your ego goes nuts
and you say, like,
I can do anything.
And you go, like,
I'm in a studio now
recording a music album
and you have people
that work for you
and they're on the payroll
so they start saying,
you can do anything.
So, no.
So, I'm in a studio
recording an album
and I don't even know
how great it is
because, like,
I'm in there saying,
I'm like, ah!
I go, how it sounds?
Listen, ooh,
it sounds wonderful as!
You're a genius!
Um, is my check ready?
So, like,
I don't know
how the album sounds.
The way I figure
is if it doesn't
sound good,
the most I'll do
is get another five minutes
in my stand-up routine
because I can talk
about the album next year.
Good experience.
Now, but is this the one
that you worked on
with Rick James
or is that a...
We just did one song
with Rick
called Party All The Time.
Yeah.
And what happened
was I was just
going to do a 45
and Party All The Time
came out real good.
That's because
I was working with Rick
and it came out real nice.
And I tinker around.
I got a music room
in my house
with little four-track recorder
and I made little demos
and stuff
and it sounded okay.
So, we got this stuff together
and we decided
to just do a whole album
and just try it.
Yeah, give it a shot.
Well, I'm sure
it's going to do very well.
We hope so.
It either...
What kind of music is it?
It's R&B,
a little pop,
a little...
It's dance music
and easy listening
kind of stuff.
Yeah.
Look, y'all gonna freak
when you're here
because it doesn't sound
like me.
And I tell you,
it'd either be very good
or because it'd be very funny.
So, and because I'm a comic,
I don't mind it coming out funny.
I can't lose.
Yeah.
And are you working
on another film now
or are you not filming
for a while?
No, I was going to do...
We were supposed to do
a concert movie
and we don't know
what we're gonna do now.
We're just like
up in the air, so...
How do you go about
picking your films?
Because of the three
that you've been
one of the principals in,
they've all done
unbelievably well.
At least it looks like
Beverly Hills Cop
is doing record-breaking
business already.
It's only been out
a week or so, right?
But how do you pick these out?
How do you know
that this is gonna be okay?
I trust my feelings.
The only movie
I ever had a bad feeling
about when picking up
the script was
Best Offense.
Before I even opened it up,
it was like...
And I opened the script up
and read it
and I felt bad,
but...
they had a check
like I had never seen before.
And my morals and principles
went right out the window.
Yeah.
My career almost went out
with it, too, but...
That was a small part.
You were just barely
in the film, right?
But they told me,
they paramount,
like, look, Eddie,
we're not gonna advertise
much with you.
It's a Dudley Moore film.
Next thing,
Eddie Murphy!
Best Offense!
And I'm standing there
like this.
So that's what happened.
Tell us how big
the check was.
It was more money
than I had been paid
to do 48 hours
in trading places
combined
to do Best Offense.
Oh, my.
That's how much money it was.
That's how I was...
I freaked, man.
Now, how about
Beverly Hills Cop?
Because this was this...
You weren't originally
considered for this thing,
were you?
It was somebody else's...
It was Sylvester Stallone.
Yeah.
So how do you get into that?
And to me,
like, this is gonna happen.
Like, this is gonna happen.
Somebody says,
well, you know,
Sylvester Stallone
was gonna do it,
but now you can do it.
I'd think to myself,
oh, jeez,
what do I want to do
with a Sylvester Stallone film?
They had...
Originally, the script for...
Well, I wasn't the first choice
for 48 hours.
Yeah, I was, like,
choice number five.
48 hours.
They were, like,
first they wanted, I think,
Howard Rollins,
then they wanted Gregory Hines,
and...
I mean, I was, like,
after Jimmy Walker on the list.
That's what I was like.
Really?
Really, it was...
So, Jimmy won't do it?
Well, let's get Eddie Murphy.
That's what happened,
and, um...
With Beverly Hills Cop,
it was action comedy at first.
Right.
And Stallone got it,
and Stallone rewrote it,
and it became more action,
and the producers
wanted to do an action comedy,
and Stallone was like,
well, I don't want
to do the film then.
They had already set up
pre-production and everything,
so it was like,
well, Eddie Murphy's
pretty much a shell now
because Vesta Fens
just came out,
and he's just wandering around,
because I was, like,
happy to get the part.
Yeah, so you...
You mean, you really...
You were affected
by the role in Best of Fence?
You weren't...
I was affected emotionally.
I was upset.
Yeah.
I felt like...
Well, you learned something there.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Next time you see a check,
you go,
don't just take it,
because the script is...
If the script ain't good,
I don't think I'd do another movie
just for money anymore.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's...
Well, unless it's, like,
a tremendous amount.
Because people,
you can't get mad at a guy for that.
Like, you...
Well, no,
I think they'd understand more
if you told them
the exact amount.
It was a lot of money.
A lot of dough.
It was a lot of money
to do that part
for, like,
the time that I spent doing it.
It was like a weekend
or something, right?
It was a motel
in New Jersey or something.
No, it was like,
I worked three months on $40,000,
three months on trading places,
and this was, like,
more money to work a week
on another movie.
So it was like,
Hollywood goes nuts.
If you do a good movie...
Think about it.
There are guys
that do, like,
one, two good movies
and don't do another good movie
for, like, ten movies
and still get...
Hollywood is crazy.
They just keep shoveling
and I would...
You can't blame people
for saying,
whew,
that's a big check.
You know,
Martin Mull, I think,
had the best line
about this kind of thing.
He said,
show business
is like high school
with money.
That's pretty much it
if you think about it.
But, you know,
did you feel a lot of pressure
doing Beverly Hills Cop?
Because this was the first...
This was really your movie,
this one, huh?
No, I had fun
doing Beverly Hills Cop.
Yeah?
As much fun as you have
while doing a film.
Yeah.
But did you worry
about this one
being as successful
as the earlier two
that you were in with the...
I had a very good vibe.
I vibe off things
real good
and I had a very good vibe
going into Beverly Hills Cop.
to Beverly Hills Cop.
So I didn't worry about it.
Yeah.
So what are you going
to do for fun?
What do you...
You have a little time off,
so what do you do?
You going to spend
some of this money?
What are you doing
with your money?
Johnny Carson
asked me that.
It's a strange question.
I don't know.
I'm doing...
What do you do
with your money?
You got more money
than me?
None of me
got more money than me.
You're doing this thing
up here.
But what do you do
for fun?
Do you like to travel?
Do you...
What do you go...
What do you do?
The same things
everybody else does.
I go to movies
and I hang out.
You can't go to a movie now.
Yes, you can go to a movie.
But don't people
just jump all over you
and steal your wallet
and stuff?
People go,
Hey, Eddie.
And you say,
How are you doing?
And you go to movies.
I don't mind saying...
I don't mind saying hi.
So it's no big deal.
Mm-mm.
Yeah.
Entertainers,
I think a lot of people
bring that on themselves.
You know,
like where you can't
go places.
Like,
I dress normally
so I can go places.
If I had on
a glitter glove
and a glitter suit,
I couldn't go to movies.
You can get noticed
because you go from there.
Gee,
Eddie,
I'm really happy
you could come by.
I know that you're probably...
Well, you're just
on your way home
to New Jersey, right?
Yeah.
I was thinking
you're going back to California.
15 minutes.
I drove over.
We hopped in a little car
and hopped over here.
Well, I really appreciate
you coming by.
You don't have a clip
of the movie or nothing?
What time is the show over?
Do we have...
Mr. Murphy would like
to see a clip of...
Is the show over?
I know what you could do.
Roll a clip
while the credits are going
and don't have no sound.
Just have, like...
Just roll the credits
over the clip.
That's a good look.
I like that.
I want to thank everybody
who was...
Clean it up.
Clean it up.
I want to thank...
Actually, this is about right.
I want to thank John Lowe.
Edie McClure will be here
tomorrow night.
And again, my thanks
to Eddie Murphy.
Also, George Wallace
will be here
and Fran Leibowitz,
Mel Tillis also.
Good night, folks.
Thank you very much.

Eddie Murphy Was Crushed By A Rumor About Dave | Letterman

It's a pleasure to welcome my first guest to this program.
Actually, my second guest to this program.
The man with the toys was number one.
This will be number two.
He is currently starring in a film called Beverly Hills Cop.
Please welcome Eddie Murphy.
Eddie, Eddie, Eddie.
Nice to see you, sir.
Thanks for being here.
Nice to see you.
Thanks for being here.
The folks are very excited about you.
Why?
Well, they heard you were going to be here,
and they know you, and they love you,
and they thought it would be...
You came in town to do Saturday Night Live over the weekend?
I live right in New Jersey, so right over the weekend.
Now, have you lived there all your life?
No, I grew up in Roosevelt, Long Island.
Yeah.
We all didn't grow up in no Roosevelt, Long Island.
And why did you select New Jersey?
Because I wanted to be close to my mother,
but I wanted to be far from Roosevelt.
I got kind of like...
It's not too far away and not too close.
It's perfect.
Now, at some point when you started out doing comedy,
your mom was probably thinking,
well, I guess it's better than him being in trouble
with the law.
She still says that.
The stuff that I do is controversial, so...
But what does she think of this unbelievable success?
She's happy for me.
Most parents are happy for their children
when they're successful.
It's not like, shame on my boy.
He made something of himself,
and I can't live with that.
She's happy for me.
Because I was real bad in school,
so if things didn't work out here...
And how were you bad?
Explain that.
I just didn't go to class.
I used to...
So it would be like...
Can you pull the car up so we can get all the soap on it?
If I didn't...
You want the hot wax, that kind of thing?
I was real bad in school.
But, you know, Eddie,
the kind of success that you've had
in a very short period of time
is the kind of thing that I don't...
I never remember this happening to anybody before.
So I'm just thinking that your mom,
I mean, doesn't she have to walk around
and sit down every few minutes
and think, oh, my God,
this is just unbelievable?
I guess she does.
Let's get mom out here.
Is mom here?
No, she's home.
And she's up in my house in New Jersey.
You just can't shake, mom.
I left Roosevelt.
No, I asked her to come up to the house
and spend some time with me.
She's up at the house in Jersey.
Now that you're going to move to Hollywood
and leave mom behind?
No.
My mother's moving to Jersey.
So she can be close to me.
She's moving out to New Jersey,
and I'm staying...
We're going to be Jersey people now.
How was it Saturday night?
Being back there.
It was scary,
because I hadn't done it in so long,
and I was a little nervous.
But the show came out okay.
It wasn't...
I mean, you watch the show,
and sometimes it's okay.
And the last Saturday was okay.
It didn't suck like it does sometimes.
No, because sometimes...
Can you say suck?
Yeah, no, you can say anything you want.
You can say anything you want.
It didn't...
That's what's going to come up.
But it was okay.
But now, why were you nervous?
What was the...
Because I hadn't done it in so long,
and...
You mean you haven't done working
on live TV before in a while?
Yeah, and plus,
everybody expected the show
to be fantastic when I...
like when I hosted,
like, oh, we're going to see
all those old characters.
And it was just okay.
And so I was nervous.
But it was pretty...
It was a couple of funny things in the show.
Well, I think you're probably
being hard on yourself.
I always am.
Yeah.
Are you really?
Yes.
Now, when you go see a film
like Beverly Hills Cop,
are there things that you look at in there
that make you kind of...
Now I don't.
Now if I go see 48 Hours now,
I'll sit there and I'll go,
ooh, how can I...
Because there you see growth now.
When I go see Beverly Hills Cop,
it looks fine to me,
but three years from now,
I'll probably go and see that
and say, how can I do it?
I'm nervous now.
You know what?
Two years ago,
how long have you been on?
Three years, two, three years?
This is like, to me,
like the hippest show on television.
It is.
It is.
And the reason I never came on
was because, you know,
those Hollywood rumors?
I got a rumor that they said,
you know, David Letterman doesn't like you.
And I was crushed.
I was like, David Letterman?
That's why I never came on the show before
because I thought you didn't...
Do you like me?
Well, yeah.
Well, you know,
the deal of it was
you became such an unbelievable star
in such a short period of time
that there is a group of people
that you would love to have on the show,
but you know there's no way
in hell to show up.
And you were in that group.
You know, we just figured,
yeah, well, save your time.
Don't waste a phone call.
We and David stroking each other.
Well, your show is so wonderful.
Anyway, we have a little gift for you.
We'd like you to take this blimp
back to New Jersey.
What is this?
This is a remote-controlled blimp
that the guy from Hemmacher Schlemmer
won't turn loose of.
Here, you want to...
Why don't you send that out
into the audience?
I'll untether it here.
Oh!
Now, this one,
this is up and down.
There you go.
What's down?
What's down?
This is down.
You push it up and it comes down.
Whose is this?
The man from Hemmacher Schlemmer.
It's about $500.
Really?
Yeah.
Is this one for sale?
This one, I think, yeah,
this probably is for sale.
I'm sure you get a sizable discount
for this one.
Well, because it's you.
Yeah.
All right, you figure that out.
We'll do a commercial
and then we'll come back
more with Eddie Murphy here.
Tell me about your...
We got the blimp stuck, by the way.
Yeah, I see.
Tell me about your music career.
You've done one album, right?
I did two albums.
You've done two?
But they were comedy.
And I'm working on a music album now.
You know, what happens is
after a while,
you start...
I guess your ego goes nuts
and you say, like,
I can do anything.
And you go, like,
I'm in a studio now
recording a music album
and you have people
that work for you
and they're on the payroll
so they start saying,
you can do anything.
So, no.
So, I'm in a studio
recording an album
and I don't even know
how great it is
because, like,
I'm in there saying,
I'm like, ah!
I go, how it sounds?
Listen, ooh,
it sounds wonderful as!
You're a genius!
Um, is my check ready?
So, like,
I don't know
how the album sounds.
The way I figure
is if it doesn't
sound good,
the most I'll do
is get another five minutes
in my stand-up routine
because I can talk
about the album next year.
Good experience.
Now, but is this the one
that you worked on
with Rick James
or is that a...
We just did one song
with Rick
called Party All The Time.
Yeah.
And what happened
was I was just
going to do a 45
and Party All The Time
came out real good.
That's because
I was working with Rick
and it came out real nice.
And I tinker around.
I got a music room
in my house
with little four-track recorder
and I made little demos
and stuff
and it sounded okay.
So, we got this stuff together
and we decided
to just do a whole album
and just try it.
Yeah, give it a shot.
Well, I'm sure
it's going to do very well.
We hope so.
It either...
What kind of music is it?
It's R&B,
a little pop,
a little...
It's dance music
and easy listening
kind of stuff.
Yeah.
Look, y'all gonna freak
when you're here
because it doesn't sound
like me.
And I tell you,
it'd either be very good
or because it'd be very funny.
So, and because I'm a comic,
I don't mind it coming out funny.
I can't lose.
Yeah.
And are you working
on another film now
or are you not filming
for a while?
No, I was going to do...
We were supposed to do
a concert movie
and we don't know
what we're gonna do now.
We're just like
up in the air, so...
How do you go about
picking your films?
Because of the three
that you've been
one of the principals in,
they've all done
unbelievably well.
At least it looks like
Beverly Hills Cop
is doing record-breaking
business already.
It's only been out
a week or so, right?
But how do you pick these out?
How do you know
that this is gonna be okay?
I trust my feelings.
The only movie
I ever had a bad feeling
about when picking up
the script was
Best Offense.
Before I even opened it up,
it was like...
And I opened the script up
and read it
and I felt bad,
but...
they had a check
like I had never seen before.
And my morals and principles
went right out the window.
Yeah.
My career almost went out
with it, too, but...
That was a small part.
You were just barely
in the film, right?
But they told me,
they paramount,
like, look, Eddie,
we're not gonna advertise
much with you.
It's a Dudley Moore film.
Next thing,
Eddie Murphy!
Best Offense!
And I'm standing there
like this.
So that's what happened.
Tell us how big
the check was.
It was more money
than I had been paid
to do 48 hours
in trading places
combined
to do Best Offense.
Oh, my.
That's how much money it was.
That's how I was...
I freaked, man.
Now, how about
Beverly Hills Cop?
Because this was this...
You weren't originally
considered for this thing,
were you?
It was somebody else's...
It was Sylvester Stallone.
Yeah.
So how do you get into that?
And to me,
like, this is gonna happen.
Like, this is gonna happen.
Somebody says,
well, you know,
Sylvester Stallone
was gonna do it,
but now you can do it.
I'd think to myself,
oh, jeez,
what do I want to do
with a Sylvester Stallone film?
They had...
Originally, the script for...
Well, I wasn't the first choice
for 48 hours.
Yeah, I was, like,
choice number five.
48 hours.
They were, like,
first they wanted, I think,
Howard Rollins,
then they wanted Gregory Hines,
and...
I mean, I was, like,
after Jimmy Walker on the list.
That's what I was like.
Really?
Really, it was...
So, Jimmy won't do it?
Well, let's get Eddie Murphy.
That's what happened,
and, um...
With Beverly Hills Cop,
it was action comedy at first.
Right.
And Stallone got it,
and Stallone rewrote it,
and it became more action,
and the producers
wanted to do an action comedy,
and Stallone was like,
well, I don't want
to do the film then.
They had already set up
pre-production and everything,
so it was like,
well, Eddie Murphy's
pretty much a shell now
because Vesta Fens
just came out,
and he's just wandering around,
because I was, like,
happy to get the part.
Yeah, so you...
You mean, you really...
You were affected
by the role in Best of Fence?
You weren't...
I was affected emotionally.
I was upset.
Yeah.
I felt like...
Well, you learned something there.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Next time you see a check,
you go,
don't just take it,
because the script is...
If the script ain't good,
I don't think I'd do another movie
just for money anymore.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's...
Well, unless it's, like,
a tremendous amount.
Because people,
you can't get mad at a guy for that.
Like, you...
Well, no,
I think they'd understand more
if you told them
the exact amount.
It was a lot of money.
A lot of dough.
It was a lot of money
to do that part
for, like,
the time that I spent doing it.
It was like a weekend
or something, right?
It was a motel
in New Jersey or something.
No, it was like,
I worked three months on $40,000,
three months on trading places,
and this was, like,
more money to work a week
on another movie.
So it was like,
Hollywood goes nuts.
If you do a good movie...
Think about it.
There are guys
that do, like,
one, two good movies
and don't do another good movie
for, like, ten movies
and still get...
Hollywood is crazy.
They just keep shoveling
and I would...
You can't blame people
for saying,
whew,
that's a big check.
You know,
Martin Mull, I think,
had the best line
about this kind of thing.
He said,
show business
is like high school
with money.
That's pretty much it
if you think about it.
But, you know,
did you feel a lot of pressure
doing Beverly Hills Cop?
Because this was the first...
This was really your movie,
this one, huh?
No, I had fun
doing Beverly Hills Cop.
Yeah?
As much fun as you have
while doing a film.
Yeah.
But did you worry
about this one
being as successful
as the earlier two
tha