Saturday Night Live seems to be on a roll these days. Emmy winner Melissa McCarthy brought the house down last weekend and helped magnify the ratings.
And now actor Ben Stiller is up for the hosting gig this weekend and rumor has it that he may be joined by SNL alumn and confirmed Oscar 2012 host Eddie Murphy. Now before we lose ourselves in excitement, its worth noting that nothing has been confirmed. In fact Murphy’s rep provided no encouragement to the bold headlines, but managed to say “Mr. Murphy is not planning on returning to Saturday Night Live at this time. Perhaps at some time in the future”.
During his tenure at SNL in the early 80’s, Murphy provided buckets of laughs and a collage of memorable characters that included Mr. Robinson and his cosmically funny imitation of James Brown which literally made him a household name. After his departure from the show in 1984, he solidified his star status with a string of highly successful blockbusters. But he never went back to his alma mater. Not even to host! And when the 25th anniversary came around in 1999, Murphy was nowhere to be found. Of course there were numerous speculations floating around but the one that seemed to stick was the bitter feud between the Beverly Hills Cop star and the Godfather of SNL, Lorne Michaels, that began in 1955, and stemmed from a skit featuring cast member David Spade that hit below the belt and mocked Murphy’s declining career.
Hopefully all that is water under the bridge and Murphy will join his Tower Heist co-star Ben Stiller for some good old fashioned fun this weekend. For one, it will be awesome press for their film which opens Nov. 4, and it will also remind us once again why Murphy is an American treasure and an incomparable comic genius.