eddie murphy delirious tour

His furious ‘Delirious’ days

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Shirtless and dressed in red leather pants and matching jacket unzipped to his navel, Eddie Murphy sauntered onto the stage of Washington, D.C.’s, Constitution Hall one night in 1983 and changed the face of stand-up comedy forever.

At the time, Murphy was “Saturday Night Live’s” youngest cast member and a newly in-demand movie star after the success of his action comedy “48 Hrs.” Age 22 and cocky as a top gun pilot, Murphy used an arsenal of curse words that made his punch lines detonate with the force of sidewinder missiles. But his jokes were a revelation.

Captured by an HBO documentary film crew, Murphy’s performance galvanized a generation of comedians when it went into rotation on the cable channel the following year under the title “Eddie Murphy: Delirious.” And earlier this month, a 25th anniversary “Delirious” DVD reached retail. The disc serves to remind comedy lovers that Murphy wasn’t always the family-friendly star of such flicks as “The Nutty Professor II: The Klumps” or “Daddy Day Care” -- not to mention the ‘tween-skewing “Imagine That,” which opened Friday. Once upon a time, Eddie Murphy was a baaad man -- a stand-up superstar who could in equal parts infuriate, entertain and inspire his audience.

“ ‘Delirious’ put Eddie in a league by himself,” said comedian Robert Townsend, who directed Murphy’s second concert movie “Raw” and recently directed the documentary “Why We Laugh: Black Comedians on Black Comedy.” “He definitely took the art form and raised the bar. He set a tone. And the rest of the comedians had to step up their game.”

Over the course of his act, Murphy verbally flambes an eclectic array of subject matter, with spot-on impersonations of Elvis, Teddy Pendergrass, Stevie Wonder and Ricky Ricardo; reenactments of what Mr. T and “The Honeymooners’ ” Ralph Cramden and Ed Norton would have been like as outed gay men. And Murphy became perhaps the earliest comedian to riff on how Michael Jackson “ain’t the most masculine fellow in the world.” He made the ridiculous sublime while also managing to get laughs out of such once-sacrosanct subjects as AIDS, slavery, domestic violence and what he predicted would be the assassination attempt on America’s first black president.

Adhering to a long-held policy of not granting newspaper interviews, Murphy declined to comment for this story. But on the “Delirious” DVD, a Who’s Who of black comedians, including Chris Tucker, Cedric the Entertainer, Sinbad and Martin Lawrence, weighs in on the TV special’s initial impact.

“Eddie Murphy inspired me to become a comic,” Chris Rock says. “ ‘Delirious’ was a combination of two things: great material and a great performance. I had never seen anything like it.”

Adds Keenen Ivory Wayans: “That was a defining moment in comedy. That was when every other comedian raised their expectations.”

Talk about intensity

Murphy’s brother Charlie Murphy, a successful comedian in his own right, recalled Eddie’s intensive preparations in the lead-up to “Delirious.” Eddie had been honing his stand-up act on his “Lord Have Murphy” North American tour and was primed to deliver the maximum comedic payload that night at Constitution Hall.

“His show was real tight,” Charlie Murphy said. “The beats per minute. The rhythm of his show. It would be: one, two, three -- ba-boom! The one and two jokes had chuckles on them and three was the big laugh. So you had seamless laughter from beginning to end.”

Upon airing, though, “Delirious” generated no small share of controversy for the special’s profanity (which was considered excessive by the era’s abiding mores but hardly raises an eyebrow today in contrast with, say, a Katt Williams special). Moreover, critics decried Murphy’s gay jokes as homophobic, resulting in protest picket lines at his subsequent stand-up engagements.

“I never paid any of that stuff any mind,” Murphy says on the DVD. “It was part of it -- what I was doing. It came with it.”

No small part of Murphy’s impact in “Delirious” comes from what he is wearing: a tight-fitting red leather outfit the comedian picked up at a D.C.-area shopping mall on the day he shot the special. According to several comics, that wardrobe choice was nothing short of a watershed moment in comedy.

“Back then, the red leather suit was revolutionary,” Charlie Murphy said. “Most comedians dressed like bums. They looked unassuming and dressed down. The last thing you wanted to do was be pompous. Project a threat.”

“He came out as a rock star. Not the traditionally dressed, suited Bill Cosby. Eddie was wearing thousand dollar belts, diamond watches, open leather jackets with his chest out.”

‘Delirious’ disciples

“Delirious” became a generational touchstone. Arriving on HBO’s programming lineup at a time when cable television was still in its relative infancy, when the channel had only a scant amount of original content, “Delirious” aired morning, noon and night.

As a side effect, many people who grew up in the ‘80s can recite its set-piece jokes -- an imitation of his Aunt Bunny falling down the steps, little kids chasing an ice cream truck, Murphy’s mom hitting him with a shoe -- chapter and verse.

“People know the routines by heart,” said Byron Allen, a former stand-up who produced the 25th anniversary DVD. “They memorized it when they were young and know it backwards and forwards. They remember where they were and who they were with when they were watching it. It’s more than a comedy concert, it’s an event in their lives.”

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Eddie Murphy: Delirious

Eddie Murphy's raunchy, raucous stand-up comedy routine is captured for posterity on this tape. Eddie Murphy's raunchy, raucous stand-up comedy routine is captured for posterity on this tape. Eddie Murphy's raunchy, raucous stand-up comedy routine is captured for posterity on this tape.

• Bruce Gowers
• Eddie Murphy
• James Argiro
• Gus Loundermon
• 70 User reviews
• 12 Critic reviews

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• Trivia In this 70-minute stand up comedy film the word "fuck" is used 230 times.

Eddie Murphy : Bear and a rabbit were taking a shit in the woods. And the bear turns to the rabbit and says, "Excuse me, do you have problems with shit sticking to your fur?" And the rabbit says, "No." So the bear wiped his ass with the rabbit.

• Alternate versions The UK video version was cut by 11 secs to remove a joke reference to heroin in order to receive an 18 rating in 1986. It was then released uncut on DVD with a 15 certificate.
• Connections Edited into Tongues Untied (1989)
• Soundtracks Cuban Cabby Sung by Eddie Murphy (uncredited)

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• Sep 26, 2004
• October 15, 1983 (United States)
• United States
• Climax, Michigan, USA
• Eddie Murphy Productions
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• Runtime 1 hour 9 minutes

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Comedy gold: Eddie Murphy's Delirious

Title: Delirious

The set-up: Eddie Murphy was standup comedy's first true megastar. Fearless, good-looking, a gifted mimic, leather-clad and toweringly self-confident, propelled by TV success on Saturday Night Live to Hollywood success in 48 Hours, he made this concert film in 1983 just after his hero, Richard Pryor, had proved that this was something comedians could do now. It was another giant hit. It remains arguably the most famous standup comedy performance of all time. When Murphy filmed it he was 22. No one since with a moustache has been so cool.

You do have to make a few decisions about watching Murphy's standup now, though. There's homophobic material in here, which he has since apologised about . There's also a fairly old-fashioned attitude to women, and a delight in himself that maybe, under the circumstances, is easier to indulge. "I fuck with everybody," Murphy says. "I don't give a fuck. I don't mean anything by it."

For what it's worth, I believe him. Unlike Pryor, Murphy was never much of a social commentator. What he is above all, and has always been, is a virtuoso of the voice. At best, the words are half the point. He does impressions. And what's special, apart from his electric attitude, is just how very, very good they are.

Funny, how? Ask Mr T to record the lines that Murphy delivers in his voice , play each version one after the other, and I bet my fee for this article that you can't choose the real one consistently. It's a bet I feel safe in making, because I don't think Mr T is likely to cooperate by reciting Murphy's gay fantasy about him. (Indeed in his next standup film, Raw, Murphy imagines a vendetta developing .) Still more remarkable – indeed astonishing – is the impression of Michael Jackson singing . Or Elvis . Or James Brown .

Like Pryor – or, for that matter, Bill Cosby – Murphy manages to use his sheer performing talent to make extended tales about his family into something that thousands of people pay to watch. His stepfather, Vernon, in particular, can't have been grateful to see his drunken antics etched into posterity. The many imitations of children are very sharp, which perhaps is no surprise considering how recently the imitator had been one.

Murphy was a more versatile and successful actor that Pryor, but I think he was a worse comedian. The emphasis on setting himself up for the next impression means the show is actually quite light on jokes. And some of his observations – children's fear of kissing ugly relatives, for instance, or of dropping ice cream – have since become gag standards, if they weren't then. By sheer force of popularity, however, this show changed comedy. And Murphy has a talent you could watch for days. From his predecessors, he took inspiration. To his successors, he passed on power.

Comic cousins: Red Foxx, George Carlin, Robin Williams, Richard Pryor, Chris Rock.

Steal this: (on Captain Kirk) "I ain't no racist, but you've got to be a horny motherfucker to fuck a green bitch."

• Comedy gold: the best standup on DVD
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‘Eddie Murphy: Delirious’ on Netflix: Is This Legendary Comedy Special Still Relevant 35 Years Later?

Where to Stream:

• Eddie Murphy: Delirious

Our favorite movies and music we can go back to whenever we want to find comfort, solace or escape. Comedians do that for us, too,  in  the here and now – although comedy, unlike other performing arts, doesn’t always hold up the same over time. Some jokes reference fleeting fads that make little sense decades later. Some work once or twice but lose their impact upon repeated listening. Some pushed envelopes then, but don’t seem so edgy or revolutionary now that everyone else does it; while others feel outdated or behind the times of current society. With that in mind, we bring you  Humor In Hindsight , an ongoing column devoted to stand-up specials and comedy documentaries streaming online that, much like wine or cheese, give us more texture and better perspective with age.

As teenagers coming of age in the 1980s, the lines rolled so easily off of our tongues.

“Norton! You know that I know that you know that I know…” “You don’t have no iiiiicccce creeeeam!”

We weren’t quoting The Honeymooners . Rather, we were all enthralled by the biggest TV, movie and comedy star of the day. It was juvenile, and so were we. Heck, so was he!

Eddie Murphy had just turned 22 when he recorded his first HBO comedy special, Delirious , in 1983 (an audio version, retitled Eddie Murphy: Comedian , won the Grammy for Best Comedy Album in 1984). Netflix just added it to its massive streaming stand-up library, but some 35 years later, Murphy’s opening routines don’t receive quite the same admiration from the home viewing audience. My two friends, both of whom were born after 1983, grimaced and groaned within the first few minutes of our Monday-night viewing party, after watching Murphy tell any “faggots” in the audience not to look at his ass onstage, reveal his deep-seated fears of gay men, then imagine first Mr. T, and then TV’s Ralph Kramden and Ed Norton engaged in anal sex. “This wouldn’t fly now. At all,” one friend said. The other asked what kind of blowback Murphy has gotten for this so far.

Back then, critics focused on the sheer volume of profanities within the hour, so much so that Murphy would recount his conversations with Bill Cosby and Richard Pryor about his language in his follow-up special, Raw .

Wikipedia counted 230 “fucks” and 171 “shits” in Delirious , for the record. He’d set the so-called f-bomb record in Raw , only to see Goodfellas break that.

Now, the Genius transcript contributor  notes: “Ok – before you watch this, this routine has dated horribly. By modern standards it is (in parts) racist, homophobic and would never be aired today. However, the rest of it is still pants wettingly hilarious.”

Is it, though?

To wit: Yes; yes; Netflix is airing it today; and yes, some parts remain timelessly funny.

From the opening montages, you’re in for something special. The BusBoys, who had performed in the film 48 Hours , as well as on Saturday Night Live as the musical guest that January, opened for Murphy’s 1983 tour. The young headliner, meanwhile, already had completed his third season as SNL ’s brightest star, made two hit movies ( 48 Hrs ., followed by Trading Places ), and produced one Grammy-nominated comedy album. In scenes between tour stops, Murphy jokes about overdosing on heroin (before acknowledging to camera, “no, not me”), then about dying in a plane crash. If he really wished to be but a shooting star, he never truly let us in on that or followed through. His career would only continue to climb from here for the decade to come.

If you skip past those first 15 or so minutes, past Murphy’s downright falsehoods about AIDS and even how he’s in his sexual prime, you’ll get to his finely tuned impersonations of musical giants Michael Jackson, Elvis, James Brown and Stevie Wonder. Murphy would figure out how to incorporate his James Brown into an all-time classic Celebrity Hot Tub Party sketch the following season on SNL . He’d already portrayed Stevie on SNL , and used this stand-up to deliver a message to his haters (He does address his Delirious haters briefly in Raw , too).

Some other bits offer comedy Easter Eggs in retrospect. You’ll now know it was the late Charlie Murphy playing the fart game with young Eddie in the bathtub, while Eddie’s bit about white guys casting presidential ballots for Jesse Jackson as a joke sounds quite accurate of a description of some Trump voters 32 years later. And in one seemingly outdated moment, in which Murphy asks if anyone at the theater brought a camera, he nonetheless proves himself a pioneer of the all-too-ubiquitous dick pic. “Let’s see you explain the last one to the guys at FotoMat,” Murphy quips before handing the camera back to an audience member.

For everything else, as many jokes stand the test of time as do those that fail it.

Two routines, though, remain hallmarks for anyone to laugh along with or study.

In fact, the New York Times comedy critic Jason Zinoman already has performed an exhaustive look at Murphy’s ice cream bit , which plays as a brilliant display of acting, as well as joke-telling.

And then there is Murphy’s recollection of his drunk father, who died when Eddie was only 8. What stands out most is not just how passionate and how much time he gives for the act-out, but how relentless Eddie is in delivering it. Whereas he stops to bathe in the applause and laughter of his ice cream song, in re-enacting his dead dad, Eddie never lets up, never pauses, never gives us a chance to escape the alcoholic wrath of his rambling. We’re exposed to what he lived through in that routine.

• Stand-Up Comedy

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Stream it or skip it: 'steve (martin). a documentary in 2 pieces,' on apple tv+, two starkly different takes on the still-evolving life and work of a comedy legend, steve martin says going gray early helped his career because “the act was so juvenile” in new apple doc, stream it or skip it: 'jerrod carmichael reality show' on max, where the comedian wants to reveal all of himself on camera.

For all the talk over the past decade, including teases from Murphy himself that he might return to the stand-up stage, I don’t suspect it’ll ever truly happen. He passed up the chance to perform at SNL ’s 40 th anniversary celebration, instead delivering just a taste of what could have been and still may be when he accepted his Mark Twain Prize for American Humor later in 2015.

Now 57, Murphy has lived an entire second life since his stand-up career culminated in Raw . He may be an entirely different performer now, or perhaps the time has merely passed him by. Either way, we’re better left with the memories of his youth. For better and for worse.

Sean L. McCarthy works the comedy beat for his own digital newspaper,  The Comic’s Comic ; before that, for actual newspapers. Based in NYC but will travel anywhere for the scoop: Ice cream or news. He also tweets  @thecomicscomic  and podcasts half-hour episodes with comedians revealing origin stories:  The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First .

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