And during his most recent visit to The Jennifer Hudson Show, the comedy icon, now 64 and just as sharp as Belzer was decades ago, pulled back the curtain on what makes him cringe in the world of laughs.
As it happens, there's one thing that Murphy personally really can't abide: fake laughter. Yes, that phony chuckle that's a social cue more than anything close to a legitimate response. "Fucking the audience hates it," he told Hudson without missing a beat. "Some of the times people do it, and they ain't laughing, they are fake laughing, and the crowd like, 'He ain't really laughing."
As someone who has been genuinely making people laugh for decades, Murphy's take lands close to home. And he's not just referring to canned sitcom chuckles but identifying the instances where a performer plants a laugh to force things along.
Especially the sneaky kind that creeps up on you and breaks through the performance. And you know that belly laugh you can't control? That's gold. And during that Saturday Night Live 50th anniversary special earlier this year, Murphy served that dish.
"I already started laughing there," Murphy allowed, shaking his head at the memory. "I just start laughing all the time, you know, in the middle of stuff and then we just go back and fix it… I love that, like when something makes you, you know, you can't hold it in, you gotta start laughing. And the audience likes it, I have to say."
In an industry that values timing above all else and holds improvisation as sacred, Murphy's affection for those "you had to be there" moments is genuinely genuine by comparison. It's not about perfection but about being in the moment, perhaps the occasional pantsless surprise.
Murphy's return to "SNL" wasn't just a memories trip but a moment to come full circle. "I felt like I belonged to something," he added solemnly. "That show was on for 50 years, so it's this American institution. So when you're in the room, and you see all these different people who were involved in the show, I have a really great feeling, like, 'Wow, I'm a part of this show!' It was a good feeling and I loved it."
So what makes Eddie Murphy's latest comedy confession different? It's simple: keep it real. In a landscape that's increasingly saturated with performance, the laughs we hold onto aren't the handcrafted, prewritten laughs; they're the ones that sucker punch us, send us sliding sideways, and remind us that comedy, when it's working best, is something deeply, hilariously human.
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