December 1, 2025 • 7 mins
“What’s the first thing you think of when you hear the name Eddie Murphy?” For Krystina Ray, it’s Donkey from Shrek. For Kevin “KT” Turner, it’s Nutty Professor and Dr. Dolittle. But for Jeff “Skin” Wade, Eddie Murphy was nothing short of a cultural revolution—a rock star who changed comedy, movies, and pop culture forever.In this episode of The Ben and Skin Show, the crew explores Eddie Murphy’s meteoric rise, from saving Saturday Night Live at just 18 years old to becoming the biggest movie star of the early ’80s. Skin shares vivid memories of seeing 48 Hours in theaters and why the iconic redneck bar scene remains one of the greatest moments in film history. The conversation dives into Eddie’s genius, his clean lifestyle in an era of excess, and why legends like Dave Chappelle and Jerry Seinfeld still hail him as one of the greatest of all time.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Skin Show ninety seven point one The Eagle. We are
back in the fold. Big Ben will be back tomorrow.
Coming up at the bottom of the hour. In the
Hollywood Shuffle, Let's talk about some of these acts we
saw during halftime of the football games on Thanksgiving. One
guy absolutely shredded. We'll talk about all that, but right
now it's time for this.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Track, another edition of traffic. All right.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
I love these kinds of things talking about them with
you guys, because whenever there's an icon of my life,
he might also be an icon to you guys for
very different reasons. And I think I know how you
guys will react to this, But I want to ask you, Christina,
just off the top, what are your thoughts of Eddie Murphy.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Well, I immediately think of the Donkey and Shrek, Yes,
but very funny and likable. Those are my thoughts on
Eddie Murphy.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
The Donkey and Shrew is exactly where I thought you
were gonna go.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
What about you?
Speaker 3 (01:03):
U k t one of the greatest of all time
nutting professor doctor Doolittle.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Yep, I knew that you would bring those up. He's
the dragon in Mulan as well. Yeah, oh he is.
I don't think I knew that.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Yeah, okay, have you guys seen Being Eddie Murphy?
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Yes, you've seen it on Netflix? Have you seen it?
What did you think of it?
Speaker 3 (01:25):
I loved it. It was very fun. It was like, yeah,
it was just fun.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Yeah it was.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
It's a documentary about Eddie Murphy.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
But it's one of those.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Where it's definitely an Eddie is great propaganda piece, you know,
which I'm perfectly okay with. I'm perfectly fine with it
for me, And this is where I was really interested
what Kat thought about this, because he is so Saturday
Night lived up. But for me, Eddie Murphy was one
(01:55):
of the first like rock star caliber humans in my
life because Eddie Murphy went on Saturday Night Live when
I was probably ten, and I was a kid that
when I was seven or eight, my parents would let
me stay up late on Saturday Night and I did
watch the original cast towards the back end, and specifically
(02:19):
I worshiped at the altar of Steve Martin when I
was a kid, because you can imagine I don't know
if you I saw the Steve Martin documentary, but you know,
the arrow through the head, you know, and then making
jokes about cats. I mean, it's stuffed that an eight
year old thinks was amazing, right, and he was the
wild and crazy guy. So I went from worshiping Steve
Martin to worshiping Eddie Murphy because he was amazing on
(02:45):
Saturday Night Live. And then they even talk about this
in the documentary. Have you ever seen forty eight Hours?
Speaker 2 (02:50):
No? No, have you seen it? No? Okay, they talked
with him.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
It's him and Nick Nolty and it's the first movie
that Eddie Murphy was in.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Okay, and I can't they.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
I think the documentary does a good job because I
have very I mean borderline visceral memories of this stuff
as a kid. I've told you guys this, If my
dad wanted to see a movie, I would go with him.
So if we were if he wanted to go see
an X rated movie, which he didn't, he would.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Have taken me in.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
I mean I saw a lot of adult films when
I was ten, eleven, and twelve years old, like big
time adult stuff, and he took me to go see
forty eight Hours. And I'm telling you it was like
you wanted to explode out of your seat.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
It was.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
It was it was such a like I'm telling you,
it's a rock star turn. There was nothing like it.
And they talk about this scene and I remember being
in the theater and watching this scene and the way
it made me feel. When Eddie Murphy, the premise of
forty eight Hours is he's a convict. Nick Nolty needs
to solve a crime, so they let him take this
(03:56):
convict out of prison for forty eight hours to be
a sidekick. And there's there's a scene where Nick Nolty
and Eddie Murphy go into a redneck bar and Eddie
Murphy just takes over. Yes, and it's one of the
greatest scenes in the history of movies. Like that's no
hyperbole because you have to contextualize it as this is
(04:16):
nineteen eighty two. The idea that a black guy was
going to be this big of an all across the
board star you did have Michael Jackson was starting to happen,
and Prince was starting to happen, but you didn't have
any movie stars that were black guys. Richard pryor kind of,
but it was different. This is like I would equate
(04:37):
Eddie Murphy in nineteen eighty two to I'm trying to think,
who is the biggest young star in Hollywood. Leonardo DiCaprio
during the Titanic, when Leonardo DiCaprio was everywhere during Titanic.
That's what Eddie Murphy was in nineteen eighty two, except
it was a black dude and there was just never
anything like that. And so they do a good job
(04:58):
of laying this out as someone that grew up with
that and bought Eddie Murphy records. And man, I had
a friend that got to go to see Eddie Murphy
in concert when we were seventh graders. He was the
coolest kid in school because it was like.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
You got to see Eddie Murphy.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
And so that was the thing. It's really hard to
describe how huge he was. And then Beverly Hills Cop
came out he was even bigger.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
Well, and they get in there and start using guys
like Chappelle to help explain that too.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Yeah, really was really good.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
Seinfeld even yeah, you know, I'm not like a huge
fan of or whatever, but like those guys who were
titans of the industry talking about him and how he
was different. And then also I think when they when
they went through all of it and talked about him
not having not messing around with drugs or anything. But
you know how Rick James and how shocked they were
though he didn't. They were like so many people have
(05:50):
been ruined and he never did.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
I didn't necessarily know that, you know, I assumed that
he partied a little bit, but I knew that he
had it under control. But no, I mean, he is
around people doing coke and he would just leave the room.
He said he didn't smoke a joint until he was thirty.
I keep in mind he was on Sara Knot Live
at the age of eighteen. Unbelievable, and that show does
not exist without him. No, no, no, it would have
(06:13):
gone away.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
It would have.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
It would have because Lorne Michaels had left. They brought
in the new cast and the show was not good.
Eddie Murphy just saved it. And then they get into
Eddie Murphy being a strained from Sara nat Live.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
But it's it's good.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
I think it's one of the rare things that I'm
in my fifties, So if you're my age, you know
you lived it. You guys are in your thirties and
y'all are the Shrek generation. So I think it's one
of those things that works for everybody.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
I mean generation. Yeah, but I think we're older than
the Shrek generation are.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
Yeahah, I think people five or six younger, you know,
five or six years younger than us.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
My little brother okay got me as my wife. So
for you more nutty professor and doctor dude for me
because that was way like you were saying, eight years old.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Yeah, and it's far.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
I mean, the hardest I've ever laughed in the theater
is the Nutty perf us or dinner scene.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Yeah, it's unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
And they get into why he's the only kind of
genius that could pull that off. It's it's really it's
a puff piece.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
It's fun though.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
It's fun. It's on Netflix. It's not being Eddie or
being Eddie Murphy. Yeah, something like that. And it's like
an hour and thirty minutes minutes. It's great. It is
a nice uh. It's a nice way to look at
pop culture of the last forty years through the.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Lens of Eddie Murphy.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
All right, coming up next in the Hollywood Shuffle, speaking
of rock stars, who did it big time? Halftime of
the Thanksgiving Games will break it down next, right, here
on the Eagle
Skin Show ninety seven point one The Eagle. We are
back in the fold. Big Ben will be back tomorrow.
Coming up at the bottom of the hour. In the
Hollywood Shuffle, Let's talk about some of these acts we
saw during halftime of the football games on Thanksgiving. One
guy absolutely shredded. We'll talk about all that, but right
now it's time for this.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Track, another edition of traffic. All right.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
I love these kinds of things talking about them with
you guys, because whenever there's an icon of my life,
he might also be an icon to you guys for
very different reasons. And I think I know how you
guys will react to this, But I want to ask you, Christina,
just off the top, what are your thoughts of Eddie Murphy.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Well, I immediately think of the Donkey and Shrek, Yes,
but very funny and likable. Those are my thoughts on
Eddie Murphy.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
The Donkey and Shrew is exactly where I thought you
were gonna go.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
What about you?
Speaker 3 (01:03):
U k t one of the greatest of all time
nutting professor doctor Doolittle.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Yep, I knew that you would bring those up. He's
the dragon in Mulan as well. Yeah, oh he is.
I don't think I knew that.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Yeah, okay, have you guys seen Being Eddie Murphy?
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Yes, you've seen it on Netflix? Have you seen it?
What did you think of it?
Speaker 3 (01:25):
I loved it. It was very fun. It was like, yeah,
it was just fun.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Yeah it was.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
It's a documentary about Eddie Murphy.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
But it's one of those.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Where it's definitely an Eddie is great propaganda piece, you know,
which I'm perfectly okay with. I'm perfectly fine with it
for me, And this is where I was really interested
what Kat thought about this, because he is so Saturday
Night lived up. But for me, Eddie Murphy was one
(01:55):
of the first like rock star caliber humans in my
life because Eddie Murphy went on Saturday Night Live when
I was probably ten, and I was a kid that
when I was seven or eight, my parents would let
me stay up late on Saturday Night and I did
watch the original cast towards the back end, and specifically
(02:19):
I worshiped at the altar of Steve Martin when I
was a kid, because you can imagine I don't know
if you I saw the Steve Martin documentary, but you know,
the arrow through the head, you know, and then making
jokes about cats. I mean, it's stuffed that an eight
year old thinks was amazing, right, and he was the
wild and crazy guy. So I went from worshiping Steve
Martin to worshiping Eddie Murphy because he was amazing on
(02:45):
Saturday Night Live. And then they even talk about this
in the documentary. Have you ever seen forty eight Hours?
Speaker 2 (02:50):
No? No, have you seen it? No? Okay, they talked
with him.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
It's him and Nick Nolty and it's the first movie
that Eddie Murphy was in.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Okay, and I can't they.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
I think the documentary does a good job because I
have very I mean borderline visceral memories of this stuff
as a kid. I've told you guys this, If my
dad wanted to see a movie, I would go with him.
So if we were if he wanted to go see
an X rated movie, which he didn't, he would.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Have taken me in.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
I mean I saw a lot of adult films when
I was ten, eleven, and twelve years old, like big
time adult stuff, and he took me to go see
forty eight Hours. And I'm telling you it was like
you wanted to explode out of your seat.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
It was.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
It was it was such a like I'm telling you,
it's a rock star turn. There was nothing like it.
And they talk about this scene and I remember being
in the theater and watching this scene and the way
it made me feel. When Eddie Murphy, the premise of
forty eight Hours is he's a convict. Nick Nolty needs
to solve a crime, so they let him take this
(03:56):
convict out of prison for forty eight hours to be
a sidekick. And there's there's a scene where Nick Nolty
and Eddie Murphy go into a redneck bar and Eddie
Murphy just takes over. Yes, and it's one of the
greatest scenes in the history of movies. Like that's no
hyperbole because you have to contextualize it as this is
(04:16):
nineteen eighty two. The idea that a black guy was
going to be this big of an all across the
board star you did have Michael Jackson was starting to happen,
and Prince was starting to happen, but you didn't have
any movie stars that were black guys. Richard pryor kind of,
but it was different. This is like I would equate
(04:37):
Eddie Murphy in nineteen eighty two to I'm trying to think,
who is the biggest young star in Hollywood. Leonardo DiCaprio
during the Titanic, when Leonardo DiCaprio was everywhere during Titanic.
That's what Eddie Murphy was in nineteen eighty two, except
it was a black dude and there was just never
anything like that. And so they do a good job
(04:58):
of laying this out as someone that grew up with
that and bought Eddie Murphy records. And man, I had
a friend that got to go to see Eddie Murphy
in concert when we were seventh graders. He was the
coolest kid in school because it was like.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
You got to see Eddie Murphy.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
And so that was the thing. It's really hard to
describe how huge he was. And then Beverly Hills Cop
came out he was even bigger.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
Well, and they get in there and start using guys
like Chappelle to help explain that too.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Yeah, really was really good.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
Seinfeld even yeah, you know, I'm not like a huge
fan of or whatever, but like those guys who were
titans of the industry talking about him and how he
was different. And then also I think when they when
they went through all of it and talked about him
not having not messing around with drugs or anything. But
you know how Rick James and how shocked they were
though he didn't. They were like so many people have
(05:50):
been ruined and he never did.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
I didn't necessarily know that, you know, I assumed that
he partied a little bit, but I knew that he
had it under control. But no, I mean, he is
around people doing coke and he would just leave the room.
He said he didn't smoke a joint until he was thirty.
I keep in mind he was on Sara Knot Live
at the age of eighteen. Unbelievable, and that show does
not exist without him. No, no, no, it would have
(06:13):
gone away.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
It would have.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
It would have because Lorne Michaels had left. They brought
in the new cast and the show was not good.
Eddie Murphy just saved it. And then they get into
Eddie Murphy being a strained from Sara nat Live.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
But it's it's good.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
I think it's one of the rare things that I'm
in my fifties, So if you're my age, you know
you lived it. You guys are in your thirties and
y'all are the Shrek generation. So I think it's one
of those things that works for everybody.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
I mean generation. Yeah, but I think we're older than
the Shrek generation are.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
Yeahah, I think people five or six younger, you know,
five or six years younger than us.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
My little brother okay got me as my wife. So
for you more nutty professor and doctor dude for me
because that was way like you were saying, eight years old.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Yeah, and it's far.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
I mean, the hardest I've ever laughed in the theater
is the Nutty perf us or dinner scene.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Yeah, it's unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
And they get into why he's the only kind of
genius that could pull that off. It's it's really it's
a puff piece.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
It's fun though.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
It's fun. It's on Netflix. It's not being Eddie or
being Eddie Murphy. Yeah, something like that. And it's like
an hour and thirty minutes minutes. It's great. It is
a nice uh. It's a nice way to look at
pop culture of the last forty years through the.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Lens of Eddie Murphy.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
All right, coming up next in the Hollywood Shuffle, speaking
of rock stars, who did it big time? Halftime of
the Thanksgiving Games will break it down next, right, here
on the Eagle
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