#7. Eddie Murphy
Era: 1980-1984
150 points on 9 of 10 lists - Highest Ranking: #3 (George Harrison, Compound)
Most Memorable Characters: Mr. Robinson, Gumby, Buckwheat, James Brown in the Hot tub The first time I saw Eddie was on some Cable TV stand-up comedy contest series. His act was amazing, but he failed to make it to the next round. Later, when I saw that he had popped up on SNL, my first thought was that they had just found lighting in a bottle. Strangely, he was at first, not a featured player during Jean Doumanian’s brief reign as the top dog (She took over after Lorne left). When Murphy was given the spotlight -like in that uproarious Update bit about Lincoln’s birthday- he displayed a talent that set him above and beyond everyone else in the cast. Dick Ebersol took over from Jean the next season and wisely put Murphy front and center - and fans were rewarded with razor sharp sketches, memorable characters and timeless catch phrases.
Yes, there were other gems in those Ebersol years (see Tim Kazurinsky a few pages back) but Eddie was the shows superstar. The straw that stirred the drink
Eddie received 3 Emmy nominations while on the show, but surprisingly never won.
Paste Magazine ranked him #1 and said…
Eddie Murphy literally saved
SNL. He arrived at the lowest point in its history, when its ratings and reviews were both disastrous, and almost single-handedly made people care about the show again. He hosted while he was still a regular, for crying out loud. No
SNL cast member has ever been as huge while they were on the show as Murphy, and it seems unlikely anyone ever will. He was responsible for some of the show’s most enduring and beloved characters and impressions, from Gumby to Stevie Wonder, and his Mr. Robinson’s Neighborhood legitimately might be the best and most subversive thing the show’s ever done in its four decades. The concept of that sketch is so dark and depressing but Murphy is keenly aware of how to confront racism and society’s indifference towards inner city poverty in a way that’s both challenging and hilarious. It can be hard to understand how vital he is to
SNL’s history, and how electric of a performer he was, if you weren’t around at the time, but it’s not an overstatement to say that no cast member since has come close to dominating the show and mainstream pop culture as thoroughly as Eddie Murphy did.
Rolling Stone ranked him #2 and said…
It's customary (and accurate) to say Eddie Murphy is the only reason SNL survived the five-year wilderness without Lorne Michaels. Nobody had seen anything like him. He stood out from anyone else on TV, mostly by being so young — he was the first post-boomer comedy star, a kid born in the Sixties and down with the Eighties. He mocked SNL's racial hang-ups (which isn't to say he made them go away). Murphy could make any moment memorable — the shooting of Buckwheat, the boiling of Larry the Lobster, the C-I-L-L-ing of his landlord. But he was funny just standing still, as in the classic Tootsie sketch that basically consisted of Gary Kroeger putting makeup on Murphy. He knew how to stare into a TV camera like he owned it.
Mr. Robinson’s Neighborhood…
http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/mr-robinsons-neighborhood/n9117