Eddie Murphy Was on Stage During ‘SNL’s Most Controversial Musical Performance
While Saturday Night Live’s 50th anniversary celebration seems to mainly consist of self-congratulatory TV specials and useless merchandise (including a $96 scented candle that presumably smells like cocaine and wig glue), one piece of SNL 50 content actually sounds promising.
Ladies & Gentlemen... 50 Years of SNL Music is a nearly three-hour documentary about the show’s musical history that was co-directed by Questlove. In addition to fronting The Roots and putting up with Jimmy Fallon on a nightly basis, Questlove is an Oscar-winning filmmaker — he took home the Best Documentary Oscar for Summer of Soul, which a lot of people might forget about because it happened just moments after the slap.
The documentary doesn’t come out until next week, but Questlove recently spoke to The New York Times and revealed that one of the most infamous moments in SNL music history secretly featured one of the show’s biggest stars.
This article not your thing? Try these...
When asked about the biggest surprises that he encountered while making the film, Questlove noted that “the Fear story was one that I wanted to know about forever.”
As long-time SNL fans will no doubt remember, in 1981, John Belushi, who had left the show in 1979, convinced producer Dick Ebersol to book his favorite punk band Fear. Reportedly, Belushi felt bad that their musical collaboration for the movie Neighbors was ultimately rejected by the studio.
Appropriately enough, the Fear episode aired on October 31st. Even more appropriately, the host that night was Donald Pleasance, who, of course, starred in the Halloween movies as Dr. Loomis, aka the only mental health professional who thinks that “pure evil” is a legitimate diagnosis. Producers likely weren’t all that proud of their musical guest that week. Fear wasn’t even mentioned during the promo, which featured Pleasance, Eddie Murphy and Chevy Chase lurking behind them for some reason.
Belushi was there for the episode, too, popping up during the cold open while Pleasance was in a men’s room stall vomiting “for luck.”
Fear’s performance was a tad rowdy. Thanks to Belushi’s imported audience of hardcore punk fans, Studio 8H truly felt like a urine-soaked hole-in-the wall. When one of the band members seemingly dropped an F-bomb, NBC cut away from the performance (Ebersol had prepared a pre-taped Murphy sketch just in case) unbeknownst to Fear. They ended up being permanently banned from SNL.
Despite the fact that Murphy inadvertently participated in the premature end of their televised set, Questlove nearly didn’t bring up this episode while interviewing him. “I wasn’t even going to ask him about Fear,” he told The Times. “We were going to wrap, and I was like, ‘Wait, were you there for that Fear performance?’” He’s like, ‘Hell, yeah, I was there — I was onstage with them!’”
Wait, what? Eddie Murphy was on the stage? Looking at the blurry YouTube videos of the chaotic set, Murphy’s tougher to find than Waldo. The mosh pit frequently spills onto the stage — was one of those guys really the future star of Norbit?
Amazingly, Questlove claims that they did indeed verify Murphy’s claim: “With a fine-toothed comb, we found him.”
That guy really does like to party all the time.