Eddie Murphy

Cast member Eddie Murphy hosted 'Saturday Night Live' on Dec. 11, 1982.

(They’d go on to write future Murphy movie vehicles from Coming to America to Boomerang to the Nutty Professor films.) That said, Murphy clearly relished the attention as a young superstar in New York with everyone from movie studios to record labels clamoring for his talents. Murphy would leave SNL right before the film’s release, returning to host the Dec. Kazurinsky admiringly called the young Murphy “a mensch,” in how he tried to guard against being so overused. He urged Ebersol and the writers to include them in sketches, even when Ebersol was dedicated to flooding the show with as much Murphy as possible. So the risk wasn’t that Murphy couldn’t handle hosting a show he was already essentially carrying on his back. Robinson](https://ultimateclassicrock.com/eddie-murphy-mr-robinsons-neighborhood-snl/), the convict-poet Tyrone Green, among many others) and innate charisma and comic fearlessness made Murphy more than just a fan favorite. host the show – and, dammit, you’re gonna see it,” Murphy said to the crowd’s whooping delight. “I know you folks tuned in to see one of the stars of 48 Hrs. Then Nolte reportedly partyed so hard in the week leading up to the show that he called then-producer Dick Ebersol on the Tuesday before airdate to beg off of the already-announced engagement. poster on the wall behind him, the then 21-year-old Murphy told the cheering audience that his screen partner had suddenly taken ill upon landing in New York: “He vomited on my shirt,” Murphy confessed. Various reports that Nolte was spotted celebrating at Studio 54 might have been in keeping with the infamously troubled actor’s unpredictable reputation, but it left Ebersol and NBC with just days to come up with a suitable replacement.