Eddie Murphy’s Triumphant Return To ‘SNL’ Included A Hilarious ‘Mister Robinson’ Sketch About Gentrification

HOST: Eddie Murphy
MUSICAL GUEST: Lizzo
EPISODE: SNL Season 45, Episode 10
DATE: December 21, 2019

BIG PICTURE: Well, this was the one everybody was waiting for, the return of Eddie Murphy, and unsurprisingly, the guest star roster was off the charts. This was an SNL occasion, and the heft of it was felt throughout the episode.

But first, the cold open dealt with this week’s Democratic debates, bringing back Fred Armisen as Michael Bloomberg – who bought his way onto the debate stage by purchasing PBS, now owned by “viewers like me” – Maya Rudolph dropping some Lizzo, the episode’s musical guest, as Kamala Harris crashing the event, Larry David kvetching his way through Bernie Sanders, Rachel Dratch working the hair flip as Amy Klobuchar, and Jason Sudeikis returning to his rightful place as SNL’s one true Joe Biden, telling grandpa tales about characters like “Old Black Charlie.” 

Then, Murphy got a few stars to share the stage with him during his monologue. Overall, a strong episode boosted by the excitement over Murphy’s return, which found him bringing back several of his classic SNL characters and also accidentally saying “shit” on live TV.

MONOLOGUE/HOST: Tonight was all about Murphy, already having a great year with the excellent Dolemite Is My Name placing him in the Oscar conversation, and the sequel to his classic Coming to America on the way. 

In the monologue, Murphy talked about his 10 kids – “11 if you count Kevin Hart” – and scored a measure of revenge against Bill Cosby, who used to publicly scold him for using filthy language on stage. “If you would have told me 30 years ago that I would be this boring, stay-at-home house dad and Bill Cosby would be in jail, even I would have took that bet,” he said, before launching into a Cosby impression with, “Who is America’s dad now?”

Then, Murphy was joined by Tracy Morgan, Chris Rock, and Dave Chappelle, all supposedly there to follow up on pitched sketches, but really to lend their star power to the moment. “I wouldn’t have missed this for the world – my kids love Lizzo,” said Rock. Murphy even called out the manufactured scene when Chappelle came out, saying, somewhat sarcastically, “What a moment we’re having.” While his tongue was firmly in cheek, he wasn’t wrong. Chappelle noted that he followed Murphy’s blueprint his entire career. “I became the biggest star in television, then I quit,” he said before lighting a cigarette on stage.

Murphy’s returning characters included his Mr. Rogers parody  Mister Robinson, now facing gentrification, which he described as being like a magic trick: “White people pay a lot of money, and then poof, all of the black people are gone.” And, his word of the day was “Squatter’s Rights.”

Buckwheat returned as a contestant on The Masked Singer, dressed like a corn cob and dropping hit songs like “Dine, Teal, Dawibba,” (“Signed, Sealed, Delivered”), “I Chot Da Chariff,” and a spirited version of Beyonce’s “Tinga Nadies” (Single Ladies).

Murphy also brought back Velvet Jones in “Black Jeopardy,” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwX8B52YXK0) and Gumby, grumpy as ever, at the Weekend Update desk.

His returning characters all brought the charm – or, in Gumby’s case, the anti-charm – we remember from Murphy’s early days on the show. He also dove into other parts, including the horrible cake maker whose reality show submission of a Sonic The Hedgehog cake comes alive, has teeth, and might be a demon from hell – this is also where Murphy said to his talking cake, “We can still win this shit,” before quickly realizing his mistake – and a dad on Christmas, in a filmed piece, toasting his family as being a true blessing while we then see the truth of the family discord that led to the moment.

WEEKEND UPDATE: The week’s Eddie Murphy energy carried over to Weekend Update, where Murphy brought Gumby to the desk, angry at not being in the episode until the midpoint. Murphy broke a bit after calling Michael Che a “black bastard,” and said, “I am Gumby,” or, “I’m Gumby, dammit,” around 10 times.

Pete Davidson also hit the desk to talk about his life right now, mixing self-deprecation with complaints about the scrutiny he faces for the women he dates. “It’s not fair, Colin. You get to date a famous woman and everyone’s delighted,” he said to Jost, fiancee of last week’s host, Scarlett Johansson. “But when I do it, the world wants to punch me in the throat.” Seeing a dismal post-SNL future for himself as Daniel Tosh’s successor and alluding to a upcoming real-life stint in rehab, he also noted by the end, “I can’t believe you let me do this during the Eddie Murphy episode. So many fans being reminded why they stopped watching.”

Jost clearly had more fun this segment than any this season, full-on cracking up and almost losing it completely after Murphy stayed longer than expected as Gumby. He and Che then did their annual joke swap, where each wrote indicting jokes for the other to tell on the air, with neither seeing their jokes until the moment they say them and Che working overtime to portray Jost as racist.

Then, Cecily Strong brought out her Jeanine Pirro, who was so shocked when Jost told her how most Americans supported impeachment that she vomited wine all over him, causing him to absolutely lose it.

THE 10 TO 1 SLOT: A North Pole News special report turned on a fire at Santa’s Workshop. Murphy was funny as an over-stimulated elf who reports that a polar bear got into the workshop. “Bears was popping elves in their mouth like Skittles – pointed shoes and all!” he screamed. #SantaKnew

That’s it for SNL in 2019. The show returns on January 25 with host Adam Driver and musical guest Halsey. Happy holidays!

Larry Getlen is the author of the book Conversations with Carlin. Follow him on Twitter at@larrygetlen.

Stream SNL Season 45 Episode 10 with host Eddie Murphy on YouTube