Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Eddie Murphy: Raw’ On Hulu, Revisiting His Classic Comedy Concert Film From 1987

Remember when the most popular comedian in America was ostracized by the LGBTQ+ community and doubled down on his jokes about them? We’re not talking about Dave Chappelle in 2024, though. We’re throwing it back to 1987, and this classic concert film from Eddie Murphy when he was at the peak of his comedy powers. How does it hold up now?

EDDIE MURPHY: RAW: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Hulu is formally getting into the business of producing and releasing original stand-up comedy specials this fall, so this summer they’re ramping up interest by building up the streaming platform’s archives, and August brings in this iconic 1987 concert film from Eddie Murphy, which on an $8 million budget raked in more than $50 million at the box office (now well north of $138 million today, taking inflation into account) for Paramount Pictures. Eddie Murphy: Raw was the #1 movie in America when it opened the weekend before Christmas. And his Beverly Hills Cop II was the biggest box-office hit of the year.

The opening sketch and scenes filmed with fans outside Felt Forum (now called The Theater at Madison Square Garden) make clear both Murphy’s origin story as well as just how popular he was in the mid-1980s. One female fan tells the camera crew: “I’m looking forward to seeing him in that leather suit,” adding: “yeah, he’s looking sexy.” Other fans cite their favorite Murphy flicks from the decade, choosing 48 Hours, Beverly Hills Cop, Trading Places. One guy said: “I even liked Best Defense.”

But even before that, we’re shown that Murphy’s filthy sense of humor started young, in a sketch Murphy co-wrote with Keenen Ivory Wayans depicting the Murphy household celebrating Thanksgiving dinner in 1968. One of Murphy’s siblings sings “Why Do Fools Fall In Love,” then young Eddie stands before his relatives and acts out a joke in which a monkey pees, farts and poops on a lion’s head to prove how the monkey can control the weather. Little Eddie stands proud at the end, while his family sits in silence. Save for one uncle, played by a then-unknown Samuel L. Jackson, who claps and laughs: “I love that doo doo line. that boy’s got talent!”

What Comedy Specials Will It Remind You Of?: Imagine a comedian with the combined personality, charisma, acting and joke-telling chops of Dave Chappelle, Kevin Hart, AND Chris Rock. Murphy inspired them all with specials just like this.

Memorable Jokes: Somehow four decades later, many fans confuse Murphy’s leather suits. The fiery red suit he wore for his first special, Delirious. For Raw, he donned something a bit more purple with wide black stripes on the cuffs and down the middle.

Anyhow. The jokes!

Befitting someone of his immense stature and status in 1980s pop culture, Murphy opens by reflecting on the backlash he received from his previous special. “Every now and then I take a joke too far, I get in trouble,” he explained. Imagine that. “That’s why I haven’t been on the road the last few years.” Well, that and all of his hit movies in which he starred. He builds up bits wondering what would happen if some of the subjects of his Delirious jokes, including Mr. T and Michael Jackson, were to confront him in person. Murphy figured he could simply “Jedi Mind Trick” Mr. T to save his own hide.

One of his most famous bits at the time involved the reactions of the GOAT comics who came before him. Namely, Bill Cosby and Richard Pryor. How deftly Murphy juxtaposed getting reprimanded and lectured to by Cosby, with how Pryor had his back, complete with dead-on impersonations, also provides the two literal instances where Murphy references the title of this film. “Bill got raw with me,” he says at one point, then minutes later describing Pryor as “the rawest motherf—er in show business.”

And the opening flashback to 1968 comes into greater focus when Murphy cops to essentially doing his version of Pryor when he was a kid, even if he had no life experience yet. Which is somehow funnier when Murphy then acts out his teenage observations about poop as a 26-year-old.

There are bits that are solidly tied to the 1980s, too, considering how the AIDS epidemic impacted attitudes toward casual sex, citing Johnny Carson when Murphy dishes about the idea of giving away half of your income and assets in a divorce, and diving into a long story about a nightclub fight centered upon the premise of Italians in America feeling tougher thanks to the Rocky movies.

A bit about his mom making burgers not quite like McDonald’s involves act outs echoing his earlier famous bit about ice cream, while another bit in which his drunken dad sings mistaken lyrics to popular songs puts a fun coda for fans of his earlier SNL sketch having Buckwheat attempt to sing the hits.

Our Take: But of course, part of the fun and fascination of watching Raw in 2024 is the ability to reframe Murphy’s jokes in context of what we know now and how we feel about social and cultural issues and figures.

Take Murphy’s take on Michael Jackson, for one prime example. “My manager said you know, we don’t know everything about Michael Jackson. He might be this bad motherfucker behind closed doors,” Murphy quipped. “You know a recluse, behind closed doors, he might be completely different.” AHEM.

His beef with Bill Cosby similarly gets viewed even more in Murphy’s favor now.

How much did Murphy know back then about each of those two now disgraced pillars of pop culture, though?

Regardless, it can also feel like deja vu all over again, hearing Murphy’s brash put-downs of the gay community in light of how Chappelle more recently has done the same, neither of them ever really facing financial or cultural consequences for their perceived homophobia.

Murphy reminds those of you who might have forgotten that after his mockery of gays in Delirious, the LGBTQ+ community picketed and protested his gigs. But he wasn’t about to back down from using slurs to describe them, or impersonating them as party-goers staring him down, or as cops on “24/7 homo watch waiting for me at the airport.” The crowd laughs and whoops at every flamboyant act out. And Murphy cites Pryor in his defense, too, claiming Pryor told him in reference to Cosby’s criticism: “I don’t give a f—. Whatever the f— make the people laugh, say that s—,” Murphy says Pryor told him. “Do the people laugh when you say what you say?”

In retrospect, sometimes not all laughs are welcome equally.

Our Call: STREAM IT. This is a classic that somehow has only gained more relevance despite Murphy not touring as a stand-up for more than three decades now. And even if not all of it stands the test of time, there are plenty of phrases, asides, and act-outs that might make you, especially if you’re Gen-X or older who remembers watching Raw when it came out, just how many references and comedians alike can trace themselves back to Murphy.

Sean L. McCarthy works the comedy beat. He also podcasts half-hour episodes with comedians revealing origin stories: The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First.