Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee (2012–…): Season 11, Episode 1 - Eddie Murphy - full transcript

This is gonna be
a very special day today.

Today we are driving
the 2004 Porsche Carrera GT.

There are things,
there are special things.

And then there is this thing.

It was introduced to the public
in the year 2000

on a rainy morning in Paris at 6:00 a.m.

It was originally intended to be
a race car for Le Mans,

but they decided not to do the race

and instead just kind of tame it down,
make it a streetcar.

That was a good, crazy idea.

Credit for the design and execution



goes to Porsche superstars
Grant Larson and Tony Hatter,

one from US, the other UK.

The similarity between great car design
and great comedy is in comedy,

when you have a great joke,
it has to be the exact perfect words,

each one in the exact right place.

I said, "What's the matter,
is there somebody else?"

She looked at me.
She said, "There must be."

Or it just doesn't quite work.

In car design, every line and shape

has to connect perfectly
with every other line and shape,

or it just doesn't look quite right.

This car looks quite right.

Most cars, like, have some good angles,
some not good angles.

This car, every way you look at it,



nothing cheesy, nothing juvenile,

trying too hard, "Please, like me."

It's just a perfect, mature, exciting,
beautiful shape.

These cars cost a lot when they were new,
cost a lot to maintain.

Is it worth it? Yeah, it's worth it!

Life's a pain in the ass, too.
Is that worth it?

The engine is a normally aspirated V10.
Not eight, not twelve. Ten!

But it's the sound of it.

-This engine starts or revs,

it's like ten mountain lions all clearing
their throat simultaneously...

...and then going,
"All right. Let's go kill something."

So many cool details.

The stick shift is made
of polished birchwood

to resemble the legendary 917 race car.

Why did they use birchwood?

It's lighter.

I need this car today

because it's one of the most special
Porsches of all time,

and I am going to visit with one
of the most special comedians of all time.

-Now, ladies and gentlemen...
- The legendary, spectacular,

thrillingly funny...

Eddie Murphy!

- you.

- Eddie Murphy and I both...
-Born in Brooklyn,

-then move out the Long Island.
-You move out the Long Island.

We started at the Comic Strip together
in Manhattan the exact same week,

-July of 1976.

We've had very different career paths,
but still a lot in common.

Here's a line up card
from a show Eddie and I did

at a Chinese restaurant in 1979.

Both of our names misspelled,

and now look at us.

Here we are, all grown up, a couple
of Long Island comedy gunslingers.

-I could not be more excited

to be hanging out with him today.

-Hey!

- Hey, man.
- 'Sup, man?

Would you mind
if I use the bathroom?

You got a take a one or two?

Two? God, I don't like that.
That is horrible.

I think you should come along
for this one.

On a very special
Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.

Come on, pee. Do you really have to pee?

Who pees as a joke?

-Wow. What is this? A Porsche?
-Yeah.

-Carrera GT.
-Ah.

This was one of their most exotic cars.

This car reminds me of you
because of the perfection.

-Ah.
-It's got perfection.

This car is together like you.

Yeah, man. Thank you.

- Have you had coffee yet today?
- No.

Do you like coffee?

-Yeah, I drink it everyday.
-Me too.

You must've been making people laugh

when you were a kid.

You know, the first time I heard
a group of people laughing,

I might have been, like...

like eight or nine.

We were on the bus...

coming from a McCarren Pool in Brooklyn.

And everybody that got off the bus,

I was kind of, like,
doing like what they sound like,

you know, and where they were going.

And everybody on the bus
was kind of laughing.

And they realized each time
they got off the bus,

I was gonna be doing it about them,

I realized
that the whole bus was laughing.

-That's the first time it was a group.
-Right.

And when I got off the bus, they clapped.

-Right.

And that's a big thing when you're a kid.

But I still wasn't going,
"I'm gonna be a comedian."

-No.
-I was just like,

I knew I could make
a group of people laugh.

I was once on a tour bus

and the tour guide got off,
and I took the microphone,

and I said,
"On your left, you have my right,

and on your right, you'll have my left."

I was a kind of a loner, though.

-I didn't have...
-Oh, really?

...a group of people
that I hung out with, yeah.

-Mostly, I was by myself.
-Wow!

Me too.

Long Island's a funny place.

-There's nothing to do there but be funny.
-Yeah.

Or accumulate experiences
that will one day be funny.

I like Long Island. It was nice
when I was living out there.

It was nice. Yeah, I liked it, too.

Yeah, at the time I thought everyone
was a idiot in Long Island.

A manager that I had found
in the Yellow Pages in...

in Levittown.

King Broder his name was.

-Yeah. I remember that guy. Yes, right!
-King Broder.

King Broder's actually
on Saturday Night Live.

I used to do a character called Gumby.

I remember Gumby.

And he's kind of loosely based

-on King Broder.
-Oh, yes.

I can buy this network.
I'm a very rich piece of gum, baby.

"Betty Rubble was a whore."

You know, "I ain't know Betty Rubble."

I never thought
I would be living in California.

-Really?
-Never.

-'Cause you had a place in Jersey.
-Yeah, for years.

I don't dislike it out here,
but I never thought I would live out here.

And how's it going?

-I'm cool with it. I like it.
-Yeah.

I won't be missing stuff.

It's kind of like, you know,

-whatever's in front of me.
-Right.

I don't do a lot of pining
for the old days and...

-Right.
-The good old days and that stuff.

-That's pretty--
-Well, that happens, uh...

It's kind of like..

That's very good.

A lot of people put a lot of work
into trying to get to that place.

Right now is the best it's ever been.
And it only gets better.

Raw, your special from '87,

it's so polished, it's so tight.

-And...
-My suit that I was wearing?

I can talk about the suit, too.

-I told you that's my biggest regret is...
-Yes.

...stopping.
Like, I used to just go and do it.

Right.

Stopping and letting that muscle atrophy.

-Yes.
-It's my only regret.

You don't like going up unless you really
have something on stage, you know?

-I wouldn't go out on tour without an act.
-Right.

The hardest thing about getting back
on stage again

-is when you don't have anything.
-Right.

I don't have any... anything.

That's like a... a scary thought.

Nobody could believe that you could be
on stage and not feel comfortable.

But you can.

-All comics are.
-Yeah.

Even when you got it all the way down,
that's part of it.

The times I've gotten on stage
and felt totally loose

with no energy
of being uncomfortable at all,

I-I would do shitty.

-Yeah, I wouldn't have as strong a set.
-You wouldn't have?

-No, that doesn't work if you--
-Right. Right.

You gotta have a little bit of...

-Yeah.
-"What if this shit doesn't...

What if they don't get all of this shit?"

I always do best
when I have a little bit of that.

I love that I don't know what's there
till I walk out.

I don't know if I'm gonna feel strong
or weak or...

Or how it's gonna be.

Then it got different. It got to where
when I was working out stuff,

it would be in the paper,
like, the next day.

They were on me too much
during the creative process.

I remember, uh,
Joan River's husband had died.

And I went up at the Comedy Store
and I did like some bit about, you know--

'Cause she used to do all these jokes
about Edgar, "Oh, this--"

-Yeah.
-He had committed suicide.

And I did some joke like,
"He got tired of all them Edgar jokes."

-Some shit I said that was...
-Right.

It wasn't cool.
And it was in the paper the next day.

And everyone was outraged and...

-Right.
-Joan was hurt.

And I was like,
"That wasn't even a bit yet."

When I first came to New York,

-you and Larry Miller...
-Yeah.

-...were the popular comics.
-Yes.

And everybody was
kind of like doing his cadence.

-Or your cadence.
-Right.

You were the most polished,
and you were funnier than everybody.

-And you were so smart.
-Oh, thank you. Thank you.

Like, you didn't wanna follow you

or George Wallace.

-That's right.
-He was so big.

"It's a crazy world!" I was like, "Shit."

Man.

-'Cause his presence was so big.
-Yes.

He's still big. And I'm still polished.

You know that you not doing stand-up
drives people crazy. You know that, right?

The last time I saw Don Rickles,

and, uh... Rickles was, like,
maybe a month or two

before he passed away,

and he just went on and on and on
like that.

-Like, "You have to do stand-up again.
-Really?

You have to..."
Just went on and on about it.

I was like, "Wow."

-I'm gonna do it again. It was just--
-Really?

Yeah, I just had to...

You know, everything has to...

be right.

I gotta get up there
and start working out.

Really?

I have to get up and work...
The only way you can get, like, an act

is I gotta go to clubs and work out.

I'm gonna do that again.

-You still gotta go to the comedy clubs.
-You still gotta go...

You could have your own club.

So you should buy the Comic Strip,
and I'll come work out there.

If you wanna do that, I'll do it.

I'll call it Jerry Seinfeld's Comic Strip.

How did you go about
coming up with your stuff back then?

Most stuff happens
when I'm talking to somebody,

and I'll say something,
and it'll be, "Oh, that's funny."

And I'll write down what I said.

Usually, from conversations.

You want some water?

-You got water in here?
-No.

-There's a lot of homeless out here.
-Yeah.

I can't use this, but...

whenever you see homeless,

if you see more than one
and they're talking,

you realize

one of them is giving
the other one advice.

-You can use that.
-You can?

Yeah, you can say that.

What, you thought that'd be
too hard on the homeless?

-Yeah.
-Nah, that's a very funny joke.

'Cause any time two people talk,

one person's telling the other one
what to do. Right?

-Absolutely.

I'll tell you what you should do.
Here's what I've learned.

I think it's funny when someone
does a really bad movie

and then the poster's still up
for a few weeks.

Especially if you're smiling
in your poster,

if you're like this in the poster...

The movie came out, didn't do shit,
the poster still be up like...

And on television, the worst is, uh...

dance... dancing.

If you've got a show, whatever it is,

if you do anything like this... Dang!
They'll be like this, "This Wednesday..."

-They love to get moving and dancing.
-Yeah.

If you're dancing
on the bottom of the screen,

it's a bad show.

What do you do first thing
in the morning?

I, uh...

eat some, uh...

prunes...

Prunes and raisin bran.

Prunes and raisin bran?

Well, I know
what the rest of your day's like.

I'm totally-- I'm lazy.

I like, more than anything,
I like to be doing nothing

with my family and my kids.

-Oh, can you sit still now?
-Absolutely.

-Really?
-That's what I do mostly.

-Really?
-That's what I do mostly,

is just do nothing.

Doing nothing is my favorite dish.

And I mean, really nothing, like, uh,

don't watch the news and don't read...
Don't know who's... what's going on.

-Right.
-Totally, like, disconnect.

When you go out, do you ever think about,
"I can't wear these shoes

'cause I might get into a fight.

I want traction, I don't wanna be able
to slip around.

I'm ready, I'm always ready. I'm ready.

Just want you to know I'm ready.

You know, if it comes to that,
I'm ready for that.

I still have it within me to go there."

I am so happy to see you.

I... I love you so much.

And always have. Always have.

Thanks.

Yeah, man.

You've just always been
the magical guy to me.

-You would just--
-I told you,

you were always the funniest.

-Oh, thank you, please.
-You were always the funniest.

When I started out,
you were the funniest one.

-Always.
-Hello.

Still.

Do you remember The Big Laugh Off of '78?

I was in The Big Laugh Off.

See, the South Queens basketball team
suddenly become undefeated.

I hope you had fun. I gotta go home.

I was there.

That's where I met Robert Klein.
That night.

'Cause I have that picture with him,
and I know it was at the Copa.

It's so cool to be able to say
you played the Copa.

-Yeah. Yeah.
-It just sounds really show business-y.

It's so cruel, these shows,

where they make people think,
"You've got it!"

You win the contest and you think,
"Okay, I won.

They have allowed me
into the entertainment industry."

No they haven't.

Yeah, you did well tonight, that's it.

- And what do watch?
-Have you ever watched the...

the little women, the little midgets...
the little people show?

I have not, but I've heard about it.

If you discriminate against them,
they're a minority.

-Yeah. You can't use the word "midget."
-I know that.

But I said, "Was there a meeting to decide
what are we gonna be called, then?

Did they have any other... names?"

-Uh, "petite-eo."
-No. You can't say "petite-eo."

-You can't say no shit like that.

-Nothing... none of that?
-Gotta get rid of that.

They'll be like,
"That's the same as saying "nigger.'"

Who did you look at
and went, "Oh, my God!"?

Richard was the first person that made me
think about being a comedian.

But Richard was the first one where...

It was an album that came out in '75
called That Nigger's Crazy.

-Right.
-That album...

I remember getting it and listening to it
over and over and over

-and over and over, like, by myself.
-Yeah.

-And all the time, just over and over.
-Yeah, yeah.

I was like that with Cosby's
Why Is There Air?

Why Is There Air? drove me crazy.

I wore it out.

Where's the first place
you remember standing on a stage?

At the youth center.
They had a talent contest.

I had a tape recorder, and I taped it.

And afterwards,
when I was listening to it,

it blew my mind 'cause it sounded
like one of the Richard albums.

Like, an album... It was like,
you could hear people laughing.

-Right.
-You could hear glass broke,

like somebody knocked something over.
Could hear all that.

-Oh, my God.
-And I was in from then.

You realize your memory is amazing?

I have a really good memory.

You remember the name of the Chinese
restaurant gig we did in Jersey?

The Jade Fountain.

-The Jade Fountain.
-That's crazy.

The Jade Fountain.
Do you remember that place?

-Yeah, vaguely.
-And the owner would say,

"Hey, let me put your picture up here.
I'll give you exposure.

Give me one of your pictures,
you'll get a lot of exposure."

Exposure in the lounge
of the Jade Fountain.

Okay, you're listening to the albums,

you're making your friends laugh,
you're building, like, a bridge.

It's like two cliffs to me, right?

You're building this bridge
from each side.

You keep listening, listening
to the album. "That bit is so funny."

It makes you laugh.
You can't believe this guy

can make you laugh over and over again.

And then you're making your friends laugh,
and then they meet.

And you get up on a stage and make people
that don't even know who you are laugh.

When I passed the audition
at the Comic Strip,

I had been working out on the island.

You gotta get off the island.

When I passed,
I was bragging to everybody,

"You gotta pay five dollars
to hear me now."

The cover charge was five dollars
at the Comic Strip.

-Even though you wasn't getting paid?
-Yeah.

"So, you gotta pay five dollars
to get me."

-Yeah.
-"I get nothing.

-But you gotta pay to see me."
-Yeah.

The place was Catch.

-Catch.
-That was the room you wanted to be in.

That... that was the place.

-Freddie Prinze and all those guys.
-Yeah. Rodney and Brenner.

-That's where they went.
-Yeah, so you really felt like,

that room really had that.

Like, look who had been discovered there.

The most fun I've ever had working
on a movie was with John Landis.

He's funny, and he directs you.

Like, he actually was saying,

-"Say it like this, and do this..."
-Right.

See, you can say that to a comic.
You can't say that to an actor.

-What's that?
-"Say it like this."

-Yeah, he would say that to--
-Comics don't care.

-Just tell me how to say it.
-Yeah.

Then it started feeling more like work.

-Well, because the money gets bigger.
-Yeah--

And the fun gets smaller.
That's the problem.

Comedy and money, to me,
are antithetical.

'Cause one of the things that makes things
funny is when you don't have any money.

I feel like when you add money
to a project,

you're tampering with the comedy.

'Cause all of a sudden,
we're building big things,

taking time... taking the fun out of it.

And with a little pressure.

Yeah. Little pressure, little cheap,
little sloppy.

Pressure. Like I said,
when you get ready to go on stage,

-and you just feel like--
-Right, that little edge.

-You gotta... That's crucial.
-Yeah.

The worst I ever did, ever,
I did a jazz club

out on... in Queens.

And my Dad had to drive me to the gig.

And I bombed horribly.

And I was supposed to have enough money
to get a cab back home,

and I did so bad that the guy
wouldn't pay me.

-Oh, my God.

Gerald's.

-I was supposed to get 50 bucks, right?
-Oh, my God. Right.

So, I was supposed to do two shows.
I go on, he says,

"Yeah, you gonna do one set,
and then, uh...

then the band's gonna come on.

Then you have a break.

Then, you know, you come on again."
I was like, "Okay."

So, I go on,

and I was so bad.

And there was no dressing room.

So I bombed, then afterwards,
you had to go sit in the room

with the people you just bombed with.

You're sitting there, people are
walking by going, "Oh, shit, dude."

I'm, like, 17.

Then they'd say, "We're gonna bring
that comedian back."

And you would hear people go, "Oh, shit!"

And then, afterwards,
I'd go up to Gerald...

He was a grown man, too.

It was really mean to be like this to me.

I went up, I was like, "Yes, I was
supposed to get $50 for the night."

He turned around and said, "You better
get the out of my face."

Then my father had to drive out to Queens
at two in the morning and drive me back.

"Oh, you a comedian, huh? Comedian...
Now, you gonna get you a job!

And you gonna get out
at nine in the morning,

and you come back after five,
comedian!

Comedian my ass!"

-I'm a careful man.
-Yes, you are.

But not in your comedy.

You were definitely a fearless comedian.

I wouldn't say I was fearless, though.

I wasn't just I'd just say anything,
though.

You too. You were really confident.

-Not like you.
-That's what you had... I'm telling you.

You were the first comic
that seemed like you knew it.

Like, you got it
and you seemed like you had--

Well, if I did, that was just me
acting like that,

'cause I know that's what works.
But to me, when I watched you...

I thought,
"This guy's not scared of anything."

Nothing is more fun...

-than seeing someone you know bomb...
-Yes, yes.

And them knowing you're in the audience
and watching them.

And it also...

it makes the experience more fun
for the comic that's... that's on stage.

At any time I'm dying,

and it's somebody in the back,
that knowing laugh,

-that always makes it easier to bomb.
-Right.

When was the last time
you had to use Raid?

- It's been a while.

And, by the way, I'm not interested
in any other brands. It's Raid.

-D-CON works, too.
-Forget d-CON.

All these companies that are
in second place, that they hang in there.

-Why don't you just quit?
-D-Con is in second.

Yes. Avis, Colgate... Just quit.

-RC Cola.
- RC Cola!

How sad is it to work at these places?
You're never gonna catch 'em.

Pepsi. You're never gonna catch 'em.

Did you ever have somebody come on stage?

Yeah, I had somebody come on stage once.
He was so formal.

"This young whippersnapper
stepped over the line.

You're a marvelous audience.
Thank you and good night."

Oh, my God.

Oh, and how we laughed on the way home.

We just laughed and laughed.

What people don't understand about us is,

there's nothing that's not funny to us.
Nothing.

All this careful thing that...

that's just...

for the audience and for the public.

Amongst ourselves,
we don't care about anything.

Somebody died, it's funny
two minutes after they died.

We see the joke...

-Yes.
-...in everything.

I've had people say to me,
"So-and-so died,"

and I went,
"Eh! That's enough of him anyway."

That's funny.

Now, Richard Pryor's kind of like,
"That's who I wanna be and whatnot."

But I also equally am fascinated with...

uh, Elvis.

-I had a big Elvis thing.
-Oh, right.

The suits and the way I was rollin'
with my bodyguards...

-Right.
-...and my house in Jersey kind of...

I bought it 'cause it reminded me
of Graceland.

-Oh.
-You know?

Elvis,

Richard Pryor,

Bruce Lee,

-and Muhammad Ali.
-Right.

I can see it. It's like a recipe.

I take those four guys,

I put them in a blender,
you come out.

-Right?

Tracy Morgan told me, uh...

What'd he say?

"Growin' up," he said,
"Yo, my three favorites was you,

Bruce Lee, and Evel Knievel."

I was like, 'Wow!"
Evel Knievel was the most.

-The most.
-Because he's... his body...

He's putting his body on the line,
and he never, ever lands it.

It's like, it seems like every jump...

And he's not even on a...
He's on a regular motorcycle...

-A regular motorcycle.
-...that he beefed up the springs on,

and it explodes on impact.

They didn't even measure out
what it could do.

-He just eyeballed it.
-To me, there's nobody like Evel Knievel.

"I look up to you, Evel Knievel,
and Bruce Lee."

But how could, like, those three guys
affect, like, one person?

'Cause they're all fearless.

I don't know if I think it's funny
you don't see yourself that way.

I don't see myself like Evel Knievel.

You are.

-Isn't this fun talking about today?
-Yeah, man.

Aren't we lucky to have grown up
in that time?

-Absolutely.
-The craziness.

We got to put time in to make something
happen, you know, that's worthwhile.

Now you got so many options. It's like,
it seems hard to focus on something.

-There's so many options.
-The lack of focus

is why we have a lack of greatness.

-Because everyone has so many options.
-So many options.

I've seen niche comics that

work a comedy club on a certain night
and they kill there,

then, you know, you kill on Wednesday,

but then a regular crowd's coming in
on Thursday,

and you can't even get a laugh.

-Right. Right.
-You just worked that niche.

And you don't think,
"I wanna be able to kill on Thursday."

You just say, " that. I'm just--
killing every Wednesday is enough."

More than anything,
I wanna kill all the time.

-Yeah.
-I would love to kill

and somebody had trouble
following you afterwards.

-Yeah, yeah.
-And it... And they, "All right!"

The audience is still clapping and it's,
"All right, all right...

Okay, now. One more time for so-and-so."

-I'd live for that.
-Oh, that's so great.

That's so funny that you thought
I was confident

and I thought you were confident.
That's funny.

We were both right.

We didn't have as much confidence
as the other one thought.

Right, that's right.
That's what so funny about it to me.

I went to go see a Prince concert.

And Prince is...

Like I thought he was
the most confident person ever.

Oh, sure.

And he said-- He had did this thing where
he was playing the piano in the show.

I was like, "That was so cool."
He was like, "Yeah, you know,

back when I was young I could never
let the whole audience leave. This..."

And it blew my mind
that he wasn't confident all the time.

I was like, "You got
on those high heel shoes,

and your ass is cut out your pants,
and you ain't confident?

You mean that you were nervous
when you had your ass cut out your pants

with those high heel pumps on?"

I thought... I was like, "That's
a fearless there!"

What about Barack Obama?

I think he's one of the most
confident people I've seen.

But I didn't see that
until he actually won, though.

'Cause I had gone to a couple
of fundraisers.

-Yeah.
-And I saw him at the fundraiser.

But I was like, "No way
this guy's gonna win.

He's... he's too skinny.

-Shit, I'll whip his ass in a fight."

-Did you see Mike Tyson's Broadway...
-No, I did not.

-It was shockingly good.
-I heard it was shockingly good.

He's my aesthetic role model.

No robe.

Hole in the towel.

No stool.

No logos on the shorts.

-Nothing pretentious, just coming out...
-No socks.

And the all-time best ring entrance music.

He would come out to one note.

Really?

One ominous note.
There's no song playing. It's like a...

♪ Dun ♪

For him to even come up with that...

You're the one that says,
"I want my music to be..."

For him to go, "Just give me one solid,
one solid note."

And that shit would make you feel like
the monster was coming in the room.

It was.

♪ Boom ♪

If you can make a living,
you know, making people laugh,

you won.

If they say, "I'm not ever paying you
another dime for you to do comedy again."

-You'd still go do comedy.
-Right.

It's just who you are.

Just who you are.

Those moments

you do the bit about women
who don't like what I'm saying right now,

and you just... and you flash
into the woman's persona.

With an attitude.

"Eddie!

Eddie!

I want to talk to you!"

"What's your problem, baby?"

"I don't like the way
you treat me, Eddie!

You treat me like animal!"

"You was butt naked on a zebra
last month."

"I don't care, Eddie.
I'm American woman now!

I want what's coming to me."

My favorite of those, two of those is
the first one with the red leather suit.

-Really?
-Yeah.

That one has bits...
Oh, that works forever.

-That routine about the ice cream man...
-Right.

Ice Cream!

Ice Cream!

The ice cream man is coming!

The ice cream man is coming!

Mom!

Mom!

Throw out some money!

The ice cream man is coming!

♪ We want some ice cream ♪

♪ I'm going to eat all of
My ice cream ♪

♪ You cannot have some
You can't ♪

I got to meet people like Sammy Davis
and that kind of shit, you know.

-They were still around.
-What was he like?

Just like you would expect him to be.

-Cool. He was a hepcat, right?
-Just like he is all the time.

You know what I realized about Sammy?
That was coke.

-The whole thing with the mouth like this.
-It was?

Think about it!
He's... The whole era is cocaine.

-I don't know anything about drugs.
-Sammy is like this,

-with that cocaine mouth.

Man, and the whole...

And the way he would laugh, "Ah-ha-ha,"
and hug and all that.

-He was totally coked up.
-Ah.

-That was all cocaine, man.

That was a cocaine thing.

Sammy told me he worshiped the devil.

We were in Dantanna's on...

that restaurant with all the pictures up.

Sammy was like, "You know,
Satan is as powerful as God."

And I was like, "What the
are you talking about?"

He said, "Why do you think
there's so much anger in the world,

and killing and murder? Satan..."

And he saw my reaction to it
and he kind of lightened up on it, but...

And he was like...
In Dantanna's it's dark and it's...

The candles on the table,
and Sammy's face over the candle.

You know, "Satan is as powerful as God."

What was the best car
you ever had in your life,

-that you loved the most?
-Uh...

A 1976 Camaro,

white with, uh, burgundy interior.

Never had any problem.

Didn't seem like I even
had to change the oil or anything.

Just put gas in it and just go.

-Do you like The Wizard of Oz?
-Oh, love The Wizard of Oz.

Planet of the Apes is The Wizard of Oz.

-It is?
-Movie starts off,

-she wants to go over the rainbow...
-Right.

...and Charlton Heston, he wants,

"There's gotta be something better
than man."

She gets hit on the head
and goes to sleep.

He takes his shot and he goes to sleep.

They wake up in a strange place.

She meets munchkins.
He meets monkeys.

And at the end,
you're home all the time! You are--

-Oh, my God. That's great.
-It's the same shit.

-You've been home all the time.
-You were always here.

-"Goddamn you all to hell!"

I love that "Goddamn you all to hell"
was as violent a thing

-as you could say in a movie. Right?
-"Oh, Goddamn you... all to hell!"

-The way he hit it, too.
-Oh, yeah.

He was born to say lines like that.

When they revealed the Statue of Liberty,
there was an audible, uh...

-Yeah.

-That sound.
-That was cool.

And then they gotta make
eight more of 'em.

They did Planet of the Apes,

uh, Beneath the Planet of the Apes,

Escape from the Planet of the Apes,

Conquest for the Planet of the Apes,

and Battle for the Planet of the Apes.

-Wow.
-And I was such an Ape maniac,

that I remember that they had
"Go Ape for a Day,"

in, uh, Hempstead, Long Island.

It was like they were gonna show
all five Ape movies back to back.

And, uh, I went by myself,
in the... in the morning,

-and I watched all those movies twice.

-Twice. I sat through...
-Wow!

...ten Ape movies,

and when I got out of the movies,
it was dark.

And I went home, and my mother gave me...

My last whippin' was because
I went on some Ape movie marathon.

So, there was Escape, there was Beneath...

The first is Planet of the Apes.

-Planet, Beneath.
-Then it's Beneath.

-Then it's Escape.
-Then it's Escape.

-Then it's Conquest.
-Then it's Conquest.

Then it's Battle.

Just keep putting different verbs in there
and we got another movie.

Apes with guns and horses
and their black leather.

And secrets.

-"It's the forbidden zone!"

Now, have you ever heard that at lunch
on Planet of the Apes...

All the apes would go--

-They would go with their apes.
-Yeah, that's interesting.

The orangutans would hang
with the orangutans.

Yeah.

-That makes sense.
-Totally.

Chimps have done such horrible stuff
since then.

I'm sure they were doing it
back then also, but we didn't know.

-Chimps ripping people's faces off.
-Oh, yeah, yeah.

When we were kids, apes were so cool,
'cause they looked like us...

We didn't know
they were ripping people's faces.

-No, we didn't know about that.
-Curious George.

Yeah, we didn't know he was curious
what your head looked like without a face.

"I'm just curious."

"Aah!"

Yeah, Michael Jackson
had his chimps.

When you would go to his house,
that Bubbles chimp,

-when it got to a certain age...
-Yeah.

...you couldn't with Bubbles.
He had Bubbles in a cage.

-Like, "Don't go near him."

"Don't go over there, Eddie."

Did you go to his house?

Yeah, a few times.

And the chimp would be, "Aah!"
Going crazy. "Is that Bubbles?"

And he said,
"Yes. Don't go near the cage."

"Really? I thought Bubbles was..."
"Mm-mm, don't go over there."

Who are these comics
that they have painted on the wall?

I don't know, but I better be one of 'em.

That looks like me.

Like, that could be me,
it could be someone else.

Could be. These are horrible, Eddie.

-These are the worst caricatures...
-Which one is you?

I don't know.

-I don't wanna be in this thing.

You're right about the smell.

It's really strong.

Well, it's that comedy club smell.
I think it's the... it's the bar,

and whatever's happening
at a chemical level.

And your body secretes, what is it?

-Endorphins, pheromones, or whatever.

That shit, a group of people
doing that in the room all the time...

-Right.
-...is gonna leave a smell.

-For years and years.
-Years and years.

It's different from a bar.

It's different from a bar.

-It's that other thing.
-It's like a bar and a living room

soaked in beer.

And a hint of piss, too.

A Hint of Piss is a good name
for a comedy club.

I remember on the weekend
I'd go to the early show

at the East Side Comedy Club.

Then I would get to the last spot
in the early show

at the, uh, Rainy Nighthouse.

Then I'd go to the Comic Strip
and do the first spot in the late show.

-Wow.
-And then drive back out to Long Island

and do a last spot in the late...
Do like five or six sets, you know.

Did you ever see Pryor get up
in a little club?

You know, I had a strange relationship
with Richard.

Back when I broke,

the town was still, like, doing
like a one black guy at a time thing.

And... so, when I showed up,
Richard kind of had this...

There was this feeling like,
"Oh, this is the new-- the new one is."

And Richard kind of felt threatened
like, "Oh, now..."

So, Richard would get weird. It'd be like,

if I found out Richard was gonna be
somewhere and we all went,

Richard would pull up and go like,
"Who's in there?"

And he'd be like, "Oh, so Eddie Murphy's
over there." He would leave.

-Really?
-Yeah, he'd be like,

not want to work out in front of me.
It was strange.

-Oh, man.
-And I just wanted to puppy dog him.

-I was just like...
-Yeah.

I found out all this out,
like, afterwards, that,

"Really, he would do that?"

He had a weird "I'm threatened"...

Like, there's a changing of the guards,

-or this new thing is gonna happen.
-Right, right.

That was the weirdness with Cosby as well
in the early days.

He thought I was this new thing,
and they felt threatened by it.

Yes. What's so funny to me,
when I think back on it,

how funny it was that he thought

he had the power to tell you to work
the way he wanted you to work.

-What crazy fantasy was that?
-That's just ego.

-Yeah.
-That ego.

-Yeah.

-'Cause, see, he...
-Remember that?

-I'm sure you remember that.
-It was his ego.

I even in the moment thought, "Is he
out of his mind, telling him how to work?

He's gonna work how he wants to work."

Because he did that,

you know, I was like...
That's one of things that makes...

He had a weird thing with me
that he didn't have with other comics,

'cause I've heard other people
tell stories about,

"Oh, I had this with him, and he said
this to me. He gave me this advice."

And the stuff that he said to me
was the exact opposite.

And it was mean, it was like...

I did this bit about...

Somebody heckled me and I said,
"Shut the up

-before I throw my wallet over there."
-Right.

And he called me up,

"You can't talk about how much money
you have on stage."

He's taking it out of context.

He was like, "Well, you know,
I don't come to see people's show.

And I know you like Richard."
And I was like, "Yeah..."

Then he told me,
"I'm in Atlantic City this weekend.

If you-- You should come and see
how it's supposed to be done.

-Oh, man.
-You shouldn't get on the stage

unless you have something to say."

-That's what he told me. I was like...
-Wow.

He wasn't nice.

He wasn't doing that with everybody.
He did that with me, specifically.

-Right.
-He was shitty with me.

Is that a homeless guy

-sitting in front of the Moustache Cafe?
-Yeah.

Wow. You got a lot of--

You know who homeless people
must have contempt for?

Campers.

It'd be like, "So, this is...
it's a joke to y'all.

-You just playing around. I'm out here."

"Oh, so you think it's fun
to hang outside."

"You're playing around, huh?
In your little tent, .

-I'm out here for real."

-Can you do that bit?
-Absolutely.

All right.

You can do that bit, and I'd get a kick
out of seeing you do that and being like,

"I gave him that bit."

I'd get such a kick out of it.

When I used to finish my sets
at the Comic Strip

and I would drive back out to Massapequa,
I'd put disco on.

You like disco?

I love disco.

It was always so positive and upbeat.

Don't rock the boat.

- Don't rock the boat, baby.

There was nothing like those sets, right?

-When it would go well?
-Nothing.

And then, three or four comics
would go to a diner...

-afterwards.
-Yeah.

And then, it's just...

-You laugh till your throat hurts.
-Yeah.

And I realize it was fun then, too.

It was not like, "Oh, yeah,
I didn't realize I was..."

Like, I realize
I was having a ball that night.

Right.

-'Cause once you've made somebody laugh...
-Yeah.

-...you've got 'em forever.
-Right.

-If you really made them laugh...
-Yeah.

...they always think you're funny.

So, why is it so... still so hard?

-I don't find--
-That's in your mind.

-It is in my mind.
-It's in your mind.

-It didn't feel that easy to me.
-It's hard because you--

You want to be good,

that's why you're a great comic.

'Cause you always wanna be good,
and you want it to be better.

-And you wanna get...
-Right.

So, that's in your mind,
where it's like, "Oh, the pressure and..."

But the audience is just happy to see you.

And I stopped doing it. That was one
of things that was shitty, me being

on stage and...

I think I might have even said like....

"I just could just stand here
and you guys would laugh it in."

And I remember I had times
where I just... I just stood there

-for, you know, ten minutes, and just...
-Right.

And they would laugh.

And you just stand there,
and they'd giggle again.

And then you'd make, like, a little face,
like, "Yah!"

And you literally could...
you literally could just stand there.

For the ones that really, really came out
to see you.

Yeah. Right, right.

There's no luckier person in show business
than the comedian.

You can make a living...

making people laugh.

I agree.

That's why I don't want any awards for it.

How many kids you got
living in this house?

-Three.
-Three.

That's nice.

Getting ready to be four.

-My other kids are grown-ups.
-Right.

In their 20s.

But is there anything better
than coming home and the kids are home?

-Nothing.
-Nothing.

But now, it's like,
the older kids have moved out.

But my house is like, uh...

the center of it all.
Everybody comes to the house.

-Right.
-They're always at the house.

-That's nice.
-Yeah, I love it.

And is that a Sunday thing?

Just... all the time.

-All the time?
-Yeah, my house is the...

The center of, you know,
our little world, is my house.

-It's the greatest.
-Yeah.

But once they're 15 or 16,
their social life takes off.

They're moving around, socializing.

-But when they move out, it's different.
-Oh, yeah?

Yeah, it's one thing
when they go and socialize

-and they always come back to you.
-Right.

-When they move out for real...
-Yeah.

...you just cry like...
Oh, you cry, cry like an old grandmother.

When they leave, you go in the room
and fall apart.

Hey, did you get that, uh...

-Mark Twain Award?
-No.

-You should get the Mark Twain--
-I don't want it.

You're my Mark Twain Award.

You and this car.

-People like that.
-Easy, Jerry Seinfeld.

Like, I'm gonna meet a couple of friends
of mine this afternoon.