Saturday Night Live Made History with Eddie Murphy

On December 22, 2019, Saturday Night Live made history!  That's right.  For the first time, the comedy TV show had more people of color in ONE EPISODE than its had since making its debut in 1975! Those of us who remember the early days of SNL only recall Garrett Morris as the "token" black and he wasn't really that funny (in my opinion). Then in comes Eddie Murphy, who showed us all what funny looked like from a talented young black man.  He introduced us to Mr. Robinson, Velvet Jones, Black Gumby, James Brown in a hot tub, Buckwheat, etc.  He also gave us great impressions of Stevie Wonder, (Little) Richard Simmons and Michael Jackson.

I was just starting my career as a radio journalist when Eddie made is debut. He always gave the morning DJ and me something to banter about after the news and he stayed true to form right from the beginning of his opening monologue on Saturday.  He had the audience rolling with his take on the state of the show since his departure.  He said, “This is the last episode of 2019, but if you're black, this is the first episode since I left in 1984.” And that was pretty much on point.  When Eddie left the show, it fell flat for me.  Several years later, they did bring in Chris Rock but the cast around him was lackluster (with the exception of Adam Sandler in my opinion) so I lost interest, as I'm sure many other blacks did too.

Perhaps the SNL executives knew they were making history when they featured Eddie standing alongside Dave Chappelle, Chris Rock, Tracey Morgan and Kenan Thompson.  (That's 5 black folks already!)  Then when you add Maya Rudolph, Michael Che, Ego Nwoodim, Chris Redd and if you count Bowen Yang, the first Chinese-American to appear on the show, you might've thought you were watching In Living Color (which by the way, was where the overwhelming number of black viewers migrated to when it made its debut in 1990).

So let me give you some facts you may not have known about the black cast of SNL:

Eddie Murphy was 19 years old when he joined the cast in 1980.  He was also one of the writers for the show.  His last episode as a regular was April 14, 1984.  

Garrett Morris was the only black person to be a part of the original Not Ready for Prime Time SNL cast from 1975-1980.  He reportedly complained that he had been typecast in stereotypical roles. 

The average age of the original 10 cast members was around 29.  Garrett Morris was 38.

On October 25, 2014 Leslie Jones became the oldest person to join the show as a cast member at the age of 47.  She auditioned for a role after criticizing the show for not having relatable black characters.

Tracy Morgan was a cast member from 1996 to 2003.

Danitra Vance became the first black woman to be hired as a repertory player in 1985---10 years after the show was already on the air!!!  She lasted one year.  Biggest complaint:  being stereotyped.  She died of cancer in 1994 at the age of 40.

Dan Aykroyd was a Canadian comedian who joined the Not Ready for Prime Time Players on SNL when it first aired in 1975.  He was also one of the writers, along with his brother, Peter, who joined the team in 1979.  But he only lasted one season.  

These days staying up much past 10:00 pm is a challenge (even on the weekends) but I was determined not to miss the return of Comedian/Actor Eddie Murphy as Host of Saturday Night Live's Christmas show.  When Murphy first appeared as a cast member on SNL, I was fresh out of college and just starting my career as a journalist.  It was exciting to see other young up and coming black professionals doing their thing in their respective fields.Saturday Night Live was MUST SEE TV back in the day because of Murphy. 

So now in my Boomer years I can say I got to see the first Black President AND TRUE DIVERSITY on Saturday Night Live.  That's History for me!