"One would think that Mr. Murphy was given his freedom to leave the plantation, so that he could make his own decisions; but he decided to sell himself back to being a Hollywood Slave."

"[Stepin Fetchit plus cooning equals the destruction of Black Men in Hollywood.] Remember, Mr. Murphy, that Bill Cosby became legendary because he used comedy to humanize all races, religions and genders; but your attacking Mr. Cosby helps you embark on just becoming click bait," instagrammed Bill Cosby's spokesman, quoted in "Bill Cosby’s spokesman rips Eddie Murphy as ‘Hollywood Slave’ over ‘SNL’ jab" (NY Post)

The bracketed sentence is in the original Instagram but sanitized out of the NY Post story. The spokesman's quote reads like a garbled mess without that extra line. With it, I can remember Cosby's criticism of Murphy. If I hadn't dug a little deeper and seen the elided sentence, I'd have said that the statement was worse than saying nothing, because Murphy's joke was mild and contained no factual imperfections or even nastiness, and to criticize it is to make us read it again:

“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,” Murphy said.

“Who is America’s dad now?”

But with that extra line, I remember Cosby's old argument against black comedians continuing to use old racist stereotypes to amuse white people. And that is a good description of Murphy's old "SNL" characters, which he reprised unapologetically on last Saturday's show. (I blogged: "[The] Eddie Murphy material was full of racist stereotypes — Mr. Robinson, the criminal; Buckwheat, whose one joke is that he cannot articulate words; Gumby, the angry one; Velvet Jones, the pimp — and yet because these were reprisals of supposedly beloved characters by the show's biggest star from the distant past, they were apparently considered okay to present today.")

Here's Eddie Murphy in 1987 describing how Cosby criticized him, back when Cosby was "America's dad":

Yes, Eddie Murphy came back to "Saturday Night Live" and reprised his old characters — Mr. Robinson, Buckwheat, Gumby, Velvet Jones — but...

... here's what I think is the most important segment from last night's episode, this part of "Weekend Update," where I think you can see that the show knows that Trump himself is doing better comedy than they are and chooses to edit in clips of Trump's hilarious routine:



Yes, they've surrounded his material with their material, but their material isn't as funny. It mainly functions as packaging to protect Trump-haters from their own reflexive aversion to the toxic President. Now, they can enjoy his comedy. They have access to the bad orange man.

Speaking of color, that Eddie Murphy material was full of racist stereotypes — Mr. Robinson, the criminal; Buckwheat, whose one joke is that he cannot articulate words; Gumby, the angry one; Velvet Jones, the pimp — and yet because these were reprisals of supposedly beloved characters by the show's biggest star from the distant past, they were apparently considered okay to present today. This too is packaging. Take something funny that you can't do, do it anyway, but swathe it inside of something that seems to say that this isn't really what it is.

The cold open was the Democratic Debate, and there was no room for Eddie Murphy in that. Well, they could have had him as Deval Patrick barging into the debate, because they had Fred Armisen as Michael Bloomberg barging into the debate, but what would the joke be? With Bloomberg, they could billionaire-bash. He bought his way in. Obviously, that's not too funny either. So what did they do? They had Trump (Alec Baldwin) crash the debate. The SNL audience wants Trump... wants Trump because they want to hate him some more? Or is this love, packaged as hate? Let me start you 7 1/2 minutes in as Trump swaggers onto the debate stage and trash talks: "You think I'm nervous? What are they going to do, impeach me? Hey, losers! Impeach me outside. Okay? How about that?"



By the way, the Velvet Jones material was full of sexist material. To Jones, all women are whores. One of his many books is about pole dancing. Incredibly, that segment ran right before the music guest, Lizzo, performed a song with dancers who were pole dancing.



I think Lizzo is trying to present a character who's a very independent woman, but Velvet Jones had just been sleazily advising women to find independence through prostitution. Doesn't Lizzo have people to protect her from that sort of extremely disadvantageous framing? Talk about packaging. She got mispackaged by Murphy.

A UW student, caught speeding, is also caught unable to tie his tie, and the cop ties it for him... twice.

The headline at ABC is "Officer Pulls Over Speeding Student, Teaches Him to Tie a Tie," but the young man never pays attention to the tying, nor does the officer tell him to watch and learn. The first time the cop ties the tie, the bottom part is way too long, and the second time, the top part is way too long, and the cop seems more concerned about how it looks than the guy... who, by the way, says he was speeding because he had a presentation to give and needed to stop first at the home of a friend "and he knows how to tie a tie."

ADDED: The cop knows he's on camera, so this is law-enforcement theater. The young man has no choice by to lend his performance to this police PR. It's very well done, and I'm glad the cameras incentivize this good — too good? — behavior by the police.

But I'm sure there are naysayers: Does everyone get such benevolent service, or is this special for drivers of BMWs? And does this not bear out the thesis of the old Eddie Murphy sketch "White Like Me"?

"But it felt like there was an invisible force blocking me from achieving my dreams. Sure, I'd think, is it because I'm fat?"

"But then I'd think, don't be paranoid. I refused to believe that people were that shallow. It had to be more complicated. I tried to put my finger on it, but I just couldn't figure it out. Once I lost weight [110 pounds], I realized, it was all because I was fat. It felt like that famous Eddie Murphy sketch on Saturday Night Live, where he goes undercover in whiteface and gets treated way better. He rides the city bus. And when the last black rider gets off, music starts. A cocktail waitress in a sequined dress hands out martinis. That's what I felt like — like this whole other world for thin people had existed alongside mine, a world they've been keeping a secret from me. When I was fat and I walked down the street, people would stare. I'd hear comments that I would ignore. Occasionally someone would shout something out at me. In this new world, when I walked down the street, attractive men and women would do something to me they'd never done before. They would look me up and down, and then they would nod their heads. Thin people nod at each other?"

From the "Tell Me I'm Fat" episode of "This American Life."

"Paterson in a Blind Rage over "SNL' Skit."

That's the headline to the NY Post article that begins "Gov. Paterson didn't see the humor in a 'Saturday Night Live' bit that mocked his blindness." Yeah, he shouldn't criticize it if he didn't see it.

Video of the 2 Paterson sketches at the link. Chris Danielsen, spokesman for the National Federation of the Blind, is quoted saying:

"We have 70 percent unemployment - and it's not because we can't work. Obviously, the governor of New York is blind, and he's doing the job. Whenever you have a portrayal that calls the basic capacity of [blind people] into question, that's a potential problem."

Danielsen claims "SNL" has a long history of mocking the blind - going back to Eddie Murphy's Stevie Wonder impression and, more recently, a "Weekend Update" one-liner that hybrid cars are dangerous to blind people because they can't hear the engine.

Now, wait, there really were news stories, plenty of them, that reported that hybrid cars were dangerous to blind people. Like this one. Notice anything? It quotes Christopher S. Danielsen, a spokesman for the National Federation of the Blind. It looks as though "SNL" may have read his organization's press release... and it got a laugh.

Maybe Danielsen needs to get a sense of humor...

... like Stevie Wonder, seen here standing right next to Eddie Murphy as Eddie imitates him.

And open the door for Mr. Muckle!