-Whole first year of "SNL," I'm still living at home.
I remember the first time I was on.
I rode back to Long Island on the Long Island Railroad,
and I didn't wipe my makeup off because I was on TV.
I thought people were gonna see me with the makeup on
and know I was on TV.
And, you know, no one knew.
I probably just looked like a very strange, young fellow
on the train at night.
[ Laughs ]
♪♪
The late '70s, the early '80s,
there were three comedy clubs in New York.
There was Catch a Rising Star, the Improv,
and the Comic Strip,
and I worked those clubs before I came up here.
That's how I found out about this show was audition.
Everyone that was funny came out, auditioned.
The first time I came here was just Neil Levy,
just me and Neil in his office.
And he said, "Make me laugh."
And, luckily, 'cause I was doing stand-up already,
so I had material, and I did impressions.
I did Ali, Muhammad Ali...
-Getting in with me, Cassius Clay!
The man's a disgrace to boxing. He's too old to be fighting me.
-And I did a Bill Cosby...
-You know you wanted to smile. I saw you.
You're like this. I saw you.
-And he didn't laugh at all.
He just sat and kind of looked at me,
and he just said, "Thank you."
And then I left.
I was like, "Well, I guess I didn't get it."
Then a couple weeks later, they called me.
-And featuring Eddie Murphy!
-It was hard at first, for the simple fact
that the show was so beloved.
When the whole cast just left -- Lorne left --
and it was like, "Okay, we got the hippest, hottest,
funniest show on TV, and we're gonna replace them
with all these new faces."
So, the audience was like, "[bleep] all y'all
and [bleep] this show and [bleep]..."
You would walk down the street,
and people were like, "You on the new 'Saturday Night Live?'
Y'all ain't [bleep]"
So, we had a lot of that the first year.
It freaked a lot of the cast out,
but I didn't get freaked out 'cause I'm, you know,
19 years old and just so happy to be on TV.
-This is live television!
-The first year of "SNL," I would still steal.
I remember, I came back from the Long Island Railroad,
and I had parked my car there,
and somebody had stolen my hubcaps.
I just stole somebody else's hubcaps.
And I was literally on the show, and I was like this,
taking somebody's...
[ Laughs ]
Like I said, the whole cast was getting a lot of [bleep]
They hated the show.
And then they fired everybody.
Michael O'Donoghue, he came and fired everybody.
And he just kept me and Piscopo.
And the reason he kept me was because there was a sketch
where there was an article in the paper
about old people eating pet food,
and I went to the news desk and did some kind of thing
about it.
-Mmm-mmm! Now, that's good holiday eating!
-So, it looked like I was eating dog food.
When O'Donoghue fired everybody, and he came in, and he said,
"And the only reason Murphy didn't get fired
is 'cause he ate that dog food!"
And I was like, "That wasn't dog food.
That was hash."
And he looked at me like, "What the [bleep]"
But it was too late, and I kept the show.
It was just that close.
If he had known that was hash, none of this would be happening.
-Eddie Murphy! Eddie Murphy!
Come on! Let's hear it for him!
Eddie Murphy!
-You have this gun at your head to be creative.
You have to get a character that connects
or get something going.
But I wasn't scared 'cause my stuff was working.
If you wrote something funny, you can get it on.
I mean, everything I wrote didn't get on,
but the really funny stuff got on.
-[ Deep voice ] I been a junior at Cleveland High
going on seven years now.
I'd like to tell you all
that this is the most disgusting thing y'all done pulled
up to date.
Anytime we get something going good,
y'all got to move in on it.
In the '60s, we wore platform shoes.
Then y'all had to wear platform shoes.
All I'm saying is that y'all stay on the hockey courts
and the polo fields and let us stay on the basketball courts,
'cause if God would have wanted whites to be equal to blacks,
everybody'd have one of these.
-It still holds up.
There isn't a better place for me to have been
than, you know, here at that age.
That was the age you'd be when you go to college.
And this is, you know, the equivalent of Harvard
for comic actors.
So, you're, like, right in the middle of it.
In my life, when I look back on my experience here,
before everything started, as some of my fondest memories.
I had a blast up here.
I hope it's funny Saturday.
I hope it lives up to whatever expectations anyone has.
I want to be one of the funny ones.
[ Laughs ]
Hey-hey-hey-hey!
[ Cheers and applause ]
[ Crowd chanting, "Eddie, Eddie, Eddie" ]
Thank you!