Eddie Murphy Delirious


Eddie Murphy Delirious is an American stand-up comedy television special directed by Bruce Gowers, written by and starring Eddie Murphy. The stand up set became a TV Special for HBO on August 17, 1983. The 70-minute special was Eddie Murphy's first feature stand-up and the predecessor to the wide theatrical release in 1987, Eddie Murphy Raw. Delirious was also released as an album on October 24, 1983 titled , which won Grammy for Best Comedy Album at the 1984 Grammy Awards.

Overview

Unlike his acts on Saturday Night Live, Murphy's performance was very profane, saying the word fuck a total of 230 times, and shit 171 times.
Before the show started, The BusBoys performed " Back in Town" over a montage of pre-show footage of Murphy traveling with his road crew. Then, he is introduced after the song and thanks The BusBoys for the opening act before starting his comedy routine.
Among the topics Murphy addresses is the lure ice cream trucks have on children. Once the ice cream was bought, they would sing and dance mockingly in front of kids who could not afford it. Other topics that he addresses are Michael Jackson, James Brown, Stevie Wonder, racism, Reaganomics, gay people, AIDS, and Marian Anderson. After his routine, the video ends with Murphy and his road crew walking to his dressing room while the credits roll.

Reception

The special received positive reviews and is widely cited by comedians as a seminal stand-up work. The review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gave it an 83% approval rating based on 6 reviews, with an average rating of 7.5/10. However, it was criticised for being anti-gay.
"When I did Delirious," Murphy reflected in 1989, "I got all this flak for my material being so filthy. The truth is, it's nowhere near as filthy as some of the stuff they're doing now. I'm feeling like a fucking old guy watching Sam Kinison or Andrew Dice Clay."
One of the topics that Murphy addresses in Delirious is homosexuality, and using the homophobic slur "faggot". However, in 1996, he released a one-page statement apologizing for his use of that slur, saying: "I deeply regret any pain all this has caused."

Home video

In June 2009, a 25th Anniversary Edition was released.