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Conan O'Brien says this sketch proves Eddie Murphy is the 'most talented' 'SNL' performer

"I saw his face morph."

Conan O'Brien, Eddie Murphy, comedians, actors, sketch comedy

Conan O'Brien praised Eddie Murphy as the 'most talented' 'Saturday Night Live' performer.

Photo credit: Team Coco YouTube screenshot (Conan O'Brien), 'Saturday Night Live' YouTube screenshot (Eddie Murphy)
Ryan Reed
By Ryan ReedApr 03, 2025
Ryan Reed

Ryan Reed is a writer, editor, music journalist, musician, YouTube guy, and record collector from Knoxville, TN.

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Eddie Murphy is one of Saturday Night Live's most celebrated cast members, with a stable of classic characters and impressions—a grown-up Buckwheat, a grumpy Gumby, a hot-tub-soaking James Brown—that still highlight many "best of" lists. But for Conan O'Brien, late-night legend and former SNLwriter, a more recent sketch also exemplifies Murphy's brilliance.

In an episode of his Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend podcast, the host reminisces with guest John Mulaney about SNL's jam-packed 50th-anniversary special, which featured a couple of prominent Murphy cameos. One came during a sketch called "Black Jeopardy!", with the actor playing SNL veteran Tracy Morgan—and O'Brien, who attended the event, says he witnessed Murphy comedically transform.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

"I maintain that if he’s not the most talented person to ever grace Saturday Night Live, I don’t know who it would be," he declares. "He becomes—he became—Tracy Morgan. I watched him getting ready. The band’s playing, and they’re counting down. We’re getting to within 30 seconds. His face is still completely neutral. He gets behind the podium, where they’re gonna play Jeopardy! He picks up his controller, and I saw his face morph, and he became Tracy Morgan with like three seconds to go."

O'Brien also tipped his hat to Murphy's performance in a "Scared Straight" sketch, in which he plays a prisoner warning kids about the dangers of a criminal lifestyle. "He was mesmerizing to watch," O'Brien says. "I’m stunned by him. I really am." Mulaney also highlights that sketch as an example of SNL at an ideal creative balance.

"It felt like a lot of Saturday Night Live on display in one moment," he says. "He says he’s 'All the Way Ray' because he never does anything halfway, but his hair is braided on one half and sticking up [on the other]. That dumbass funny joke that [Colin] Jost wrote, and the hair department made that wig specifically for that. It looked perfect. The sketch starts, and it’s like a broad touch, and he has that joke. It was just a lot of things—every department hard at work. It was the funniest, dumbest joke."

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

Murphy was on SNL from 1980 (starting at the young age of 19) through 1984, and became a superstar in the process. He wound up releasing some of the most revered stand-up comedy specials of all time, including 1987's Eddie Murphy Raw, and starred in numerous blockbuster film comedies, highlighted early on by 1984's Beverly Hills Cop and 1988's Coming to America. But for a lot of comedy fans, it was almost impossible to top his work on SNL. In a 2011 Tonight Show interview with Jimmy Fallon, Murphy ran through some of his most famous sketches, including one where Buckwheat is assassinated.

"That's one of my favorite things," he recalled. "I got tired of doing it. I'd do Buckwheat, and then people [on the street] would go, 'Hey, what's up, Buckwheat?' I was like, 'Heeeey, we're gonna have to kill Buckwheat.' ... That was back in the day where you could wind up really being called 'Buckwheat' forever."

Murphy, it turns out, had nothing to worry about.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

conan o'brieneddie murphyhumorpodcastssaturday night livesnltracy morgancomedy

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