Saturday Night Live: Eddie Murphy Makes Epic Return to Studio 8H in New Promo

Saturday Night Live is ending 2019 on a milestone, by bringing Eddie Murphy back to host the show. Murphy has never been a featured guest since leaving SNL in 1984, with the exception of a brief appearance during the 40th Anniversary special in 2015. Now however, Eddie Murphy is taking the reigns of Saturday Night Live, and bringing another (infamous) breakout star of 2019, Lizzo, along for the occasion. Saturday Night Live has just released a new promo featuring Eddie Murphy making a fittingly epic return to Studio 8H where Saturday Night Live is filmed, complete with an epic Lizzo soundtrack.

Check out the latest promo for Eddie Murphy's return to Saturday Night Live, above!

Eddie Murphy has famously had a longstanding grudge against SNL and its creator Lorne Michaels. The comedic actor never returned to the show after his exit in 1984, until he returned for that guest appearance during Saturday Night Live's 40th Anniversary Special in 2015. That long-awaited homecoming was not quite a happy one: Murphy was infamously bothered by a proposed "Celebrity Jeopardy!" skit in which he was asked to play Bill Cosby. Murphy (a longtime Cosby fan) refused to acquiesce to the request, and the resulting friction ended with Murphy barely doing anything during the 45th Anniversary Special.

Clearly, some proverbial healing of wounds has occurred, as far as Eddie Murphy and Lorne Michaels are concerned. Murphy is back in the spotlight and in awards season considerations again, thanks to his performance of Blaxploitation cinema legend Rudy Ray Moore in Netflix's Dolemite Is My Name. Given how the situation with Bill Cosby ended up, it will be interesting to see what kind of comedic material Murphy has in store for his sketches. America is arguably in the midst of a major cultural schism, right now: on the socio-political front, The Impeachment of President Trump has literally split the country down the middle; meanwhile, even escapism into entertainment is impossible right now: as I write this, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is splitting viewers equally divisively, after its less-than-stellar first wave of reviews.

That's all to say: America is badly in need of some lighthearted laughs right now, so hopefully Eddie Murphy's return is coming at the anointed time when we need him the most.

Catch Eddie Murphy on Saturday Night Live with musical guest Lizzo, on Saturday, December 21st.