Prince-ly tale comedy gem
The funniest sketch on “Chappelle’s Show” didn’t come from Dave Chappelle — it was a gift from Charlie Murphy. Murphy, who died Wednesday at 57, spent years as part of an entourage around his famed younger brother, Eddie, amassing weird tales from Hollywood. And while most of his stories seemed too crazy to believe, the greatest one of all was the time Charlie learned how Prince not only had a great jump shot, but the Purple One could also cook amazing pancakes. It was immortalized by Chappelle in 2003 for his comedy show. “I swear every word of it is true,” Murphy told me years later. In the sketch, part of a series called “Charlie Murphy’s True Hollywood Stories,” Eddie, Charlie and their friends meet Prince (played by Chappelle) and his band, The Revolution, at a party. Eddie leaves, but Charlie, all swagger, challenges the 5-foot-3 virtuoso to a game of hoops. Soon they’re all at the artist’s house on his private basketball court, with Prince and The Revolution wearing the same wild, flowing crushed velvet capes and outfits they perform in. Charlie and his friends laugh at them — and then lose the game badly. Prince later makes them all pancakes. “There was definitely an air of comedy royalty about him,” Marcus Bishop-Wright, a comic who played musician Micki Free in the sketch, said about Charlie Murphy. “He seemed like this other version of Eddie, the street-cred version. “The sheer absurdity of Charlie’s story made it tough to film without people on the set laughing,” he recalled. “It was really hard to keep a straight face. Dave (Chappelle) was cracking up the whole time we were shooting. He would say, ‘Stop! I can’t believe this s--t really happened.’” But there was Murphy the whole time insisting everything was true. “I could even believe the part about them (The Revolution) arriving on the basketball court in those outfits,” Bishop-Wright said. “But the part about the pancakes? I kept thinking, ‘This is where it all becomes a comedy.’” Years later, Prince and other members of the band confirmed that Murphy’s entire tale was true.