Eddie Murphy made a triumphant return to Saturday Night Live as he hosted the long-running sketch show for the first time in 35 years.
The comedian and actor joined SNL in 1980 before departing four years later to pursue a career in Hollywood.
The 58-year-old is one of the show’s most famous and successful graduates, thanks to films including the Beverly Hills Cop trilogy, Trading Places and the Shrek franchise.
Eddie's back. #SNL pic.twitter.com/hOxTau0tLQ
— Saturday Night Live – SNL (@nbcsnl) December 22, 2019
Murphy arrived on stage for his opening monologue to chants of “Eddie, Eddie, Eddie” and told the studio audience: “It’s great to be back here, finally.”
“This is the last episode of 2019,” he said, “but if you’re black, it’s the first episode since I left in 1984.”
In a joke about his sizeable progeny, Murphy said: “I had a new baby, just about a year ago. That means I have 10 kids now, 11 if you count Kevin Hart.”
Murphy then aimed a barb at Bill Cosby, the now disgraced comedian serving a three to 10-year prison term for drugging and molesting a woman at his home.
He said: “If you would have told me 30 years ago that I would be this boring stay-at-home house dad and Bill Cosby would be in prison, even I would have took that bet.”
Imitating Cosby, Murphy added: “Who is America’s dad now?”
Murphy, who earlier this month earned a Golden Globe nomination for his role in Netflix comedy Dolomite Is My Name, later brought out his fellow comedians Chris Rock, Tracy Morgan and Dave Chappelle.
In a nod to the group’s different Netflix projects, Chappelle joked: “You’re looking at half of Netflix’s budget.”
Murphy brought back some of his most popular comedy characters from his original SNL stint, including his Mister Robinson’s Neighbourhood sketch.
A parody of US children’s show Mister Rogers’ Neighbourhood, it sees Murphy presenting a similar show but from a much grittier setting.
During the sketch, Murphy’s Mister Robinson defined gentrification as “white people pay a lot of money and then ‘poof,’ all the black people are gone”.
The character of musician Buckwheat appeared for a The Masked Singer parody while foul-mouthed green clay-mation figure Gumby also returned.
Musical guest Lizzo was draped in Gucci for the first of her two performances, opening with the viral hit Truth Hurts.
Lizzo, who has a leading eight Grammy nominations ahead of next month’s awards ceremony, later returned to the stage to perform Good As Hell and told the audience: “Be kind to one another but most importantly, be good to yourself”
Here we go… @nbcsnl pic.twitter.com/9L6SqxKhB4
— Feelin Good As Hell (@lizzo) December 22, 2019
The final SNL cold open of the decade was a sketch mocking the latest Democratic Party presidential debates, with Curb Your Enthusiasm star Larry David as presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders and Alec Baldwin as Donald Trump.