Nardwuar: Who are you?
Charlie Murphy: I’m Charlie Murphy, and who are you?
Nardwuar: I’m Nardwuar, the Human Serviette
Charlie Murphy: The Human Serviette, Charlie Murphy, on a rooftop.
Nardwuar: In Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Charlie Murphy: Where they have very good marijuana.
Nardwuar: [shows Sammy Davis Jr. record] Mister Sammy Davis
Charlie Murphy: That’s right, the Candy Man himself
Nardwuar: That was on The Kid Who Loved Christmas?
Charlie Murphy: The Kid Who Loved Christmas, that’s right
Nardwuar: And that was Sammy Davis Jr’s last movie ever? What was that like?
Charlie Murphy: For me man, it was awesome. Actually it was awesome because I was so happy it was Sammy Davis Jr., I was like “it’s Sammy!” and Sammy was sick so I think I was a nuisance, like “who’s this bubbly guy that keeps coming around looking at me and going ‘it’s Sammy!'” and he was feeling horrible.
Nardwuar: And it was the last scene in the movie too that you were in too and where like you were smiling, it was like really great, the end of the movie.
Charlie Murphy: The end of the movie, Charlie Murphy smiling. [Charlie Murphy smiles]
Nardwuar: The Kid Who Loved Christmas and there was a hamster in that movie called Molly. Do you remember that? There was a hamster called Molly.
Charlie Murphy: There was, there was, man.
Nardwuar: And I guess I was wondering, Eddie Murphy put a hamster in one of his other movies. Did you have a hamster growing up called Molly?
Charlie Murphy: No. ‘Cause you know we realized that hamsters are actually mice with afros. People think they’re pets and have them in their houses but the reality is that hamster, gerbil, guinea pig, all those are, is rats with fur coats on. It’s the same thing. You know, but you wanna act like it’s not what it is. If you think I’m joking, just let ’em loose in your house and see them guys burrowing through the wall and start doing rat-like things.
Nardwuar: Charlie Murphy, I mentioned your movie career but you also have and had a rap career. What can you tell me about the K-9 Posse? [hands Charlie K-9 Posse record]
Charlie Murphy: [holds up record] It’s like we doin’ slides(referring to Nardwuar handing him records) now… look Sammy and now we go to K-9… and the first thing I want to show everyone, funny that you brought this up,
Nardwuar: This is your rap combo
Charlie Murphy: Look right here. Look what it says right there, [points to his name on record] Executive Producer: Charlie Murphy. I produced it. I wrote on it, you know what I’m sayin’? I just didn’t rap. I wished I would have rapped, but we had a lot of fun doing K-9.
Nardwuar: Charlie Murphy, sweat on my…
Charlie Murphy: Balls!
Nardwuar: Sweat On My Balls. You’re…
Charlie Murphy: CB4!
Nardwuar: CB4, there we go to the CB4 [shows CB4 record]
Charlie Murphy: Another one Representing a very colourful and illustrious career as you can see, we’re up to slide(record cover) number 3 and come on man, it gets no better. Let’s put the Candy Man in front [puts Sammy Davis Jr. record in front]
Nardwuar: Back to the CB4 though, when you auditioned for CB4 is it true that you showed up with a gun with bullets?
Charlie Murphy: Yes. And I’m not saying anyone else should do that but this is why it happened. I went in and I did the normal audition and Chris Rock called me up that night and said ‘that was excellent, now tomorrow when you comin’ back in for the call-back, I only have one suggestion to you. I said ‘what’s that?’ and he said ‘I want you to be even meaner than you was today’. And I was like ‘wow, to myself, that was pretty mean, how you gonna top that? I said well, I guess I’m going to have to put bullets in the gun for real this time.” So the next day I went in with a loaded 9 milimeter. I popped the clip in in front of them, let them see it was bullets, popped the clip in, jacked it, and then pointed it at Chris Rock which was very crazy, but I did that! I don’t know if Chris Rock knew the gun was loaded and I would never, you know, well, I’m just glad nothing bad happened, I got the role.
Nardwuar: Charlie Murphy, another record for you right here. You worked with Redd… [passes Charlie a Redd Foxx record]
Charlie Murphy: FOXX! You gotta give me this whole bag when this is over, I’m going to keep this whole bag of records. You (Nardwuar) got everybody here. Red Foxx, this is the funniest man I’ve ever met in my life, bar none, okay. I met him on Harlem Nights and he was older so he was like a grandfather figure and I like sitting down talking with old men ’cause old men got a lot of stories so I have a friend named Woody who since he was about 10 years old he had one rotten tooth right here in the front [motions to front teeth] so cut to me and Woody we’re now 24-25 years old, this tooth has been black for 15 years, and I introduced him to Redd Foxx and when he smiled, Redd Foxx did 45 minutes of stand-up on his black tooth and the very next day Woody got his tooth fixed. That’s a true story.
Nardwuar: Charlie Murphy, is it true that Mr. Dave Chappelle knocked out a bull?
Charlie Murphy: Ah, you’re talking about TMZ. Now I’m going to put it to you this way. We went to the running of the bulls. I know you’ve seen it before. They released all the bulls and the bull was getting ready to run Dave over, Dave cold cut. Dave knocked him out cold. I know you don’t want to believe it, but you got to add this to it. I’m not going to say he wasn’t scared, he was horrifed when he did it, so there was a lot of fear in that punch, but he scored a K.O. Big up for Dave.
Nardwuar: Charlie Murphy, what do you think your greatest hip hop moment is? May I put this forth, when you were—
Charlie Murphy: I tell you right now my greatest hip hop moment came three weeks ago in Boulder, Colorado when I was on stage with none other than the God MC, Rakim. And that was incredible.
Nardwuar: I guess I was going to say when you were on the air with 50 Cent and Eminem and Whoo Kid, you were on the radio!
Charlie Murphy: That was the radio though. That’s different. That was a great moment, But I was actually on the stage like this with Rakim so that had to be number one.
Nardwuar: When you’re up on stage, are you able to see who’s in the audience? Didn’t Al Gore come to one of your gigs? Did you see Al Gore in the audience?
Charlie Murphy: What did happen at one of my shows was, I used to have this joke about Dick Cheney around the time when Dick Cheney had shot one of his friends on a hunting trip and it was a funny joke, I can’t actually remember exactly how it went but I was doing this joke every week and we did a show in D.C. and when the show was over this guy walked over and said ‘Hey Charlie, great set, Secret Service, I work for Dick’ and I was like ‘Yeah, oh really? I’m not tellin’ that joke no more”
Nardwuar: Baboom!
Charlie Murphy: Baboom, yeah.
Nardwuar: Charlie Murphy, what do you think about Sarah Palin’s jeans? Why do you like Sarah Palin’s jeans?
Charlie Murphy: ‘Cause they fit right. See, you always got to respect a woman with a pair of jeans on that fit right and she don’t got no coat tied around her butt. You ever seen Sarah Palin with a coat tied around her butt? No, she has it out. That’s what’s up.
Nardwuar: Charlie Murphy, you have a character called Leroy Smith?
Charlie Murphy: Leroy Smith, yeah, and you can go check Leroy out at www.getyourbasketballon.com, it’s a Nike site, you will have fun on the site and you will be laughing because yes, Charlie Murphy is appearing as Leroy Smith and it was very funny stuff, I had a blast doing it and bring up the Nike, let’s do some more, y’know. That’s what’s up.
Nardwuar: What I was curious about is you love the old school comedians don’t you, Charlie?
Charlie Murphy: You have to. If you want to be in the line you have to memorize and know the history of the line you standin’ in, so yeah, definitely.
Nardwuar: So you have Leroy Smith, I was wondering were you perhaps influenced for that character by Leroy Daniels – Sexmouth? [hands Charlie Leroy Daniels record]
Charlie Murphy: [screams] This is hilarious! This dude right here was really tight with Redd Foxx!
Nardwuar: He was on Sandford and Son, Leroy—
Charlie Murphy: Yeah he was really tight with Redd.
Nardwuar: [points to record] Leroy Daniels, Leroy Smith, Charlie Murphy!
Charlie Murphy: There’s no relation, there’s no connection, but, where’d you get these albums from? To a comedian, this is priceless stuff, man! Priceless!
Nardwuar: I love the Laff record label, too. Do you know how many artists were on the Laff record label? Laff was a great record label
Charlie Murphy: Yeah man, it doesn’t exist anymore, but it was nice. These are all the records that when I was a kid they were in a drawer with the rest of the records but you knew that if you touched one of these and got caught playing it you were getting your ass whipped.My parents would always say ‘we better never catch you playing none of those records!’ and as a result, me and my brothers memorized every one of these records. We memorized them.
Nardwuar: Charlie Murphy, what is trickle down P***Y?
Charlie Murphy: AKA trickle down pussy. That’s what happens when you’re around somebody that has too much on their plate. When you have too much on your plate, some of it’s going to fall off. And if someone has the wherewithal to be standing under your plate with a net, they’re going to catch it. Same thing with pussy. If someone has all these girls, he can only be with one of them at a time. So, if you’re smart enough to be standing around, just waiting for someone to get bored, [as if talking to a woman] ‘what are you waiting in line for? I can do you right now” Bingo. Trickle down pussy.
Nardwuar: Well thanks so much, Charlie Murphy. Keep on rocking in the free world and doot doola doot doo…
Charlie Murphy: Doot doot! [laughs] We work pretty good together, we should have our own show. We’d do a lot of little ad-libs and stuff here.
Nardwuar: That’d be amazing. Well thanks so much!
Charlie Murphy: [shows off records] Let’s get another one of the slide show. Mr. Hot Pants, CB4, all-classics, if you haven’t gotten these (records) I suggest you go to a vintage record store and pick these up because this is the shit.
Nardwuar: And this is Charlie Murphy
Charlie Murphy: With the Candy Man!
Nardwuar: And bonus doot-doots! Doot doola doot doo…
Charlie Murphy: Doot doo!
Watch Nardwuar vs. Charlie Murphy
To hear the full unedited interview click here.