Yesterday I was trying to think of a way to re-activate the Eddie Murphy-as-Oscar host conversation, but it would have just been a replay of the 9.4 kick-around so I dropped it. But let’s consider Tom O’Neil‘s assessment. One, Murphy is a humbled, partially unknown 50 year-old whose career “[has] been in decline in recent years.” Two, he’s nonetheless a player and a survivor whose career “may be back on the upswing soon” with the release of Tower Heist and A Thousand Words. And three, he’s funny.

My earlier point was that for Murphy to really be funny in his own skin (or at least the one I got to know with after twice watching him live in the early to mid ’80s), he has to go blue and scatalogical and liberally reference the realm of asses and trim and other primitive urges. And howz he gonna do that on the ABC network? We’d all love to see him go Buckwheat, of course, but that’s too far back in the canon, too yesteryear.