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Hide your transvestite hookers: Eddie Murphy may have a lot more free time on his hands.

According to WENN, he might be hanging it up after a career that began promisingly with 48 Hours and Beverly Hills Cop and ran aground ten years later. Even his Oscar nomination for Dreamgirls felt obligatory. Except to Murphy, of course, who's such a good sport he walked out of the ceremony after losing to a better performance by a better human being (Alan Arkin). There were actually quite a few better candidates than Murphy that year, and I'd be glad to list them for you should you ask.

So now, the once funny but long since irrelevant and self-absorbed Murphy might call it quits.

"I have close to fifty movies and it's like, why am I in the movies? I've done that part now," said Murphy. "I'll go back to the stage and do stand-up." Wow. If you think unfunny 90-minute comedies are bad, wait till you see unfunny stand-up routines. That's not news to people who have endured Dane Cook, I realize, but still.

I'll give you The Nutty Professor; that's not something just anyone can do. It deserved to be an enormous success. I thought some of his best acting was in Bowfinger, where he was two distinct characters based solely on whether or not he was wearing glasses. But you better grab onto something if you want to watching much else with Murphy's name on it since, like, 1992. Actually, it may go back to Coming to America. That might be the official end of his run.

But if he's retiring, what will become of the many films he's already linked to, like an upcoming Romeo and Juliet Project, The Incredible Shrinking Man, and Beverly Hills Cop 4? Apparently, he'll honor his commitments, or at least that's what it sounds like today. Maybe after the villagers storm his castle with pitchforks and torches after Meet Dave is released in a couple of weeks, he might have a change of heart. Let's hope so. Nothing better than watching someone who pissed away immense talent go out on a losing note.

And it couldn't happen to a nicer guy...

RE: Please tell me
by El Santo

Rifftrax is a self supporting ecosystem. Its members write crappy movies, which are then Riffed on by Bill, Mike, and Kevin. Two times the profit! It's a pretty sweet deal really.

I believe "I want half, Eddie!" is an Eddie Murphy: Raw reference. It was from a stand-up bit in which EM imagines marrying a primitive African native woman ("bush-bitch"), who then gets schooled by an American woman on how she can take half of his money in a divorce settlement.

"Filth Flarn Filth" Never Happened, Says Cosby

Ryan Cormier of the Delaware News Journal scores a Bill Cosby interview which may debunk a legendary bit, from the times when historians will tell you that Eddie Murphy had comic chops, never woke up on the couch in a fat-suit-still-on sweat, and was allowed the leeway to harpoon Michael Jackson and raid his closet at the same time:

What about when you become part of their act? I guess the most famous one is Eddie Murphy’s “Raw.” Did he clear that with you first or did you hear about that when it first came out?

I heard about it when it first came out. But Eddie is a liar. And Malcolm-Jamal Warner was in the room in Lake Tahoe and heard me talk to Eddie on the telephone. And Malcolm knows that is not what I said to him.

Do you think that’s just Murphy stretching it out to make a good 20 minute part of his show about it?

No, this is a very nasty, nasty liar. Period. It wasn’t necessary. It was between us and what I was trying to explain to him. On top of that, there’s a reference to Richard Pryor and Richard called me later…Richard called and said, “Hey Bill, the thing that Eddie is saying I didn’t say that.” And I said, “I didn’t think you did.”