We All Scream for Ice Cream! : The Eddie Murphy Edition
Edward Regan Murphy was born in April of 1961 in Brooklyn, New York. He faced some heavy challenges growing up — his father died when he was eight years old and his mother became seriously ill shortly after, so Eddie and his brother Charlie spent some time in foster care. Eddie has openly admitted that his time in foster care has had a significant impact on his sense of humor. He was later able to rejoin with his mother and stepfather, who was a foreman at an ice cream plant. Eddie started his comedy career at the young age of nineteen when he became a regular performer on Saturday Night Live. He quickly became crowd favorite and was even credited for bringing up the show’s ratings. He filmed a show called Delirious in 1983 which was wildly popular and a huge success. It contained some of his most famous jokes such as the bigfoot joke, dad drunk at the family barbeque, and the ice cream man joke.
The joke in this bit is that children go wild for ice cream. He starts out with “Remember when the ice cream man used to come to town when you was little, and no matter what you was doing you would stop and lose your f*cking mind?” There is respectable scientific reason as to why children love ice cream. Fat and sugar coat your tongue, igniting your taste buds and alerting the brain. Your brain’s pleasure and reward centers light up, which brings the oh so good feeling of eating ice cream. Not to mention the sugar rush that follows leaving children feeling like Superman for an hour or two before crashing. It’s not just children who can’t seem to get enough ice cream, as the average American consumes more than 23 pounds of ice cream per year.
The punchline hits as he excitedly sings “I gooot soome iice creaam.” His timing is perfect as he had just riled the audience up with his portrayal of a child, which started a huge flow of energy that only grew. His delivery was thought out meticulously well, each step he took and key he sung was filled with purpose. The most important element of the punchline was his body language. He stares right out into the crowd, beaming as he does a gig across the stage, and singing in a low but proud and “yeah that’s right I’m going to make you jealous” tone.
Eddie’s style of delivering a joke is what takes his comedy from amusing to hilarious. He spares no effort in bringing the joke to life as much as possible with his theatrics. First off, he did this bit in 1983 in New York City wearing a firetruck red leather ensemble. The rowdiness continued into his perfectly planned out speech, which ranged from singing, to screaming “ICE CREAAAM” at the top of his lungs, to a sly tone of attitude as he ridiculed the kids who were not lucky enough to also get some ice cream. The feature that sets him apart from other comedians is his dancing and movement throughout the stage. When setting the scene of a child realizing the ice cream man is in town, Murphy acts the entire moment with great detail — from playing and the stop the exact moment you realize the ice cream man is here, and physically running across the stage and turning around to yell for his mom. He even used the microphone as an ice cream cone! There is rarely a moment where he is standing still, as he gets his ice cream he swings his hips back and forth excitedly and does a little sashay as he gloats over the other kids. Murphy’s loud, eccentric and fun personality allow or the viewer to be transported back to their childhood to enjoy a laugh at the silly things they used to do.
This sketch is particularly funny because of how relatable it is. Most everyone has a memory of excitedly running to mom to tell her the ice cream man was here and running after to get some. It is also funny to watch a grown man portray an excited child. You can feel the real excitement in that moment as Eddie transports you back to happy childhood memories and infuses your young, ignorant bliss back into your mind. Using a topic that is relatable to all races, genders, and ages makes the joke more powerful because it has a personal impact on the greatest amount of people.
Ice cream man excitement has been a relatable feeling for decades. The first “ice cream man” appeared in the 1800s selling ice cream from a small cart in blue-collar communities. Before the invention of the ice cream cone, vendors scooped ice cream into a regular glass, which a customer would lick clean. Then they returned the glass to the peddler, who would swish it in a pail before refilling it for the next customer. In 1920, the Good Humor bar was born and their creator Harry Burt purchased 12 refrigerator trucks for distribution around the city, which revolutionized into the ice cream trucks we have today.
Eddie Murphy was not only a revolutionary comedian but also a crowd favorite. In 2005 he was ranked in the top ten of Comedy Central’s top one hundred comedians. He receives such great love because of his bold, boisterous routines that completely capture and entertain your focus. His foolish theatrics keep the crowds laughing uncontrollably, as no one puts on a show quite like his. His use of happy relatable topics keeps the audience engaged and impacted. While Eddie may scream for ice cream, the audience screams for Eddie!