As a teen in the 1980s my comic sensibilities were flavored mainly by the gradual decline of Richard Pryor’s career and the meteoric rise of Eddie Murphy. Murphy, who came up through the Saturday Night Live talent pipeline, burst on the scene with movies like 48 Hrs. (1982), Trading Places (1983), and Beverly Hills Cop (1984). But it was his stand-up that made Murphy the transcendent comedic talent of the decade. Delirious, released in 1983, represented my generation’s comedy album, kept well-hidden from our parents because of its extremely adult content. Murphy was a direct descendant of Pryor and came so raw that early in his career he would occasionally warn audiences there would be no Buckwheat wigs, a reference to a popular character Murphy played on SNL.