22 years later, I think Eddie is ashamed of doing 'Delirious'
Let's face it: Delirious will never be officially released to the public.
And like a lot of Eddie Murphy fans, I too have become frustated by this seemingly assured fact. "Delirious" was Eddie in his prime, a classic and influential contribution to the world of comedy. It is a shame that the only way to view this masterpiece is to buy a poor quality bootleg DVD or spend several hours downloading a poor quality version from the internet.
In my mind the situation with "Delirious" is unprecendented. What if all of Chris Rock's stand ups specials were locked in a vault unavailable to the public. Ditto for Jerry Seinfeld or Bill Hicks or Richard Pryor or whoever...
But my point is I really don't believe that Eddie Murphy is proud of this special. If anyone is old enough to remember when this came out (or has done there research on Murphy's career) you'll remember the uproar Murphy's material caused amongst TV Critics, celebrities, the homosexual community, feminists and so on and so on. Eddie has grown and matured since '83 and I think that he is sort of ashamed of this special and since he owns the rights to the film, I don't think he'll ever let it see the light of day.
But instead of me bitching and moaning, I try to look at Murphys perspective. He has like 6 children all about 16 or younger and I think he doesn't want them to see what Dad's stage persona was like when he was 20-something.
I mean if you were Murphy would you want your kids to watch this (when they are relativly young anyway)?
So in the end, I can't fault Murphy for not releasing this special. He's doing what he feels is best for himself, his career and his family and I respect that.
But I still can't stop hoping that he'll change his mind for his older fans.