For many years, I’ve been unable to think about hot tubs without hearing the lyrics and vocal stylings of James Brown. That’s because of a Saturday Night Live sketch from 1980, featuring Eddie Murphy doing a fantastic James Brown impression. It’s entitled “James Brown’s Celebrity Hot Tub Party” and is truly one for the ages.
I was recently explaining the sketch to somebody, and had to go locate it. I found it here (check your hot tub status from anywhere on the planet), but I’m guessing Steve doesn’t want me to paste his bandwidth, so I saved it to my server:
It features Mr. Murphy in gold lamé briefs–your mileage may vary on that. It isn’t as hilarious as Alec Baldwin’s NPR appearance, but it’s among my favourite classic SNL bits.
It’s strange because there are some SNL skits that just get burned into your mind. The one that always makes me laugh is Adam Sandler’s “I’m crazy spoon head, give me candy.”
Hot Tub was good… but it was nothing compared to the Velvet Jones spot(s).
Or the Bass-o-Matic…. I was always a sucker for the commercial parodies like Happy Fun Ball…
Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball.
Thanks for posting this! I recently did a little “Oooh, in the hot tub” dance in front of my beau and he just looked at me like he thought I was crazy. I tried to describe him the SNL number but it was one of those “you had to be there” kind of thing…
Just found this! My roommate and I were just talking about this skit tonight, and laughing our asses off. Perfect timing, thanks for posting this!