“It was surreal.”
That’s how Eddie Murphy remembers the day he worked on a Michael Jackson video. It was January 1992, and Michael was filming “Remember the Time,” a nine-minute mini movie set in ancient Egypt. Eddie, the comedian behind “Coming to America” and “Beverly Hills Cop,” played the pharaoh on the throne. The model Iman played his queen, and basketball star Magic Johnson showed up too.
Eddie had known Michael for years by then. He knew the regular Michael, the one he talked to on a normal day. So seeing him switch on for the cameras, from just a few feet away, stuck with him.
“When you’re sitting two to three feet from Michael Jackson doing Michael Jackson, it’s a trip,” Eddie told Billboard in 2015. “It was like seeing someone plugged into a wall socket.”
The video premiered on February 2, 1992, on several TV networks at once. Here it is, with Eddie on that throne.
Eddie as the pharaoh in Michael’s video
A year later, the favor went the other way.
In 1993 Eddie put out an album on Motown called “Love’s Alright,” and one of its songs had a serious, hopeful message. It looked at the world and asked why people treat each other the way they do. He wrote it with his producer and called it “Whatzupwitu.”
Michael sang on it with him. He reportedly liked the song’s positive message, and he didn’t stop at singing. He showed up for the music video too.
The single came out in the spring of 1993. One music critic later wrote that Michael “steals ‘Whatzupwitu’ outright,” even though it was Eddie’s song. The Boys Choir of Harlem sang on the record with them.
Here’s the video the two friends made together.
Michael and Eddie sing “Whatzupwitu” together
So where did the video put them? Up in the sky. Michael, in a black jacket, and Eddie, in a white tank top and little round sunglasses, sing and dance while they float through a bright blue sky full of clouds. Musical notes, peace signs and hearts with wings drift past them, and the boys from the choir, in red blazers, fly around them.
It was 1993, and computer effects like these were brand new. Not everyone was kind about how it looked, and the song didn’t climb very high on the charts. But it’s a rare chance to see Michael and Eddie sing side by side, the year after Eddie sat on that throne for him.
Eddie didn’t put out new music again for 20 years. When he talks about Michael now, he talks about the friend he knew off camera, and how different he became the second the cameras rolled.