>Listening to this Bruer's story, I gotta wonder what it's like
>for the black cast members on SNL in the past and current
>times as well. Does anyone know if Eddie Murphy wrote his own
>sketches on SNL back in the days?


you should read Live From New York... Basically an oral history told by its stars, writers, guests, etc. Even though Eddie isnt in the book they talk about him a bit because he saved the show pretty much. It seemed like once the show realized what they had everyone was writing for him. But he also wrote a lot of stuff too. The other black cast members definitely didnt get that treatment. Garrett Morris talks about how underused he was. It was so hard for him to get on sketches doing anything other than being the black guy. It just seemed like SNL was every man for themselves. You would have that star here and there that would pop up that everyone loved writing for. Belushi, Hartman, Eddie, etc. But other than that you had to write your own shit if you wanted to get on the air. It remained that way until the Will Ferrel cast. They were more about being a team. Wanting to put out quality rather than just putting themselves out there. A really good read. I went through it in about 4 days.