Voices Carry: 03/10/21

I could not believe this guy, of all people, would warrant a "Keep it Comin'!" post.

Most would recognize Eddie Murphy for his work on live-action movies. Action, comedy, romance, drama - Murphy has practically done it all. He's also stacked up an impressive list of people he's appeared onscreen with, as allies and enemies. His co-stars have included the likes of Judge Reinhold, Charles Dance, Nick Nolte, James Hong, Owen Wilson, Ben Stiller, Dan Aykroyd and Grace Jones.

Mushu from Mulan

Murphy has also become pretty recognizable in voice roles over the years, starting off with the Disney movie Mulan as the voice of our favorite dragon guardian, Mushu. However, he's probably much more recognizable at this point for his role in the Shrek movies, as Donkey, the "noble steed" (read: "best friend") of the titular ogre.

While he unfortunately only voiced Mushu once - in the first movie, Murphy repeatedly voiced Donkey in the various Shrek movies and several different Shrek supplementary pieces, including the Shrek 4-D theme park ride at Universal Studios. All in all, Donkey is probably Murphy's most recognizable role to date.

Donkey from Shrek

But would you believe that apart from Mushu and Donkey, Murphy has done little other voice work? According to Wikipedia, the only other role he's had was that of Thurgood Stubbs from the 1999 cartoon The PJs.

Though I can't speak for Stubbs, I do have to say that for the roles of Mushu and Donkey, the characters were basically Eddie Murphy if he was animated. Murphy brought much of the same things to his voice performances as he did for his live action roles. While it was obviously made family friendly (or as close as possible in the case of Shrek), Murphy used the same kind of humor and jokes that he's known for in real life, seasoned with that classic Eddie Murphy-style delivery. If you've seen The Nutty Professor or Daddy Day Care, you know what I'm talking about.

That's not to say that his performances weren't good. I just noticed similarities. Murphy was still able to convey two vastly different characters with his performances, even if they did have quite a few of the same mannerisms. With Mushu, you had a disgraced former guardian spirit who elected to help the hero with the selfish end goal of helping himself get back to his place of honor and respect. But Mushu developed into a very good friend after some time and was able to fulfill his original goal in so doing. With Donkey, you had a fast-talking, happy-go-lucky animal who just wants to be friends. While very little development was needed for the "miniature beast of burden" who serves as Shrek's sidekick, the end result is the same: a character who the hero can depend on in the toughest of times.

I think Murphy should do more voice work. He could do more characters like this and I would be fine with it. But I think a little variety couldn't hurt either. As we can see from Mulan and the Shrek movies, Murphy obviously does great in sidekick roles, and very often the kind of sidekick we need is one who can make us laugh. Or at least make our audience laugh. Just ask Geralt of Rivia on Netflix's The Witcher. But Murphy also did great in roles where he was the main character in live-action films, with roles like Axel Foley on Beverly Hills Cop, or Chandler Jarrell on The Golden Child. Murphy's Doctor Dolittle even showed us that he can do a good (relatively) straight man role when he needs to. So, perhaps Murphy could even play the main character in some sort of future animated feature. Maybe even as an animated Jarrell-type.

Whatever the case, Murphy needs to do more voice work. He's hilarious and obviously has the chops. He just needs the right feature.