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Before the 1980s, there had been some major comedy stars. Some of whom had been the biggest names of their era. In the decade that taste forgot, however, Eddie Murphy was to comedy what Michael Jackson was to music.

Not only was Murphy completely inescapable, but he was also pretty much inarguably doing it better than anyone else on the circuit. At least Jacko had Prince and Madonna nipping at his heels; Eddie Murphy had no rivals, at least until the 1990s.

Part of what led to this stratospheric level of fame was his four-year run as a cast member on Saturday Night Live, which he became more or less the frontman of within weeks of turning up with his sheer charisma and absolute dynamite ability with a punchline.

Fittingly enough for a man who was going to become one of Hollywood’s most dependable stars in a few scant years, Eddie Murphy’s initial success came from a series of legendary characters he embodied on the sketch comedy mainstay. There was the benevolent pimp Velvet Jones, the whiteface business Mr White, his still hilarious take on James Brown, but above all else, the character that made him an icon was Buckwheat.

Buckwheat was (technically) an existing character. A version of Billie ‘Buckwheat’ Thomas from the Our Gang short films from the 1930s and 1940s. Murphy’s character was, essentially, what if that butter-wouldn’t-melt kid grew up to be a mainstream celebrity in the 1980s, doing Calvin Klein adverts and releasing an album of cover songs, but never lost his speech impediment or his bizarre way of talking? You probably had to be there, but it went down like gangbusters.

So much so that Murphy started getting a little sick of the character.

Why was Eddie Murphy so sick of this character?

It wasn’t so much playing the character on TV that was the problem, but more that when Murphy was out in public, people would often yell at him to do their favourite characters in the street. Not a great way to live your life, and I can imagine that being a grown-ass African-American man and having “BUCKWHEAT” screamed at you in the street might not be the most satisfying way to live your life. Something had to be done about the character, and fast.

However, Murphy and the SNL team were smart about it. They knew that if they just stopped doing the character, that would only make people want it more. Thus, they had to make a show of ending the character in a way that put a final full stop to him. What’s more of a final full stop than killing him?! Thus, the saga of Buckwheat’s assassination began.

Taking cues from the assassination of John F Kennedy and its aftermath, the story began with the SNL anchorman team announcing his death several times on one episode, playing a clip of Buckwheat being gunned down over and over again on the same episode. The week afterwards revealed Murphy playing Buckwheat’s killer, John David Stutts. In true Lee Harvey Oswald fashion, Stutts is immediately killed on camera.

Murphy left the show in 1984, yet whenever he’s been around the show since, there have been glimpses of Buchwheat, alluding to him possibly faking his death. Who knew that SNL lore could go so deep? Perhaps that’s a level of storytelling only reserved for one of the show’s most beloved characters, played by one of its most beloved performers.