Eddie Murphy’s first HBO stand-up special, released in 1983, was Delirious.
Filmed at Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C., Delirious captured Murphy during the early peak of his career. He was already famous from Saturday Night Live, where he had become a cast member in 1980, but the special demonstrated how effectively his energetic character work and sharply structured routines translated to a full-length concert performance.
Delirious was released as a concert film and became an important document of 1980s stand-up comedy. Murphy’s follow-up concert film, Raw, arrived in 1987 and was filmed during his international comedy tour. Because Raw became more widely known and had a major theatrical release, viewers sometimes mistakenly identify it as his first special.
The two titles are therefore easy to mix up: Delirious came first in 1983, while Raw followed four years later. Both helped establish Murphy as one of the era’s most commercially successful comedians.