5. Eddie Murphy
It's all about context. From a modern stand point it's almost impossible to see a time when Eddie Murphy was anything other than a total joke (in the wrong sense). Some washed up no one spitting out terrible family fodder and inexplicitly knocking up Spice Girls. But squint really hard and you can see a time, long ago in the distant past, a time when he was a juggernaut - the biggest comedy star on earth and a seemingly unstoppable force of funny. That time was the 80s, which isn't all that different from now really - synth music and silly hair still dominates the music world, and Murphy is still truly shocking, albeit, back then it was for a different reason. He was an angry young stand-up revolutionising the craft of on-stage comedy, his successful leap to the big screen via "48hours" and "Trading Places" made everyone take notice, but it was and) Beverly Hills Cop that turned him into a super star. He was arguably, the new Richard Pryor. Then things went weird. Perhaps it was suddenly finding yourself rich beyond your wildest dreams, living in the little hermetically sealed world of the uber famous that killed Eddie's funny. Comedy arguably needs to be driven by anger or frustration or at least some shared emotional connection to those around you. But disconnected from all this and living in total comfort apparently wrapped his brain into all kinds of ludicrously bad shapes, crystallising eventually in the biggest financial flop of all time "The Adventure of Pluto Nash", a movie that is so compellingly difficult to grasp how it happened you will actually walk away stupider.
Nostalgia rating It was a long time ago and too much has happened. Things aren't getting better