Chris Rock killed the Oscars. Amidst his skewering of "White Hollywood" (btw, "sorority racist" = classic), Rock dropped a very subtle tribute to his mentor Eddie Murphy.
Check out Chris Rock discuss the new Rocky movie at the 7:08 mark:
"Rocky takes place in a world where white athletes are as good as black athletes. Rocky is a science fiction movie. There are things that happen in Star Wars that are more believable than things that happen in Rocky."
Compare that to Eddie Murphy's take on the Rocky movies in his classic stand-up special "Raw":
"Italians ... white people, period, ya'll go crazy after you see a Rocky movie because y'all believe that shit."
Then Murphy describes a scenario of a little white man attempting to fight a black man after seeing Rocky.
This isn't the same joke, but it is the same premise: that Rocky is a white person fantasy. Chris Rock didn't have to put that 30 second bit in his routine, but he did because it went with his overarching theme of race in Hollywood. But I bet even though he didn't acknowledge it, Rock knew he was updating Murphy's classic premise.
Of course, Rock's entire monologue was an extended update to Murphy's brief discussion of race at the Oscars, way back in 1988:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNAePAAYPrc
