Eddie Murphy reveals the one reference to the original Beverly Hills Cop that he fought to keep out of Axel F. Murphy’s iconic 1980s cop is back in Netflix’s streaming sequel, and so too are many elements from the original movies, including the iconic “Axel F” theme song. One joke from OG Beverly Hills Cop that didn’t make its way to the sequel, however, is the banana in the tailpipe, a gag that, in the first film, saw Axel foiling police officers on his tail by sabotaging their vehicle in a hilarious way.

The banana in the tailpipe gag is indeed an iconic Beverly Hills Cop moment, but Murphy nevertheless fought to ensure that Axel F didn’t reference that particular slightly naughty joke, as he recently explained in a roundtable discussion of the new Netflix movie. Check out his remarks below:

I fought to make sure there would be no banana in the tailpipe, up until the very last day of the movie. Whenever we hit a little speed bump, and we needed a joke or something, the director said “How about the banana in the tailpipe?” “No, no, we can’t do it.” “You know, but the people really want to see that.” I said “No, they don’t.”

Why Murphy Was Right To Fight Against Including The Banana In The Tailpipe

Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F is not shy about bringing back aspects of the original films that helped make them popular with audiences. In addition to Murphy’s Axel Foley, the film resurrects Judge Reinhold’s Billy Rosewood, John Ashton’s John Taggart, Paul Reiser’s Jeffrey Friedman and even Bronson Pinchot’s Serge. The film also incorporates music familiar from the iconic soundtracks of the 1984 original and its 1987 sequel, including Harold Faltermeyer’s iconic electronic instrumental track “Axel F.”

Given all the elements imported from the original movies, Murphy may have felt that recycling a joke, just for the sake of a fun reference, was taking things a bit too far. That the film’s director Mark Molloy kept pressing to include the joke may have only made the famously independent-minded Murphy that much more inclined to push back.

Murphy says Beverly Hills Cop’ s famous banana in the tailpipe was almost a potato

Murphy explains that Molloy kept bringing up the banana in the tailpipe each time they were stuck for a joke, and may have thought that resorting to that particular gag, or even referring to it, was giving in too easily to a nostalgic urge. Movies that recycle old jokes do indeed often seem desperate, and Murphy may have been sensitive to that fact. Ultimately, Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F included plenty of callbacks, and didn’t need to reference every little fan-favorite joke from the original movies.