Norbit: 15 Crazy Things You Never Knew About The Movie

Eddie and Charlie were inspired to write Norbit after seeing a "hilarious" online video “of a woman beating her husband up” and also by the movie The Colour Purple.

“We kinda, like, used The Color Purple as the, as a model, it was, like, uh, if you take The Color Purple and switch it and make it a man that was under a woman's thumb...his whole life, it's, it, kinda, kinda funny, uh, you know,” Murphy explained to Movieweb.

Because The Colour Purple was hilarious, after all.

For those who don't know, Norbit tells the story of a mild-mannered guy called Norbit (Murphy), who is the adopted son of a Chinese man called Mr Wong (Murphy again) who is married to a monstrous and rather large woman called Rasputia (Murphy, yet again) but the meets the woman of his dreams Kate (Thandie Newton, for some reason), and schemes to find a way to be with her.

Academy Award winning make-up effects specialist Rick Baker was recruited to create Murphy's many characters, having worked on Coming To America with the comedian. It took Baker nine months to create the costumes for Norbit, Mr Wong and Rasputia.

It took a month to create the mask for Mr Wong's face and even longer for Rasputia's body suit. Murphy would sit for anywhere between three and seven hours a day, to have the character make-up applied and taken off.

For example, in one scene later in the film, Rasputia threatens to pour acid in the face of Kate unless Norbit agrees never to see her again. Er...LOL?

While in another scene, Murphy uses the character of Rasputia to spoof of an infamous Paris Hilton advert of the time.

And let's not forget this potential dig at Murphy's ex, Mel Brown of the Spice Girls, who forced through a court-ordered paternity test to prove he was the father of her child, Angel, prior to the film's release.