In Living Color

In Living Color is an American sketch comedy television series that originally ran on Fox from April 15, 1990, to May 19, 1994. Keenen Ivory Wayans created, wrote and starred in the program. The show was produced by Ivory Way Productions in association with 20th Television and was taped at stage 7 at the Metromedia Square on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California.
The title of the series was inspired by the NBC announcement of broadcasts being presented "in living color" during the 1960s, prior to mainstream color television. It also refers, in the sense of the term "person of color", to the fact that most of the show's cast was African Americans, unlike other popular sketch comedy shows such as Saturday Night Live, whose casts were mostly White at the time. In Living Color portrayed a form of irreverent Black humor in a time when mainstream American tastes regarding Black comedy on television had been set by inoffensive family-friendly shows such as The Cosby Show, causing an eventual feud for control between Fox executives and the Wayanses.
Other members of the Wayans family—Damon, Kim, Shawn, and Marlon—had regular roles, while brother Dwayne frequently appeared as an extra. The show also starred several previously unknown comedians and actors, including Jamie Foxx, Jim Carrey, Tommy Davidson, David Alan Grier, Kelly Coffield Park, and T'Keyah Crystal Keymáh. The show introduced Jennifer Lopez and Carrie Ann Inaba as members of In Living Color's dance troupe The Fly Girls, with actress Rosie Perez serving as choreographer. The show was immensely popular in its first two seasons, capturing more than a 10-point Nielsen rating; in the third and fourth seasons, ratings faltered as the Wayans brothers fell out with the Fox network's leadership over creative control and rights.
The series won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy Series in 1990. The series gained international prominence for its bold move and its all-time high ratings gained by airing a live, special episode as a counterprogram for the halftime show of U.S. leader CBS's live telecast of Super Bowl XXVI, prompting the National Football League to book A-list acts for future game entertainment, starting with Michael Jackson the following year. In 2018, a history of the show, Homey Don't Play That! by David Peisner, was released by 37 INK, an imprint of Simon & Schuster.
Following Keenen Ivory Wayans' success with Hollywood Shuffle and I'm Gonna Git You Sucka, Fox approached Wayans to offer him his own show. Wayans wanted to produce a variety show similar to Saturday Night Live, but with a cast of people of color that took chances with its content. Fox gave Wayans a lot of freedom with the show, although Fox executives were a bit concerned about the show's content prior to its television debut.
In announcing its debut, Fox described In Living Color as a "contemporary comedy variety show". In its preview, the Christian Science Monitor warned that its, "raw tone may offend some, but it does allow a talented troupe to experiment with black themes in a Saturday Night Live-ish format." Keenen Ivory Wayans said, "I wanted to do a show that reflects different points of view. We've added an Asian and a Hispanic minority to the show. We're trying in some way to represent all the voices. ... Minority talent is not in the system and you have to go outside. We found Crystal doing her act in the lobby of a theater in Chicago. We went beyond the Comedy Stores and Improvs, which are not showcase places for minorities."
The first episode aired on Sunday, April 15, 1990, following an episode of Married... with Children. The first episode was watched by 22.7 million people, making it the 29th-most-viewed show for the week.
The Miami Herald said the show was as "smart and saucy as it is self-aware" and "audacious and frequently tasteless, but terrific fun". The Philadelphia Inquirer called it "the fastest, funniest half-hour in a long time". The Seattle Times said it had "the free-wheeling, pointed sense of humor that connects with a large slice of today's audience". The Columbus Dispatch described it as a "marvelously inventive" show that has "catapulted television back to the cutting edge".
When asked about the show's use of stereotypes of Black culture for comedy, Wayans said, "Half of comedy is making fun of stereotypes. They only get critical when I do it. Woody Allen has been having fun with his culture for years, and no one says anything about it. Martin Scorsese, his films basically deal with the Italian community, and no one ever says anything to him. John Hughes, all of his films parody upscale White suburban life. Nobody says anything to him. When I do it, then all of a sudden it becomes a racial issue. You know what I mean? It's my culture, and I'm entitled to poke fun at the stereotypes that I didn't create in the first place. I don't even concern myself with that type of criticism, because it's racist in itself." The only cast members to appear in all 5 seasons were Keymáh, Grier, Davidson, and Carrey, although Carrey's appearences in the fifth season were limited due to his rapidly rising film career. Throughout 1993, Carrey was busy filming The Mask and Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (both 1994) all while still an active cast member on In Living Color.
For the first episode, an exotic-looking logo was used for the opening credits. However, after the band Living Colour claimed in a lawsuit that the show stole the band's logo and name, the logo was changed to one with rather plain-type letters of three colors. The show title itself is a homage to the NBC Peacock tag line, "The following program is brought to you in living color" from the 1960s when television was transitioning from black & white to color TV.
In the first two seasons, the opening sequence was set in a room covered with painters' tarps. Each cast member, wearing black-and-white, played with brightly colored paint in a different way (throwing paintballs at the camera by hand, spray painting the lens, using a roller to cover the camera lens, etc.). The sequence ended with a segue to a set built to resemble the rooftop of an apartment building, where the show's dancers performed a routine and opened a door to let Keenen Ivory Wayans greet a live audience.
For the third and fourth seasons, an animated sequence and different logo were used. Cast members were superimposed over pictures hanging in an art gallery and interacted with them in different ways (spinning the canvas to put it right-side up, swinging the frame out as if it were a door, etc.). The final image was of the logo on a black canvas, which shattered to begin the show. The fifth season retained the logo, but depicted the cast members on various signs and billboards around a city (either New York or Chicago), ending with the logo displayed on a theater marquee. The main title sequences were created by Klasky-Csupo, best known for Rugrats and produced by Robert Jason with some graphics by Beau Tardy.
The hip-hop group Heavy D & the Boyz performed two different versions of the opening theme. One version was used for the first two seasons and remixed for the fifth, while the other was featured in the third and fourth seasons.
The show employed an in-house dance troupe known as the "Fly Girls". The original lineup consisted of Carrie Ann Inaba (who became a choreographer and judge on Dancing with the Stars), Cari French, Deidre Lang, Lisa Marie Todd, Barbara Lumpkin and Michelle Whitney-Morrison. Rosie Perez was the choreographer for the first four seasons. The most notable former Fly Girl was future actress/singer Jennifer Lopez, who joined the show in its third season.
Throughout the show's run, the Fly Girls frequently performed a dance routine to lead into commercial breaks and/or during the closing credits. In the first two seasons, they also performed a routine that immediately followed the opening sequence. Music was provided by an in-house DJ – Shawn Wayans (credited as SW-1) in the first two seasons, then DJ Twist from season 3 onward.
The Fly Girls would sometimes be used as extras in sketches, or as part of an opening gag. In one sketch, they were shown performing open-heart surgery (in the sketch, the girls are dancing in order to pay their way through medical school). Another routine featured the three original female cast members dancing off-beat during the introduction of the show, when it was revealed that the regular Fly Girls were all bound and gagged and breaking through the door where Keenan Ivory Wayans enters.
Three of the Fly Girls also appeared in the eleventh episode of Muppets Tonight's second season in 1997.
Keenen Ivory Wayans stopped appearing in sketches in 1992 after the end of the third season, over disputes with Fox about the network censoring the show's content and rerunning early episodes without his consultation. Wayans feared that Fox would ultimately decrease the syndication value of In Living Color. Kim Wayans, who appeared in the first four seasons, left the series before season 5.
Originally produced by 20th Television on Fox, the series was in reruns on local affiliates for a few years, but has since become a longstanding mainstay on FX and FXX, which had been sister channels to Fox prior to being acquired by The Walt Disney Company. In syndication, the series is distributed by Disney-ABC Domestic Television.
In Canada, it was Simulcast on CBC Television during the entire run.
Reruns have also aired on MTV2, VH1, NuvoTV, Fusion TV, BET, and Centric, while the series previously aired on Aspire and TV One as of September 2020.
Unlike past runs on FX and the Viacom Media Networks, the FXX cut of episodes are mostly uncut and censored. The music video parodies and spoken references to licensed songs have been reinstated, but the "Bolt 45" sketch, the "drop the soap" line, and the "Men on Football" sketch with the adlibbed lines about Richard Gere's and Carl Lewis's alleged homosexuality are still edited (though the facial ejaculation shot on "Men on Fitness" was reinstated), along with a line from the season five sketch "Fire Marshall Bill at the Magic Show" that makes reference to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing (the missing line is, "That's what they said about the World Trade Center, son. But me and my friend Abdul and a couple of pounds of plastique explosives showed them different." Bill's laugh and his catchphrase "Lemme show ya somethin'" was also cut abruptly), due to the September 11, 2001 attacks.
The Best of In Living Color aired on MyNetworkTV from April 16 to June 18, 2008. Hosted by David Alan Grier, it was a retrospective featuring classic sketches, along with cast interviews and behind-the-scenes footage. The show aired on Wednesdays at 8:30 pm Eastern/7:30 pm Central, after MyNetworkTV's sitcom Under One Roof.
20th Century Fox Home Entertainment has released all five seasons of In Living Color on DVD in Region 1. Due to music licensing issues, some sketches have been edited to remove any and all mention of licensed songs, from characters waxing lyrical to entire performances (including the music video parodies and some of the Fly Girl dancing interstitials). Additionally, the "Bolt 45" sketch (which aired once on May 5, 1990) was omitted, and the "soap" portion of the "drop the soap" line in the second "Men on Film" sketch has been muted.
In 2011, there were plans to make a revival of the original series that featured a new cast, characters, and sketches. The pilot episodes were hosted and executive produced by original series creator and cast member Keenen Ivory Wayans. In early 2012, Tabitha and Napoleon D'umo were hired as the choreographers. They cast the new line-up of The Fly Girls and shot pilot episodes for the show which were set to air on Fox, like the original. However, on January 8, 2013, Keenen Ivory Wayans confirmed the reboot had been canceled because he and Fox did not feel that the show was sustainable after one season. Reported cast members included Cooper Barnes, Jennifer Bartels, Sydney Castillo, Josh Duvendeck, Jermaine Fowler, Ayana Hampton, Kali Hawk, and Lil Rel Howery. In addition, featured cast members were Henry Cho, Melanie Minichino, and Chris Leidecker. Members of the new Fly Girls included Christina Chandler, Tera Perez, Lisa Rosenthal, Katee Shean, and Whitney Wiley.
Many of the cast members of the revival (Bartels, Fowler, and Howery) went on to create the TruTV sketch show Friends of the People.
Singer Bruno Mars paid tribute to the television program in the music video for his single "Finesse".