IN LIVING COLOR

'''In Living Color''' is a ground-breaking sketch comedy television series which ran on the FOX Network from April 15, 1990 to May 19, 1994. Executive producer Keenen Ivory Wayans created, wrote, and starred in the program.
Other members of the Wayans family—Damon, Kim, Shawn and Marlon—had regular roles, while oldest brother Dwayne frequently appeared as an extra.
As of 2007 there are no plans to revive the series.

Contents

Description and history

Pilot episode

Live musical performances

Departure of the Wayanses

Censorship

Season 5

Popular recurring sketches

Cast

Facts and figures

Episodes

DVD Releases

External links

Description and history

The series strove to produce comedy with a strong emphasis on African American subject matter. However, it also helped launch the career of comedians Jim Carrey (the only male white member of the original cast, then credited as "James Carrey"), future Academy Award winner Jamie Foxx (who joined the cast in the third season), and future actress/singer Jennifer Lopez (who was a ''Fly Girl'' dancer in the second and third seasons). Also a part of the cast was David Alan Grier, an established character actor who had worked in Keenen Ivory Wayans' motion picture ''I'm Gonna Git You Sucka'' (1988).

Pilot episode

For the first episode, an exotic-looking black-and-white logo was used for the opening credits. After the band Living Colour claimed the show stole the logo from them and threatened to sue, the logo was changed to one with rather plain-type letters of three colors. Both versions of the theme song were performed by the hip-hop group Heavy D & the Boyz. The logo and opening sequence was derivative of the Memphis Movement art style.

Live musical performances

''In Living Color'' was known for its live music performances, which started in Season 2 with Queen Latifah as their first performer (appearing again in the third season). Some of the other music acts who performed on the show were Public Enemy, Monie Love and Busta Rhymes (then with Leaders of the New School).
During a marathon of the show on BET, Rosie Perez stated that TLC was scheduled to perform on one episode, but when they were told to remove the condoms from their clothes, they refused, and left the studio. Perez stated how proud she was of the girls for staying true to themselves.

Departure of the Wayanses

Keenen Ivory Wayans left the show in 1992 after the end of the 3rd season, over disputes with Fox about the network censoring the show's content and rerunning early episodes without his consultation. Keenen feared that Fox would ultimately decrease the syndication value of ''In Living Color''. During the fourth season in 1992, he appears only in the (1992-93) season opener, though he remains the executive producer and stays in the opening credits until the thirteenth episode. Marlon Wayans left with Keenen. Shawn Wayans and Kim Wayans both left the show at the end of the fourth season. Damon Wayans left at the end of the third season to pursue a movie career though he made a few "special guest appearances" in the fourth season.

Censorship

Fox started censoring the scripts more after ''In Living Color'' produced a live Super Bowl halftime special (branded by the network as ''The Doritos Zaptime/'In Living Color' Super Halftime Party''). During the "Men on Football" sketch, Damon Wayans and David Alan Grier adlibs a suggestion that actor Richard Gere and track and field star Carl Lewis were homosexuals, much to Lewis' open chagrin. As well, in the original aired version, there was a simulation of male facial ejaculation using a water bottle and a clever camera angle. These two segments have been cut from reruns and the DVD version. The programming stunt lured 20 million to 25 million viewers from CBS' telecast of the halftime festivities during Super Bowl XXVI.
When airing on BET, most curse words (such as "ass" and "bitch") have been muted out and one line ("drop the soap") was also muted for its implications of prison rape. The DVD version has the language intact (except for the "drop the soap" line from Men on Film), but numerous sketches have been cut, particularly the music video parodies due to copyright reasons.
On the May 5, 1990 broadcast, Keenen Ivory Wayans did a take-off on a Billy Dee Williams "Colt 45" commercial (in which the purpose of the beverage is to get your lady friend wasted) that ended with a woman (played by Kim Coles) passed out on her back on a dining table, and "Billy Dee" moving in on her unconscious body to have sex with her.
The "Colt 45" sketch was seen only once during the original broadcast. The sketch was omitted from repeats because some felt it was making light of date rape. The Season 1 DVD set of ''ILC'' didn't include the "cut" sketch from the pilot. This skit was cut by Fox censors, and the necessary modifications were made to the master tape. But Keenen "accidentally" mixed up the masters, and the original master was broadcast. That segment has never been broadcast since, not even in syndication, on FX or BET. It has been replaced by ''The Exxxon Family'' (a fake promo for a sitcom about a clumsy Exxon boat captain) in syndication and DVD box sets.

Season 5

By the fifth and final season, none of the Wayans family had any involvement whatsoever with the show. The show's traditional reliance on the character-driven sketches featuring Damon and Keenan gave way to an increasing reliance upon walk-on cameos by "special guests" like James Brown, Rodney Dangerfield, Barry Bonds, Biz Markie, Ed O'Neill, Sherman Hemsley, Chris Rock, Tupac Shakur, En Vogue, and various stars of the NBA. Kelly Coffield, who, prior to Alexandra Wentworth's arrival in the fourth season, was the lone female white cast member, left prior to the final season.
''In Living Color'' was an Ivory Way Production (until Keenen Ivory Wayans left) in association with Twentieth Century Fox Television. It was in reruns on local affiliates and on the News Corporation owned FX Network, where it was distributed by Twentieth Television.
As of April 11, 2006, all five seasons of the series are available on DVD (albeit in edited form). Reruns of the show formerly aired on the BET Network from 2005-spring of 2007)

Popular recurring sketches

Main articles: List of In Living Color sketches

Cast

Cast members came and went during the run of the show, and new members appeared were added. Note that some older cast members continued to appear in later seasons, so later casts also include some previous year's cast members.
Main articles: List of In Living Color cast members

Facts and figures

★ Jim Carrey, David Alan Grier, Tommy Davidson, T'Keyah Crystal Keymáh and Fly Girl Deidre Lang are the only cast members to remain on the show throughout all five seasons, although Carrey's presence during the fifth season was limited due to his rising movie career, while Tommy Davidson missed most of the fourth season for an unknown reason.

★ Damon Wayans' characters Blaine Edwards (from "Men on ..." sketches) and Anton Jackson (the gross, homeless man) are the only two recurring characters who have been seen on both ''In Living Color'' and ''Saturday Night Live''.

★ If you look closely at the lateral sides of Homey D. Clown's shoes, you can see a big Nike swoosh logo and the word Nike on top. It's usually difficult to spot because the swoosh and the word are both in black.

★ At the 2006 BET Awards when the show returned from one of its commercial breaks, the show's host Damon Wayans played a character very reminiscent to "Men on ..." critic Blaine Edwards.

★ Former cast member Shawn Wayans (before he went to star in ''The Wayans Bros.'') portrayed J.J. Evans in a unaired parody music video sketch of LL Cool J's "Mama Said Knock You Out" in 1992, later on Shawn Wayans would portray J.J. Evans one last time in 1997 on a fourth season episode of ''The Wayans Bros.'', entitled "Unspoken Token", in which he dreams that he is J.J. from hit 1970s sitcom, ''Good Times'', in a reunion with Bern Nadette Stanis (Thelma Evans), Johnny Brown (Nathan Bookman) and Ja'net DuBois (Willona Woods), reprising the characters on the show, Shawn's brother Marlon portrays Michael Evans, Anna Maria Horsford as Florida, and John Witherspoon as James.

★ In 2007, writer JJ Paulsen was charged in the beating death of his wife.

Episodes

Main articles: List of In Living Color episodes

DVD Releases

20th Century Fox Home Entertainment has released all 5 seasons of ''In Living Color'' on DVD in Region 1 for the very first time. Unfortunately the sets have been edited due to music licensing issues, resulting in some shows having entire sketches removed.

DVD Name	Ep #	Release Date	Additional Information
Season 1	13	April 6, 2004
Season 2	26	September 28, 2004
Season 3	30	May 10, 2005
Season 4	33	October 25, 2005
Season 5	26	April 11, 2006

External links

★

★

★ Clips and Skits from the Show

★ In Living Color - The TV Series Episode Guide 1990-94

★ In Living Color - DVD

★ In Living Color Wiki

★ Jump The Shark - In Living Color