"In Living Color",was without a doubt one of the funniest shows of the 1990's,when it came on Sunday nights and stayed there on that time slot for the next five seasons(1990-1995). This was in fact the show that was the opposite of Saturday Night Live,but more hilarious and more funny than ever before. "In Living Color",was one of the top line-up of shows that the FOX Network had on during the Sunday night hiatus,and this was before another hilarious show that came on after it.....the funny and hilarious as hell,"Married:With Children"...and to that extent the onslaught of comedy shows featuring black actors in prominent roles like "Living Single","Martin",and the non-comedical shows of "New York Undercover","21 Jump Street",and "Beverly Hills 90210",and "Melrose Place".
Getting back to the series "In Living Color",this show was the one that brought open the Wayans empire,and its rise to the top of the Nielsens and brought the Wayans family from their beginnings as up and coming to one of the most powerful show-business families in Hollywood. With this show really featured the entire Wayans clan...Keenan Ivory-Wayans,Damon Wayans,Shaun Wayans,Marlon Wayans,and sister Kim Wayans and others. Not only was Keenan Ivory-Wayans the host of this series,but he also was behind the scenes as well,serving as the show's creator as well as executive producer and CEO in charge of production,which propelled the FOX network to new heights. Almost everyone that was associated with this show was discovered here and their careers really took off because of this series,including some who went on to become big time actors and producers in Hollywood,including some who went on to become Oscar nominees because of this show. From Jim Carrey,Jamie Foxx,Kim Coles, David Alan Grier,Tommy Davidson,T'Keyah "Crystal" Keymah,Jennifer Lopez, Kelly Coffield,Anne Marie-Johnson,Rosie Perez(who served as the show's choreographer of the dancing group "The Fly Girls"),rapper Heavy D,and others that were behind this successful series from the golden age of the 1990's.
The show itself,in my opinion was way ahead of its time as far as the jokes were concerned. I find that even though this show began over a decade ago,actually begin the five-year hiatus journey almost ten years ago,and the show comes closer to celebrating the 10th anniversary of this series. Even with the overall jokes that were presented with a lot of comment about gays,the homeless,golddiggers,and others of minority was in fact very superb in the sense of the word when it came to providing the laughs and the Wayans did just that. In other words,it was just that damn hilarious. No wonder this show is a classic in its own right. However,related to the Fly Girl dancing sequences,they are really spectacular in there day,but it looks so out dated because of the dance moves and the dance craze that was the thing back in the day....The Roger Rabbit and The Running Man,as well as those Day-Glo costumes that were a little too skimpy for TV then,but in all the music they had back then was so demanding,and it was all hip-hop formatted as the dancers sway to the music of such acts as Public Enemy,Digital Underground,Kid N'Play,Salt N'Pepa,Big Daddy Kane,LL Cool J,Boyz II Men, En Vogue,and many more. It also had a lot...and I mean a lot of special musical guests that performed on the show including one episode where they had a special musical guest known as Jay-Z,and no one knew that this rapper would go on to the top of the world after this show and to launch his own empire...Rocafella.
This show not only had the Wayans as one of the funniest families out there,but the rest of the cast were as hilarious as they were,and some of them were just as crazy as they come. Especially when it provided the hardest laughs from siblings Damon Wayans and Kim Wayans not to mention from David Alan Grier,Tommy Davidson,and T'Keyah "Crystal" Keymah,and the wackiest of them all.....Jim Carrey! One of most popular characters from that show was Homie The Clown,who is hilarious as hell and played to the hilt of hysteria by Damon Wayans. He played a character that was so realistic that it had me laughing crying in tears! The other character was Fire Marshall Bill and he was not only funny,but he was extremely crazy and wacko,and no other actor like Jim Carrey could pull this off with such ease and for one the character was one crazy "psycho" S.O.B.,and from the previous comment that I wouldn't want him near my house if it caught on fire! The other character was one that had the censors in an uproar along with several organization including the NAACP that tried to boycott this show,but what the hell,the show went on inspite of the threats made...the character featured two male African-Americans who were extremely gay as hell and they were as queer as they can be,and the characters portrayed by Damon Wayans and David Alan Grier not only provided the laughs and some of it was as funny and hilarious to the extent,but it was one episode during "Men On Film" where they did the unthinkable where the two men really were liplocking on the set when the majority of children were watching the show especially during the Sunday night hour,which had the censors really uptight! But in all,seeing these two comment on recent movie releases was indeed funny within itself,and it was a scream! The show itself did a lot of parodied of music videos and did it ever poke fun of it too from the likes of Michael Jackson,Crystal Waters, Vanilla Ice,MC Hammer,Stevie Nicks(portrayed by Kelly Coffield),Teena Marie,Rick James,Tracy Chapman(portrayed by Kim Wayans),James Brown,and others.
Let's not forget the others like Jim Carrey's Captain Hazelwood,and the hilarious version of the Lassie,where Lassie is a pit bull is so naive that it was funny as hell.
It also ultimately gave a cross section of the politics,the fashion,the trends,and the happenings that occurred in the 1990's in standard comedic form courtesy of Keenan Ivory-Wayans which remain until during the show's fourth season,the changes were about to be made. When the rest of the actors started to leave(in this case,the Wayans clan)the hilarity declined with each departure of the Wayans clan and the show's departure from its Sunday night timeslot to Wednesday nights which hurt the show badly. The jokes and the recurring characters were getting old,but so after that the series ended its five year run in May of 1995. However,the series can still be seen as reruns on FX,but lets face it... they can showed old episodes of Married:With Children during the day,but not In Living Color? Get With It! But because of the dated quality,you can tell that it went straight to DVD where the sheer brilliance of the first season of the series is a joy to watch.
