Image Credit: Everett Collection
Expectations were low for In Living Color when Fox launched the prime-time sketch-comedy series. ”I didn’t think we were going to get it on the air or get paid for it,” remembers Damon Wayans, 49, who, alongside his brother Keenen, created the groundbreaking show (which featured then unknowns Jim Carrey and David Alan Grier). ”We would have done it for free. We were just looking for a chance to express ourselves creatively.”
And express themselves the Wayans brothers certainly did. The show boasted a host of popular and controversial characters, including the gay, effeminate ”Men on Film” guys and Homey D. Clown, a straight-from-jail ghetto jester who would shoot down kids’ requests with the catchphrase ”Homey don’t play that.” ”You have to have affection for all your characters, but people love Homey,” Wayans says. ”On In Living Color, we did great characters that got into the pop culture.”
Color also brought us Fire Marshall Bill, a fire-safety teacher (played by Carrey) who continually burst into flames; spoofs of Oprah, Andrew Dice Clay, and Tracy Chapman; and the Fly Girl dancers, whose ranks included Jennifer Lopez and Dancing With the Stars judge Carrie Ann Inaba. ”You just sit back and go, ‘Wow’ when watching their careers,” Wayans says. ”It’s sad it’s gone, because I think the dream was to have an institution that lived on like Saturday Night Live. It was the best time of my career.”
I remember wanting to bang that Asian-looking Fly Girl. Turns out it was Jennifer Lopez. Also turns out I still want to bang her.
Actually, there WAS an asian fly girl. Carrie Ann Inaba from DWTS was a fly girl. look it up.
Men of Film was great. So was Jamie Foxx’s drag character with the huge butt and blonde wig. Can’t remember the name, but team him/her up with Tommy Davidson and hilarity ensued.
Jamie’s character’s name was “Wanda”
Yes Wanda and her vaseline! I remember the one where Wanda was giving Tommy Davidson character a massage and he turned around and saw her. That was so funny. Also Men on Film was the greatest. “Hated it”. I also loved the spoof with the guys in prison using trying to use big words but the words they were using were like menstruation and stuff. I loved Fire Marshal Bill “Let me show you someTHING”. I always thought that was going to be a movie. The Wayans and Jim Carrey need to connect and get that movie made. I also loved Kim Wayan’s gossiping neighbor. She loved her some Miss Jenkins then in the same breath talk about her wigs. I miss that show.
I got you and I’m ready to go! Wanda for real.
You mean “red-to-go.”
Went to a taping of this show in its first year, and it was just amazing! I try to catch it on cable whenever I can and it’s so exciting seeing sketches that were filmed when I was there. The humor is (mostly) still fresh. Great show!
Three snaps up!
you can do what you want………
They should bring it back. I know a ton of people who’d watch because they spend a lot of their day imitating those characters!
I loved this show. Because it was different. I taped most of the episodes so I can watch it today.
I have 2 seasons on DVD and recently purchased 2 refrigerator magnets of Men on Films and Mr. Tubbs. Everyone who sees the magnets can’t help but laugh. This show is still funny.
I miss Fox back in the early ’90s. The shows were pretty low brow, but you were definitely guaranteed a laugh.
Yeah I watched a lot of stuff Fox had on around that time: In Living Color, The Simpsons, Married…With Children, 90210, Melrose Place, Roc, Parker Lewis Can’t Lose, Herman’s Head and even Cops was exciting back then.
agreed. it all seemed so much cooler than what the other networks had.
Looking back those were some goundbreaking and funny shows. What happened to television?
Jim Carrey’s female body builder FTW.
In a Z formation!
Jim Carrey as “background guy” was my favorite.
I was just talking about In Living Color today! Too funny.
You forgot Rosie Perez who choreographed the Fly Girls