Most of us loved In Living Color back in the day. The skits were original and creative and the cast was incredibly talented. The show produced household names like Jamie Foxx, Jim Carey, Damon Wayans, and quite a few others. Well, there's good news for fans of the show. Fox says that they are going to bring the comedy back after nearly 20 years. Perhaps this might give us a reason to start watching television again.
Keenen Ivory Wayans is going to be the executive producer for the show. Fox has ordered two half-hour specials to be shown, as part of its 25th anniversary celebration. There are options in the contract such that if the show is successful, it may come back on the air for good.
In Living Color hit the scene in April of 1990. It was responsible for bringing hip-hop dancing into the mainstream with the ever-so-famous "fly girls," and also brought the kind of comedy that you didn't see on TV back then or even now. The height of the show's fame occurred when the cast pulled in 25 million viewers during halftime of the 1992 Super Bowl. Although some shows can get away with severe political incorrectness (Southpark, Family Guy), this liberty hasn't always been true for black actors and directors, especially on issues of race. Eventually, Fox got rid of the show after the Wayans family irritated a few too many big shots.
As a college student, I remember the show setting trends and making waves in ways that made us all proud. I've always felt a kindred spirit with the Wayans family, for most of their films and television shows have been witty, sharp and downright hilarious. Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood continues to be the movie that has me on the floor laughing while all my friends look at me cross-eyed. Believe it or not, I'd always known that, one day, I would meet the Wayans family up close so I could tell them personally how much I love their style of comedy.
In 2006, I had the chance to sit with Damon Wayans for 30 minutes as we waited to appear on the ESPN Show, Quite Frankly with Stephen A. Smith. The chance meeting allowed me to tell Damon that I consider the Wayans family to be the most brilliant family in all of show business. It broke my heart to see a highly successful show destroyed because the powers-that-be were unable to digest direct and intelligent social critiques from African-American entertainers. My favorite skit? You can probably guess it: "Homie the clown" -- it's hard to think that a clown would provide such an extraordinary and hilarious display of the frustrations of being a Black man in America.
Today is a new day (or so we think). Let's hope that the Wayans family is not punished for being creative and empowered. There is no show I can think of outside of Saturday Night Live that has produced as many stars as this one and it's achievements have rarely been paralleled. Fox is a network that has put shows on the air that have offended nearly everyone (two of their shows, Family Guy and American Dad are beyond edgy). I am sure the members of the Wayans family are no less socially conscious and critical than they were in the early 1990s, so it'll be interesting to see if Fox gives the Wayans family the same creative freedoms being granted to everyone else... after all, we do live in a "post-racial America," right? Let me go ahead and slap a big "LOL" at the end of that one -- I doubt the show lasts for half a season.
Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Professor at Syracuse University and founder of the Your Black World Coalition. To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.
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I loveeeeeeeeeeeeed this show. I would like to see it come back....but....will it be just as good if not better?....Everybody is 20 years older...How will they pull off those skits....Will they be just as funny?...
One thing is for sure...they will have plenty of material to work with and I think they will have free reign with the content..shoot SNL is doing it..and Archie Bunker did it....I think we (America) can handle it.....I just don't like that fact that it's on Fox...I don't trust Fox...but anywho...I look forward to it...............
The article didn't mention J-Lo and Carrie Ann Anaba who were Fly Girls.
I'd love to see it come back with the original cast...Jim Carrey, Damon Wayans, David Alan Grier, Jamie Foxx, etc. (I can dream, can't I?)
And did I miss it, or did you mention that J Lo was a fly girl on ILC before she was a star?
The only thing that gives me pause is that there will be a "new, fresh" cast. I know Keenen will host and produce, and I think he's completely brilliant, but I've not heard if any of his brothers or any of the original cast will participate. As I posted in another story about this, I would love just a reunion show. Same characters and scenarios with updated material.
Anyway, yay!
Shows like "IN LIVING COLOR", "LIVING SINGLE", "NY: UNDERCOVER", "MARTIN", and "ROC" gave that network extremely high numbers and basically made Black culture mainstream. Kristal Brent Zook's great book, "COLOR BY FOX" goes more into analysis about this.
When I lived in Oregon through the 90s, young White cats couldn't get enough of a lot of these shows in those days. All I would hear about was all those shows on FOX and "ARSENIO" and what happened on them that night. It was like a huge cultural paradigm shift.
Now we take it for granted.
The late 80s through the mid-90s was a GREAT time for Black programming.
The Wayans are all talented comics, David Allan Grier was great, Jim Carrey and Jamie Foxx were hilarious.
I doubt they’ll be able to get the whole cast back together (Carrey and Foxx can’t be cheap now a days!) but I hope they get enough of the originals back to make it worthwhile.
Wouldn’t it be a kick if they got American Idol to loan them Jennifer Lopez for one of the episodes?