In Living Color

The groundbreaking American satirical sketch comedy television series In Living Color aired on the Fox Broadcasting Company network from 1990 to 1994. Created by writer, producer, actor, and director Keenen Ivory Wayans, the series gave voice to the African American experience in a way that was absent in other sketch comedy shows. The show addressed race relations, cultural stereotypes, politics, and pop culture from an African American point of view and featured a predominantly Black cast.

Filmed in front of a studio audience, the 30-minute episodes were a mixture of comedy sketches, dance routines, and musical performances that celebrated hip-hop culture. In Living Color was nominated for 18 Emmy Awards over its five seasons and 127 episodes. The series won an Emmy for outstanding variety, music or comedy series in its first season and was nominated in the same category in its second and third seasons. In addition, In Living Color won an NAACP Image Award for outstanding variety series in 1992.

How the color came to life

After Wayans wrote, directed, and starred in the 1988 film I’m Gonna Git You Sucka—a spoof of 1970s blaxploitation movies—the fledgling Fox asked him to create a show to air on its network. In Living Color premiered April 15, 1990, and was an immediate success. Wayans wrote and starred in the show, and four of his nine siblings—Damon Wayans, Kim Wayans, Shawn Wayans, and Marlon Wayans—were cast members.

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In Living Color helped launch the careers of the Wayanses as well as comedians and actors Jim Carrey, Jamie Foxx, David Alan Grier, Kelly Coffield Park, Tommy Davidson, and T’Keyah Crystal Keymáh. The show introduced Jennifer Lopez and Carrie Ann Inaba as members of the Fly Girls, the show’s dance troupe. Actress Rosie Perez earned three Emmy Award nominations (1990, 1992, and 1993) for her work as a choreographer of the Fly Girls’ routines. After Chris Rock left the sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live, he joined the cast of In Living Color during season five.

Each episode featured the show’s regular ensemble of actors, sometimes joined by guest performers. The show began with a performance by the Fly Girls and an introduction by Keenen Ivory Wayans or one of the performers, followed by comedic sketches, Fly Girls dances, and performances by musical acts, such as Heavy D & the Boyz (who recorded the show’s theme song with DJ Eddie F [Edward Ferrell]), Queen Latifah, Flavor Flav, Mary J. Blige, Eazy-E, Naughty by Nature, A Tribe Called Quest, and many others. Sketches skewered cultural and political figures, spoofed movies, and parodied music videos. Popular recurring sketches included “Dirty Dozens Tournament of Champions,” “Homeboy Shopping Network,” “Great Moments in Black History,” and “Fire Marshall Bill.” Damon Wayans, one of the breakout stars of the show, created several memorable recurring characters, including Homey D. Clown and Anton Jackson. Both Keenen Ivory Wayans and Damon Wayans were nominated for an Emmy Award in 1991 for outstanding individual performance in a variety or music program.

The immense popularity of In Living Color helped Fox, which was founded in 1986, to boost its viewership and ratings. Although the network wanted an edgy show to draw viewers, executives worried about the controversial nature of some of the content and sometimes censored sketches. During the first three seasons of the show, Keenen Ivory Wayans found a way to produce sketches that were acceptable to both him and the network. However, he left the show during the fourth season after clashing with Fox over censorship and about airing reruns of the show before syndication. Over time, every Wayans originally involved with the show left: Damon Wayans after the third season, Marlon Wayans during the fourth, and Kim Wayans and Shawn Wayans after the fourth. After the show’s fifth season, in 1994, Fox canceled In Living Color.

Impact and legacy

During the 1992 Super Bowl Fox aired a live episode of In Living Color to compete with the halftime show during the football game, which was airing on CBS. More than 20 million viewers flipped channels to watch the sketch show instead of the halftime show. Prior to that event, the Super Bowl halftime show had featured entertainment that was fairly tame, such as performances by Olympic figure skaters and the youth singing group Up With People. After the In Living Color event, the NFL changed its halftime show strategy. Superstar pop singer Michael Jackson performed at the 1993 halftime show, ushering in an era of blockbuster musical acts performing in Super Bowl halftime shows.

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After its cancellation In Living Color gained a cult following for its sketches and relevance in Black culture. It significantly influenced later sketch comedy television shows, with Wayans acknowledging Chappelle’s Show (2003–06) and Key and Peele (2012–15) as spiritual successors. In 2011 Wayans and Fox planned to revive the show, as Fox was looking to bring a successful sketch comedy show back to its TV programming lineup. However, both Fox and Wayans canceled the plans, believing that the sketch series couldn’t survive past a season in the new millennium.

Singer Bruno Mars’s music video for the 2018 remix of his song “Finesse” doubled as a tribute to ’90s fashion and In Living Color. In 2022 a collection of In Living Color materials were archived at the National Comedy Center in Jamestown, New York. The collection includes annotated script drafts, artifacts, creative materials, network censor reports, set drawings, prop lists, writers’ notes, and videotape masters.