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In honor of National Comedy Month, theGrio ranks the best music spoofs from the classic Fox sketch show “In Living Color.”
The theme song to Fox’s “In Living Color” started with “You can do what you wanna do” and served as an unofficial mission statement for the legendary sketch comedy show.
Masterminded by Keenan Ivory Wayans, the series that featured a line-up of Hollywood oddballs and prolific stand-up comics turned out to be the X-Men School of America comedy icons who could write, perform and parody without a filter. Jim Carrey, Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Lopez and Wayans’ talented siblings (Kim, Shawn, Marlon and Damon) were all part of the cast.
During the five-year run of “In Living Color,” which first aired in 1990, no one was safe from the sharp sting of the writing team. Among the show’s most potent sketches were its music video spoofs. Whether taking on Michael Jackson, Paula Abdul or Jimmy Swaggart, the cast knew how to turn a song on its head, through a biting social call-out or nonsensical ribbing.
“In Living Color” often looked to past TV shows for inspiration. It parodied old-school shows like “All in the Family” and “Lassie.” In one such case, the show took a dig at “Good Times,” transforming LL Cool J’s “Mama Said Knock You Out” into “Mama’s Gonna Kick Me Out.” Shawn Wayans portrayed J.J. Evans, rhyming in fear of his mother, Florida kicking him out of the family apartment.
In the early 1990s, Whitney Houston was a target of the Black community due to her pop music leanings. “In Living Color” swiped at the diva with the parody “Rhythmless Nation.” Kim Wayans played Houston as she sang to the tune of Janet Jackson’s “Rhythm Nation,” hilariously singing about how her big voice disguises her inability to dance or keep a beat while performing.
The first music parody “In Living Color” tackled in its first season was MC Hammer’s ubiquitous “U Can’t Touch This.” With Tommy Davidson playing the superstar rapper, he and the cast took potshots at Hammer’s polarizing wardrobe, particularly his baggy “Hammer” pants. Davidson even gets himself stuck inside the pants during a dance routine.
Vanilla Ice was a ripe target for parody in the early 1990s. The novelty of being a white rapper, his demeanor, and the controversy surrounding falsehoods about his backstory made it almost impossible not to poke fun at him. Jim Carrey stepped to the plate to play Vanilla Ice in “White White Baby,” a parody of “Ice Ice Baby.” Lines like “I’m white, and I’m capitalizin’ on a trend that’s currently risin’” pulled no punches at the discourse of Vanilla Ice as a culture vulture.
Jamie Foxx joined “In Living Color” in season three but proved a significant asset when imitating musicians like Little Richard and Prince. One of Foxx’s best sketches was a parody of Sir-Mix-a-Lot’s “Baby Got Back.” “Baby Got Snacks” doubled down on the original song’s embrace of women with curves to hilarious extremes. On the surface, it seemed like it made light of obesity and overeating, but in the last line, Foxx raps, “Give her a hug ’cause there’s more to love, ain’t nothing wrong with being big.”
Dance, techno, and house music dominated radio in the early 1990s. One of the era’s biggest hits was Crystal Waters’ “Gypsy Woman/She’s Homeless,” which featured a memorable wordless chorus. Kim Wayans transformed the track into “My Songs Are Mindless,” a dig at the seemingly nonsensical lyrics of the original, implying that consumers will love anything as long as the beat is good.
Music tastes change with the times as one generation of stars makes way for the next. “In Living Color” spoke to this tongue-in-cheek with a parody of “We Are the World.” Most of the cast appears to play 1980s stars from the original recording of the charity song like Willie Nelson (Carrey), Lionel Richie (Foxx), Tina Turner (Kim Wayans), and Stevie Wonder (Davidson) to record “We Were the World,” indicating that their time as big name stars were over.
As the final season of “In Living Color” was coming to a close, the cast still found time to make amazing parodies of hit songs. Carrey again took on a white rapper in the form of Snow, and his reggae smash single “Informer.” Carrey masterfully captured Snow’s rapid cadence for “Imposter,” a funny criticism of a white rapper being able to have a hit with a reggae while Black reggae artist can’t crossover. “You can criticize me to the bank, my single’s No. 1, and Shabba don’t rank,” and, “pretending I was rasta since I was in jammies, I should paint my face and be beltin’ out ‘Mammie!’” were among the lines in the parody.
Most “In Living Color” music parodies came in the form of a music video set. One of the few that need to follow that format is one of the best. In a season one sketch, Kim Wayans plays singer-songwriter Tracy Chapman on the phone with her manager, proclaiming that she writes her best songs right before the deadline. She then looks out the window, sees the mayhem of her neighbors, and writes “Fast Song,” a spoof of the stream-of-consciousness storytelling of her hit “Fast Car.”
Marlon Wayans’ time on “In Living Color” was the briefest among the Wayans siblings. Although he was around for only one season, the young Wayans made a significant impact with his parody of Shabba Ranks’ reggae hit, “Mr. Loverman.” Marlon and crew aimed Ranks’ facial features juxtaposed with his hit about lovemaking with “Mr. Ugly Man.” Marlon sings about the women he tries to woo, avoiding his advances with an impression of Ranks’ voice that’s shockingly accurate.
Matthew Allen is an entertainment writer of music and culture for theGrio. He is an award-winning music journalist, TV producer and director based in Brooklyn, NY. He’s interviewed the likes of Quincy Jones, Jill Scott, Smokey Robinson and more for publications such as Ebony, Jet, The Root, Village Voice, Wax Poetics, Revive Music, Okayplayer, and Soulhead. His video work can be seen on PBS/All Arts, Brooklyn Free Speech TV and BRIC TV.
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