In Living Color had the swag, the style, the tunes — it was Saturday Night Live, if SNL were written in native tongues. Damon Wayans says not only is the time right to revive the sketch comedy show, but YouTube is the perfect repository to mine for talent.
In Living Color only ran on FOX from 1990–1994. Its impact can’t be overstated, however, as it aired among a golden age for black people on network television and in music, marrying the two perfectly. It gave us characters like Homey D. Clown (played by Wayans), Wanda (Jamie Foxx), Fire Marshal Bill (Jim Carrey) and Blaine & Antoine (Wayans and David Alan Grier), surrounded by musical performances, a theme song by Heavy D and dope choreography from the Fly Girls.
Wayans told Business Insider during the Television Critics Association press tour that the show should have been an institution and that the talent exists to give it new life.
“There’s still more talent to be found,” he said. “I see them when I’m in the comedy clubs. If we had In Living Color on, these people should go through there, because it was great training ground.”
Wayans, who himself is starring in FOX’s reboot of Lethal Weapon, argued that the raw talent on YouTube would be a great pipeline for comedic performers, who could get to the next level if they were nurtured by a television show.
“I watch YouTube and I’m looking for [talent] and it’s not consistent,” Wayans told us. “All these years, they’re uploading 10 billion videos a week on YouTube and I can’t find anything consistently funny. There’s something wrong. There’s no filter. Who’s locating the talent? Nurturing the talent? It should be more consistent.”
See a clip of Damon Wayans in action here, because him as the militant clown who never played around will always be funny: