You Can Do What You Wanna Do
April 14, 2010 8:57 PM   Subscribe

 
Yes, this does make me feel old, thanks for asking.
posted by empath at 8:59 PM on April 14, 2010 [7 favorites]


You're not the only one!
posted by blucevalo at 9:01 PM on April 14, 2010


Digable Planets
posted by cashman at 9:01 PM on April 14, 2010 [3 favorites]


Man, Fire Marshall Bill was creepy.
posted by dammitjim at 9:01 PM on April 14, 2010 [2 favorites]


btw, nothing would make me happier than having people post all the ones I couldn't find.
posted by empath at 9:02 PM on April 14, 2010


Oh wow.
Now I remember how it was a big deal when people figured out that Paula Abdul had her video edited to make her look skinny and everyone was upset that she used pitch-corrected vocals.
posted by Threeway Handshake at 9:03 PM on April 14, 2010


nothing would make me happier than having people post all the ones I couldn't find.

I wish I could find the 93 til Infinity performance.
posted by cashman at 9:07 PM on April 14, 2010 [1 favorite]


Jim Carrey's vanilla ice is so great. I remember literally rolling on the floor laughing at that for years. The "oyoyoyoyoyoyyoy" part and his dancing is just so on point.

we just take real rap and dupe it.
posted by cashman at 9:10 PM on April 14, 2010 [3 favorites]


Debuting 20 years ago
wat.
posted by Brainy at 9:12 PM on April 14, 2010 [1 favorite]


I miss In Living Color. It was so much better than SNL.
posted by Malice at 9:16 PM on April 14, 2010 [3 favorites]


I'm struck by how high the mikes are turned up over the music in the musical numbers. You can really hear them doing their thing.
posted by dammitjim at 9:18 PM on April 14, 2010


empath: "Yes, this does make me feel old, thanks for asking."

The other day, a co-worker made a derogatory comment about acid-washed jeans. I said, "Somewhere Debbie Gibson is shedding an electric tear." They said, "Who is Debbie Gibson?"

Fuck, that smarted.
posted by Joe Beese at 9:20 PM on April 14, 2010 [28 favorites]


I forget how old i was, but i had to be under 8, we were actually a test family or something for In living color, we watched an episode in advance and then they called and asked my dad questions about it.

The only thing i remember was the "great black moments" and the guy invents the "self-service pump" by telling the white guy to do it himself.

Oddly enough there was a small chunk of my life when i wasn't in to sketch comedy, and this was around then.
posted by djduckie at 9:25 PM on April 14, 2010


Let's not forget Carrie Ann Inaba, another former Fly Girl who is also semi-famous.
posted by 1adam12 at 9:30 PM on April 14, 2010 [1 favorite]


The Black Sheep performance is awesome.
posted by bardic at 9:30 PM on April 14, 2010


Despite what the original post says, I've actually been surprised how well some of the In Living Color skits I've seen has held up comedy-wise. I mean some of its just as offensive as it always was -- and I hate to think just how much more awful the "Men on..." sketches made life for two gay black guys I went to high school with -- but some of it still makes me laugh, in spite of myself. Though come to think of it, they may just be Mad TV skits that I'm mis-attributing.

But as far as the "twenty years since" tag goes, I wonder if anyone else is feeling something beyond "old" with that lately. For me, it's just proving how jumbled my pop culture memory is. Because to my remembrance, there's no way that In Living Color wasn't a couple years older than Twin Peaks, and the movie Pretty Woman pre-dated them both. But yet they all came out that fateful spring.

(Actually because of the universality of VHS cassettes and their rentals and how they were a focus of my life, you could have told me that Pretty Woman came out in any of the 90s and I would have believed you.)
posted by MCMikeNamara at 9:31 PM on April 14, 2010


Triple snap in Z formation!
posted by jonp72 at 9:31 PM on April 14, 2010 [3 favorites]


Oh my god, this brings me back. I can't believe my parents let me watch this, really. Even if I tried I doubt I could ever forget Vera, Fire Marshall Bill, or Homey the Clown.
posted by six-or-six-thirty at 9:34 PM on April 14, 2010


Oh my god, that Snow parody hasn't lost its edge at all. That was AWESOME.
posted by ShawnStruck at 9:38 PM on April 14, 2010 [1 favorite]


Nice & Smooth ... wow. I remember the first time I ever heard Greg Nice rap, and I thought, "There's no way that an MC whose act depends on electronic effects (a simple echo in his case) can ever succeed!"

Today? T-Pain. Stupid me!

Thanks for this, brings back a whole ton of memories.
posted by 1adam12 at 9:41 PM on April 14, 2010


The comedy might not have aged all that well

I was actually just talking with my best friend about this very subject yesterday (prompted by one of those bad VH1 retro shows, one of our favorite things to do together being to watch awful TV). I remembered In Living Color as being the absolute funniest thing on TV when it originally aired - everyone would be talking about it the day after it aired, imitating "Men On Film" (I still do an occasional "2 snaps up in Z formation") or Fire Marshall Bill or whatever. However, A. I was 12 and B. the bar for outrageous comedy was a lot lower then, and there had never really been anything like it before. Any random 5 minutes of Chappelle's Show blows In Living Color away, but In Living Color paved the way for all the edgy-urban-sketch-comedy shows that followed.
posted by DecemberBoy at 9:41 PM on April 14, 2010 [3 favorites]


Is that actually Flava Flav in that Heavy D/2Pac performance? I can't tell any more, these days he's so regularly spoofed ...
posted by mannequito at 9:42 PM on April 14, 2010


Also, the Wayans brothers seem to have gotten progressively less funny over the years somehow. "I'm Gonna Get You Sucka", which I think is the first thing any of them did (Damon was a bit player on SNL before that if you want to count that), is a classic and still hilarious. In Living Color was amazing at the time, but as discussed doesn't hold up too well. Their 90s stuff, like "Don't Be A Menace To South Central" and the first Scary Movie, have the occasionaly really hilarious gag or line but are mostly dreck. Then their more recent work, like "White Chicks" and "Little Man", has been totally unwatchable. How can you actually get WORSE with experience?
posted by DecemberBoy at 9:45 PM on April 14, 2010


Motherfucker I was supposed to be asleep by now.

Men on Film I
Tracy Chapman - I Write a Fast Song
Homey D. Clown
Cephus and Reesie
posted by nooneyouknow at 9:58 PM on April 14, 2010 [2 favorites]


I love this show. I used to watch it every Sunday night with my family. Hearing the theme song still always gives me that "ohhhh, crap. School tomorrow" pit in my stomach.
posted by solipsophistocracy at 10:01 PM on April 14, 2010 [5 favorites]


Actually I can go back one step further:

Keenan Ivory Wayans got the green light for developing this based on his work for Robert Townsend's Hollywood Shuffle.

I just wrote about this this week.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:13 PM on April 14, 2010 [1 favorite]


OhmygodhomiedontplaythatbartsimpsonhypercolorshammerpantsvanillaiceninjaturtlesawkwardjuniorhighmixerssneakingcigarettesinbackofthebowlingalleyrollerskatingrinksOHGODITSALLCOMINGBACKTOMENOWWONTSOMEBODYMAKEITSTOPawkardbarmitzvahshopliftingcandybarsattemptsatfootballpiercedearnicknamehangingoutatthemallandplayingarcadegames.

THANKS A LOT.
posted by Afroblanco at 10:16 PM on April 14, 2010 [7 favorites]


I'm going to have to wait until I fire up the desktop to enjoy these live performances, but this post did inspire me revisit my favorite ILC skit: Spike's Joint. Frankly, I think it holds up pretty well. The Mo' Betta Butter actually made me LOL. Thanks for this post, empath.
posted by Ufez Jones at 10:20 PM on April 14, 2010


LET ME SHOW YOU SOMETHING!
posted by dhammond at 10:21 PM on April 14, 2010 [1 favorite]


I can't find any reference to it (it's remarkably hard to Google for; go figure) but I remember first seeing Living Color play Cult of Personality on this show.
posted by scalefree at 10:30 PM on April 14, 2010


Wow a network-friendly rap by Eazy E, whodathunk? A few days ago I saw a kid about 12 years old with a brand spanking new N.W.A. t-shirt walking down my street in Anchorage. My first thought was "Cool!" and then I thought "Wait..." but then I remembered that I was only 13 when I was listening to N.W.A. as a junior high kid on Cape Cod. And I sure did love In Living Color, especially the Fly Girls. Usually Rosie Perez wasn't on the show, iirc, she choreographed the routines.
posted by stinker at 10:31 PM on April 14, 2010


I'm pretty sure Rosie Perez didn't get her start on In Living Color. Do The Right Thing came out in '89.

IMDB has her listed as a choreographer, did she do regular appearances (other than the linked Spike Joint sketch?)
posted by Bonzai at 11:12 PM on April 14, 2010 [1 favorite]


In Living Color was, and still is, like some parallel universe Saturday Night Live where African Americans were considered the rule rather than the exception in TV sketch comedy. (The closest that any show has come to it would probably be Mad TV, which had Orlando Jones, Phil LaMarr, Aries Spears and Debra Wilson, if not all on at the same time, at least in rapid succession.) I even enjoyed things like"The Wrath of Farrakhan", which is for my money the best Star Trek parody ever on TV, even though Louis Farrakhan is pretty repulsive. I dropped it from my viewing schedule when they had cliffhangers for both Homey the Clown and Men on Film at the end of one season--I didn't get the feeling that they were really making fun of cliffhangers, which is too bad--but it was a hell of a run there for a while.
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:33 PM on April 14, 2010 [1 favorite]




I miss In Living Color. It was so much better than SNL.

In Living Color then was better than SNL is now, but SNL in the early 90s was Golden Age of that show, and that lasted a good 5 or 6 years. In Living Color had a bit of a underdog, low-budget feel to it that made it cooler in a way, especially if you were into hiphop, and I watched it regularly. But it was never as funny as SNL. It was kind of the MAD TV of its day.

Jim Carrey was too over the top for me; David Allen Grier was probably the funniest member on that show ("Wrote a song about it. Like to hear it? Here it go.")
posted by zardoz at 11:56 PM on April 14, 2010 [1 favorite]


Man, this one never gets old: Family Feud: the Jackson family vs. the Royal Family
Related: Michael Jackson - "Black or White"
posted by prinado at 12:12 AM on April 15, 2010


Dirty Dozens Game Show

Everything else I said aside, "yo mama so fat she sat on a quarter and squeezed a booger out George Washington's nose" is a downright epic mama joke.
posted by DecemberBoy at 12:22 AM on April 15, 2010


This post, it is good. That was 20 years ago? T_T
posted by killdevil at 2:06 AM on April 15, 2010


scalefree, that's Living Colour, right?

Vivid was my first CD. Most people assumed I was talking about the show, not the group. Difficult times for a budding pedant. Yet, here I am, pointing out the superfluous U.
posted by Ghidorah at 2:12 AM on April 15, 2010 [1 favorite]


Watching the Farrakhan bit, two things struck me: how blunt they were in mocking Farrakhan, who, for the most part wasn't usually joked about. People either liked him or not, but didn't make a lot of Nation of Islam jokes.

The other thing was the Asian actor doing Mr. Sulu. Considering George Takei's current revival (especially in response to Tim Hardaway's comments on gays), and how much fun he's having, I'd love to see him say the "I want to do the NASTY" line. The guy in the skit did a good job, but the real Sulu would have been unbeatable.
posted by Ghidorah at 2:21 AM on April 15, 2010


My favorite ever song parody from that show has to be Vanessa Williams. Nowhere to be found this morning, alas.
posted by pernoctalian at 3:39 AM on April 15, 2010


Chris Farley as Roger Ebert on men on film
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZhjURoUlQc
posted by robbyrobs at 4:09 AM on April 15, 2010


Man, 20 years already?

It's been that long since Jim Carrey was actually funny?
posted by davelog at 4:52 AM on April 15, 2010 [3 favorites]


"Achy Breaky Head"

Carrey doing dangerous comedy. Can anyone find & post pleez...
posted by dragonsi55 at 5:09 AM on April 15, 2010


I don't see or hear Tupac on that Heavy D feat Tupac link. Anybody help me out?
posted by CRM114 at 5:10 AM on April 15, 2010


Man, I miss hip hop.
posted by milarepa at 5:30 AM on April 15, 2010 [1 favorite]


djduckie: The only thing i remember was the "great black moments" and the guy invents the "self-service pump" by telling the white guy to do it himself.

I still quote the line (out loud or in my head) when somebody asks me for something "Git it yo damn self".
posted by davey_darling at 5:38 AM on April 15, 2010


Color Me Badd people! (This version is different than the one on their album, without the Tick Tock You Don't Stop sample.)
posted by chunking express at 5:46 AM on April 15, 2010


Man, people need to bring back the high top fade. Fuck this point is awesome.
posted by chunking express at 5:57 AM on April 15, 2010


homeboy shopping network is reminiscent of a similar sketch that Damon Wayans and Anythony Michael Hall did on SNL for the one year they were both on there.

Chris Rock defected from SNL to ILC because he got tired of being the staple black guy. Which is weird because, and I'm not saying they were wrong, but you have these black guys that feel like tokens on the show (on the beginning of a stand-up special Damon is seen with his two sons, one taking the "appease the white man stance, and the other taking the militant, nation of islam-esque stance, and both site what happened on SNL as an argument for why he should do whichever) , and then Tim Meadows is the "black guy" (for lack of a better term) during the remainder of the "Bad boy" era, and does really well for himself. He had a really popular recurring character and got his own movie out of it, and has had a decent career since. Still one of my favorites. Tracy Morgan, who started out as the "other black guy"(referencing a sketch) has done pretty well for himself as well. Now Keenan Thomson is one of the staple actors on the show, and, though i don't watch it, from what i can tell one of the most utilized.
posted by djduckie at 6:14 AM on April 15, 2010


I'm a big fan of the amazing sampling and audio collage and looping that's been going on in hip hop pretty much since its inception, when I'm listening to records, but viewing many of the hip hop clips here, I'm reminded of a feeling I've long had: rappers should've been using more live musicians for live shows. It just would've been more exciting, it would've been better. Hearing Chuck D and Big Daddy Kane and the rest in recorded form with loops and samples is great, it's what hip hop is all about, but seeing those guys on those TV sound stages doing their hip hop moves and swaggering around the stage against the prerecorded backing tracks just always struck me as, I dunno, a little flat. A little lonely, in an odd kind of way.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 6:16 AM on April 15, 2010 [2 favorites]


chunking express : The high top fade IS coming back, just probably not in any of the circles you travel in. A significant number of my students have taken to sporting them this year, and have been since school started.
posted by absalom at 6:43 AM on April 15, 2010 [1 favorite]


Brings back awesome memories of the summer of 1990, which was the summer before I started college. That was a fabulous time. I loved that show.
posted by PuppyCat at 7:03 AM on April 15, 2010


God, I loved this show so much. I watched reruns on FX almost every night throughout most of high school, and it consistently put me in tears laughing. I give this post the around the world and back snap.
posted by kryptondog at 7:15 AM on April 15, 2010


For those wondering above, I think Rosie Perez first got TV work and exposure via Soul Train.
posted by noway at 7:24 AM on April 15, 2010


My friend Ricardo used to wear his pants backwards when we were in grade 7; he was the only kid who could really pull off the whole Kris Kross thing. What's strange is that I like early 90s R&B and Hip Hop now in a way I never liked it at the time. I thought Kris Kross was the dumbest thing ever. Now? The Daddy Mack will make you jump jump. Nostalgia probably colours our tastes.
posted by chunking express at 7:25 AM on April 15, 2010


Actually, Rosie Perez got her first break as a featured dancer with the Cotton Club review in Harlem, backed up by the Duke Ellington band. She's older than she looks.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 7:30 AM on April 15, 2010 [2 favorites]


"Wroteasongboutitwannahearithereitgo."

I still say that from time to time.
posted by PsychoTherapist at 7:32 AM on April 15, 2010 [2 favorites]


Pete Rock and CL Smooth. What?
Eric B and Rakim. Oh Hells Yes.

In Living Color was really on point with the musical selection.
posted by chunking express at 7:47 AM on April 15, 2010


Without In Living Color, there'd be no House of Buggin'!

House of Buggin'? Remember?

*tumbleweed blows by*

posted by Fuzzy Monster at 7:59 AM on April 15, 2010 [1 favorite]


PsychoTherapist, you are not alone. The Calhoun Tubbs thing gets reliable laughs amongst my coworkers, especially when we go the extra mile and make up a song on the fly.

Side note: I knew my little brother had finally blossomed into a thoughtful adult when he gifted me with the first season of In Living Color on DVD. No hints on my part--he just remembered that I had loved that damn show, all those years ago. Aww.
posted by Vervain at 8:13 AM on April 15, 2010 [1 favorite]


A few commenters have noted the similarities between In Living Color and MADtv. The similarity was no accident.
posted by Sys Rq at 8:25 AM on April 15, 2010


House of Buggin'? Remember?

Me! Yes! I do! I always liked John Leguizamo.

I still remember watching that Black Sheep "The Choice is Yours" performance. People sure jumped a lot in the 90s.
posted by molecicco at 8:42 AM on April 15, 2010


My husband and I still ask each other "Want a copy of School Daze?"

"No thanks."

"It's free."

"Free?"

"Yeah."

"No thanks."
posted by cereselle at 8:42 AM on April 15, 2010


flapjax at midnight, watch the Gangstarr video linked in the post. It features DJ Premier doing some live mixing under the MCs. It has a different feel than the sets where the rappers perform over a backing track. That's an exciting, dynamic performance, and that's what hip hop is supposed to be.

Everybody loves live music, but to ask rap artists to perform with a live band kinda misses the point, it seems to me. Hip hop is music that can be made without access to musical instruments and training. It's like saying, "I love the Ramones, but would it kill them to learn some more chords and maybe throw in a guitar solo?"
posted by chrchr at 9:08 AM on April 15, 2010 [2 favorites]


Yeah, I loved this show growing up, but the "Men On..." sketches make me wince to this day. When you consider how few gay characters of any kind made their way onto network television, the fact that these became the most persistently visible and quotable for years was pretty depressing.

As a young person in a small town struggling to figure out what it meant to be gay, it was about the worst thing I (or any of the crueler kids at school, for that matter) could have seen.
posted by hermitosis at 9:16 AM on April 15, 2010 [2 favorites]


What the hell did Homie the Clown beat people with? I could never figure that one out.
posted by Mastercheddaar at 10:15 AM on April 15, 2010


What the hell did Homie the Clown beat people with?

Pretty sure it's balled up socks in a leg of pantyhose.
posted by Sys Rq at 10:27 AM on April 15, 2010


Yeah, I loved this show growing up, but the "Men On..." sketches make me wince to this day.

It's funny -- I wound up watching Revenge of the Nerds the other day for the first time in like 20 years. I wanted to show it to my friend because he had (somehow) never seen it. And, like, 90% of it held up, and was WAY funnier than I remembered it being -- except for the awful Asian stereotype character, Takashi. Man, did that piss me off. I mean, the whole movie is all about Jocks vs. Nerds, and how stereotypes are unfair, and how even nerds can rock the house because of their superior brain power.

And then they throw in this awful Asian stereotype character, who's like the butt of all the jokes. And I mean, as far as Asian stereotypes go, this one is even worse than Mickey Rooney's from Breakfast at Tiffany's. I mean, I know they were just trying to do the "Silly Foreign Guy," but man ... so not cool, and so not funny. Even worse, he's not even supposed to be smart like the other nerds.

Anyway, it was a really sour note in an otherwise hilarious movie. And your comment about the "Men On..." sketches totally made me think of that.
posted by Afroblanco at 10:27 AM on April 15, 2010 [1 favorite]


scalefree: "I can't find any reference to it (it's remarkably hard to Google for; go figure) but I remember first seeing Living Color play Cult of Personality on this show."

Me, too. They rocked.
posted by QIbHom at 10:52 AM on April 15, 2010


scalefree, maybe you're thinking of this performance of Cult of Personality on Arsenio.
Even if you're not; it's pretty cool.
posted by joost de vries at 2:01 PM on April 15, 2010


Rosie Perez got started on Soul Train. Here she is tearing shit up. Spike Lee saw her on that and let her rock her stuff in Do the Right Thing.
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 2:34 PM on April 15, 2010 [1 favorite]


Living Colour played SNL on April 1, 1989. Perhaps that's what you're thinking of?
posted by Sys Rq at 2:34 PM on April 15, 2010


The high top fade has at least one nationally visible proponent, Brandon Jennings, possible Rookie of the Year in the NBA has worn one for at least part of the season.
posted by Ghidorah at 2:52 PM on April 15, 2010


OK, I'm here to clear this up once and for all: Rosie Perez got her first, first start as an understudy for one of the chorus girls in Sissle and Blakes' Shuffle Along. The year was 1921. That predated her Soul train appearances by a good 60 years.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 4:44 PM on April 15, 2010 [1 favorite]


Eric B and Rakim. Oh Hells Yes.

Hells Yes indeed - however, I was surprised that Rakim said "niggas" several times in that and it wasn't censored. Surprising especially given that the early 90s was probably the most overly-sensitive time in history as far as television goes. I mean, yeah, Redd Foxx would drop the N-bomb on "Sanford and Son" in the 70s, but I thought it had been strictly taboo on network TV since then.
posted by DecemberBoy at 6:03 PM on April 15, 2010


The parody of Janet Jackson's Rhythm(less) Nation stays with me to this day.
posted by ltracey at 7:39 PM on April 15, 2010


I refuse to believe it's been twenty years! Also, I probably should not have been watching this show when I was ten.. I came in to post a link to Jim Carrey's 'Informer' spoof, but now that I see that (and so much more!) posted here, my only thought is whatever became of Kris Kross? I wonder if they still wear their clothes backwards for kicks. (Incidentally, I did agree that that was wiggedy-wiggedy-wiggedy-whack.)
posted by Mael Oui at 8:15 PM on April 15, 2010


scalefree, maybe you're thinking of this performance of Cult of Personality on Arsenio.

I know it wasn't Arsenio. I'm starting to think it was SNL because I'm reading about bad blood between the band & the show over the show's logo, which makes a performance unlikely to have happened. In any event whatever show it was I saw them on, it was an impressive performance.
posted by scalefree at 8:36 PM on April 15, 2010


House of Buggin' was yet another Fox show that got canceled so quickly that my memory of it is colored by To-An-Athlete-Dying-Young Syndrome, i.e. it didn't have time to jump the shark. My favorite bit was the guerrilla broadcasters outing various celebrities as being secret Latinos/Latinas.
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:00 PM on April 16, 2010


"How can you actually get WORSE with experience?"

Eddie Murphy? Steve Martin? Ice Cube?
posted by Eideteker at 4:47 AM on April 19, 2010


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