Starring Keenen Ivory Wayans, Jim Carrey, Kelly Coffield, Kim Coles, Tommy Davidson, David Alan Grier, T’Keyah ‘Crystal’ Keymh, Damon Wayans, Kim Wayans, Shawn Wayans
Written By:
Directed By:
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Buy on Amazon.com

FINALLY! One of my favorite sketch comedy shows has finally made it’s way onto DVD. In Living Color launched many comedians careers like “James Carrey,” (haha) David Alan Grier, Tommy Davidson and all of the Wayans. Towards the end of the series, it wasn’t as funny as the earlier seasons but I’ll take those episodes over MAD TV any day.
“James, I’ve come to tell you that there won’t be a sequel to Earth Girls Are Easy.”
2003 Twentieth Century Fox. All Rights Reserved.

The show mixed sketch comedy & hip hop; you never saw that on TV before until the 1990s when the show aired. Every week there would be 5 or so sketches, and in between sketches there were the Fly Girls bustin’ a move and getting down with their bad selves haha. From watching the whole Season 1 DVD, I still like most of the songs they danced to. I can’t believe how many Public Enemy songs they played. Rosie Perez did all the choreography for the Fly Girls in the beginning. Later on in the series, Miss J. Lo was one of the dancers for the show. She didn’t look good like she does now though. Rosie Perez now looks better than she did though. Va Va Voom! haha.

ANYWAY, Most of the sketches I found funny but there were a few that I had to fast forward and didn’t find them that great. Mostly they were sketches that Kim Wayans were in. I HATE her Benita Butrell character. I just can’t watch it. I kind of felt if they didn’t have the fly girls dancing and the long intros for the show, they could have done at least one more sketch. Yeah it was hip at the time to have some girls dancing to Queen Latifah and PE, but I think they could have incorporate the hip hop lifestyle into the sketches. They start to do that towards the end of the season with Mc Hammer and Salt & Pepa music video spoofs. I still crack up to this day with that Hammer video. “Every time you see me, the Hammer’s on a roll, even when my head’s stickin’ out the zipper hole.” Brilliant! Yeah, I thought it was annoying every week to have Keenen Ivory Wayans come out, introduced the same people every episode. Trust me, the fellas watching the show don’t care about their names hahaha. I think towards the later half of the series they stopped doing that and went right into the sketches.

I think in the beginning, you see more of Damon and Keenen doing the majority of the sketches, but I think they realized that Jim Carrey, Tommy Davidson and David Alan Grier were amazing character actors and they started to get more character driven skits. Jim Carrey was hired as the white guy but he became a pivotal actor on the show and even stayed to the very end. I was kind of pissed when Damon left the show because I liked pretty much everything he did on the show. He’s still one of my favorite comedians to this day. I remember seeing The Wayans and Tommy Davidson on the Robert Townsend’s Partners in Crime HBO specials in the late 80s. Tommy Davidson’s stand up was excellent! I knew that guy was going to be a big comedian and looks like I was right. Granted he’s not Jim Carrey (Who’s the biggest star of the group) he’s been in a decent amount of stuff. Same goes for David Alan Grier or as I like to refer to him, Don “No Soul” Simmons. (Amazon Women on the Moon reference by the way) I think the actors from the first season who haven’t had a great career since the show were the females of the group. They have been in a few things sporadically but the guys of the comedy troupe have certainly had more work.

There isn’t a whole lot of extras on this set. There’s 2 audio commentary tracks on 2 episodes by Tommy Davidson. I listened to one of them and it wasn’t that great. He would comment on stuff and had a few intriguing things to say, but he seemed to be just watching the episode and not talking that much. It would have been better if he was with someone and that way he can talk about the show with someone other than himself. There’s a half hour or so featurette called In Living Color- The First Season Featurette and that had interviews with Tommy Davidson, David Alan Grier, one of the directors, cast directors and writers on the show. they talked about the success of the first season and how it was different from other sketch shows like SNL. Even Rosie Perez showed up and comments on the show. Why didn’t any of the Wayans contribute on this disc though? They’re not in any of the featurettes or on the commentary. You would think at least 1 of them would participate but I guess they were all too busy with TV shows and movies. Hopefully they’ll take some time out of their “busy” schedules and work on the Season 2 DVD whenever that gets released. Which I hope comes out as soon as possible. I’m glad this DVD is finally available because the show was hilarious! Even if there isn’t that many extras on the DVD set, you should buy this because the sketches are excellent and really funny. Just think, if everyone buys the DVD set, maybe the 2nd season will come out soon and maybe the Wayans will participate this time. So if you loved the show, like I do, then go out and buy the First Season DVD.

Features:
Disc 1
– Pilot
– The Wrath Of Farrakhan
– Lean On Me Beautiful
– Transitions
– A Date With Grace Jones

Disc 2
– Jheri’s Kids
– Don King-The Early Years
– Endangered Species
– Introducing…Homey D. Clown
– Vera Dimilo
– Commentary On Episode 7 By Tommy Davidson

Disc 3
– Anton In the People’s Court
– Conspiracy
– Homey D. Clown Returns
– Commentary On Selected Episodes
– In Living Color-The First Season Featurette
– Back In Step With the Fly Girls Featurette

Audio:
ENGLISH: Dolby Digital Surround
SPANISH: Dolby Digital Surround

Video:
Standard 1.33:1 Color

Subtitles:

Favorite Scenes: Homey The Clown, Men On.., Anton, Love Connection, Homeboy Shopping Network, The Buttmans, Brothers Brothers, Hey Mon, MC Hammer video, Lean on Me Beautiful
Rating: –Select–
Running Time: 299 minutes
Extras Rating:
Overall Rating: