IN LIVING COLOR SEASON ONE - Excellent Brand New Condition. Opened but Never Viewed - maybe #3 viewed one time. Missing outter sleeve. 3 DVD Set.

Unlike the original Saturday Night Live cast, the In Living Color ensemble was definitely ready for prime time. But, was prime time ready for In Living Color? This subversively funny 1990 sketch-comedy series boldly went where SNL feared to tread, particularly in matters of race relations and cultural stereotypes. Series creator Keenen Ivory Wayans was hot after his hilarious blaxploitation spoof, I'm Gonna Git Ya Sucka. But In Living Color was hotter. According to a "Looking Back" segment included in this three-disc set, it took him a year to sell the pilot. He fronted a young, gifted, and mostly black cast, including David Alan Grier, Tommy Davidson, Damon Wayans, Kim Wayans, and T'Keyah "Crystal" Keyman. "James" Carrey and Kelly Coffield were the white Garret Morrises.

Like the first season of SNL, In Living Color played provocateur, with such politically incorrect sketches as "Homeboy Shopping Network," "This Old Box," and "Ted Turner's Very Colorized Classics." Other sketches, such as "Riding Miss Daisy," have a stick-it-to-the-man brazenness. Don King, Mike Tyson, Milli Vanilli, and Arsenio Hall are easy targets, but In Living Color did not spare such icons as Richard Pryor. There is the inevitable Oprah roasting, but also a brilliant Star Trek spoof, "The Wrath of Farrakhan." Among the first season's breakout characters are Damon Wayans and David Alan Grier's finger-snapping "Men on Film," and Damon's Homey D. Clown. Carrey struts his stuff as "female" bodybuilder Vera DeMilo. Coffey is a scream as Samantha Kinison and Andrea Dice Clay. While much of the topical humor has dated, sketches such as "Michael Jackson Potato Head" are timeless. The fun of revisiting this groundbreaking series is watching these fearless and talented performers go for broke, and make the most of their unlikely opportunity.

IN LIVING COLOR SEASON TWO - Excellent Brand New Condition. Opened and gently viewed one time. Missing Disc 4. 3 DVD Set.

To label In Living Color "the black SNL" is to not give this groundbreaking sketch comedy its props. Like its late-night counterpart, In Living Color pushed the envelope with sketches that remain in questionable taste ("Fashion Tampons"). It also presented its share of TV show, movie, and commercial parodies. But its racially charged humor that tackled race relations and subverted cultural stereotypes was something 1990 TV viewers were not used to seeing, especially in prime time. Among the most potent sketches featured series creator Keenen Ivory Wayans and brother Damon as the Brothers Brothers, two oblivious Toms who, in one sketch, act as spokespersons for the Arizona Tourism Commission in the wake of that state's controversial decision not to recognize Martin Luther King's birthday. In another, they are allowed to join an exclusive, all-white country club after proclaiming themselves to be followers of "Jesse" (Helms, not Jackson, about whom they profess to have never heard). Flunking all standards of political correctness is Damon's Handi-Man, the world's first handicapped superhero. "James" Carrey's skeletal Fire Marshall Bill and Damon's the Head Detective join the show's stable of breakout characters (Homey D. Clown, Vera De Milo, the flamboyant Men on Film, and homeless man, Anton). Kim Wayans's Grace Jones and Kelly Coffield's Andrea Dice Clay also make welcome returns. Other memorable characters include David Alan Grier's tell-it-too-much-like-it-is blues singer Calhoun Tubbs, and Coffield's Velma Mulholland, a nifty bit of pre-Pleasantville special-effects wizardry in which Damon's blind date turns out to be a quintessential dame right out of a black-and-white 1940s movie.

Episode 26, a "best of" compilation, serves as a representative introduction to the series and season. A bonus "Appreciating In Living Color" segment on disc 4 puts the series in cultural context. Unlike another Fox network sketch-comedy series, Mad TV, In Living Color has been lamentably missing in action on the syndication circuit, so for those who have never been "Colored," and especially for fans of current critics' darling The Chappelle Show, these 26 bracing episodes will be a revelation. Plus, it's fun to watch force of nature Carrey come into his own, and even try out a few moves that would bring him fame and fortune in his own feature films (in episode 18, he mutters the immortal, "All righty then").