Before In Living Color, song parodies on a national scale were the province of Weird Al Yankovic, who would get permission from the artist before doing them. His benign sendups were along the lines of "I Love Rocky Road" and "I Lost On Jeopardy." They often had something to do with food.
When In Living Color went on the air, no popular artist was safe. In just their second episode (April 21, 1990), they hit it on the nose with the "Milli Vanilli Do-It-Yourself Kit," exposing the fraudulence of the duo, who urge us to "act now because we are almost out of style." Three months later, Milli Vanilli got caught lip-synching when their tape started skipping at a concert. They won the Best New Artist Grammy anyway, but lost it when their producer admitted they didn't sing on their records.
With no need to make nice, the show went on a rampage, consistently producing parody videos that took aim at the artists' greatest insecurities. Some were laugh-out-loud funny, others were downright mendacious. These are the ones we remember most.
When In Living Color went on the air, no popular artist was safe. In just their second episode (April 21, 1990), they hit it on the nose with the "Milli Vanilli Do-It-Yourself Kit," exposing the fraudulence of the duo, who urge us to "act now because we are almost out of style." Three months later, Milli Vanilli got caught lip-synching when their tape started skipping at a concert. They won the Best New Artist Grammy anyway, but lost it when their producer admitted they didn't sing on their records.
With no need to make nice, the show went on a rampage, consistently producing parody videos that took aim at the artists' greatest insecurities. Some were laugh-out-loud funny, others were downright mendacious. These are the ones we remember most.
Vanilla Ice - "White White Baby"
February 10, 1991
It was like Jim Carrey was put here to make fun of Vanilla Ice. "White White Baby" is a little obvious, but with Carrey, the only white cast member at the time, doing a rubbery imitation of Vanilla's new jack swing, it's comedy gold.
Vanilla Ice (born Robert Van Winkle, as we learn in the bit) was the first rapper to land a #1 hit: "Ice Ice Baby." His album To The Extreme was #1 for 16 weeks, spanning the end of 1990 and beginning of 1991. He grew up in Dallas, but his record company faked his bio, saying he was from Miami and schoolmates with Luther Campbell of 2 Live Crew.
"Ice, ice baby, too cold" is a chant used at step shows by the Black fraternity Alpha Phi Alpha, as seen in the Spike Lee movie School Daze, released two years before the song. And yeah, the track is nearly identical to the Queen/David Bowie collaboration "Under Pressure," which was used without permission.
Plenty of material here, but In Living Color took aim at the appropriation:
I'm white, and I'm capitalizin'
On a trend that's currently risin'
...
I just listen to real rap and dupe it
Tagged as a fraud, Vanilla Ice's film (Cool As Ice, 1991) and second album (Mind Blowin', 1994) tanked. Abandoning hip-hop, he got into drugs, slathered himself with tattoos, and reinvented himself as a hardcore artist. When that didn't take, he became a reality TV star, appearing on The Surreal Life, The Farm, Celebrity Bull Riding Challenge, Dancing On Ice and Dancing With The Stars. He later became a home improvement guru with his own show on the DIY network, The Vanilla Ice Project. When it comes to renovations, he's the real deal.
"Ice Ice Baby" Songfacts
Crystal Waters - "My Songs Are Mindless"
November 17, 1991
Crystal Waters is one of the few dance singers of the early '90s to remain relevant decades later - in 2017 she had a #1 Dance hit with "Testify." After working an office job as a computer tech in the '80s, she became a backup singer, then got her own record deal when she wrote the lyric and vocal melody of "Gypsy Woman (She's Homeless)," a huge hit in 1991. The In Living Color sendup, with Kim Wayans as Waters, is "My Songs Are Mindless," a dig on the repetitive "la da dee, la da da" chorus in "Gypsy Woman."
The truth is, I'm just a wannabe, I should be homeless
I'm making millions, isn't that funny
Ha ha hee, ha ha ha
Much of the dance music of this era was indeed mindless, but "Gypsy Woman" tells the story of a woman who finds herself homeless and ends up on the street singing for money. She doesn't fit the profile though, as she's dressed up in full makeup every day. She was real, and gave Waters a new perspective.
"I had a really bad attitude about her," Waters told Songfacts. "And then the local city paper did an article on her and she said she had just lost her job in retail and she feels like if she was going to ask someone for money she could at least be presentable and look presentable."
Not exactly mindless.
The other jab, that Waters had little talent, could be poked at the many dance singers with little to offer other than passable voices and MTV-ready looks. Waters has always written her own material and is often solicited by DJs looking for lyrics and vocals for their tracks. In the video, she wears a suit, which was her personal style ("I'm not the type of person who likes to show a lot of skin").
Her success hasn't softened the sting. "I don't like it. Nobody likes to be made fun of," she said in her Songfacts interview, adding, "Marlon Wayans sent a message to my daughter and said something about how it's the highest form of flattery and all that stuff, but now when people think of it, they only think of that."
"Gypsy Woman (She's Homeless)" Songfacts
Michael Bolton - "When A Man Needs A Big Hit"
May 7, 1992
Michael Bolton was an easy target in the '90s, accused of cheesy balladry for the Danielle Steel set. He was also accused of ripping off soul singers for his hits. His breakthrough came in 1987 with a cover of Otis Redding's "(Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay." In 1990, he did "Georgia On My Mind" (made famous by Ray Charles), and a year later revamped the Percy Sledge classic "When A Man Loves A Woman."
In Living Color took him to task, with Jim Carrey donning an extravagant wig to sing "When A Man Needs A Big Hit" in the guise of Bolton. What does a man do when he needs a big hit? "Swipe another song from a long-dead brother." Like the '90s version of Pat Boone. The skit ends with Bolton's head exploding from over-emoting, with his fans scrambling for the remains of his hair.
Blue-eyed soul balladeer wasn't Bolton's original plan. He started off as a rock singer, releasing his debut album in 1975 under his real name, Michael Bolotin. A few years later, he became lead singer in Blackjack, a hard-rock band with future Kiss guitarist Bruce Kulick in the lineup. They had a minor hit with "Love Me Tonight" in 1979, but soon folded the tent, leaving Bolton looking for work. He became a jingle singer, and also a songwriter, landing a hit for Laura Branigan with "How Am I Supposed To Live Without You" in 1983. By the late '80s, he had transformed into a soft-rock superstar.
Around the same time as the In Living Color skit, Bolton faced a lawsuit from The Isley Brothers, who accused him of stealing elements of their 1966 song "Love Is A Wonderful Thing" for his 1991 hit of the same name. Other than the title, the songs have little in common, but in 1994 a jury sided with The Isleys and awarded a record $5.4 million in damages.
Bolton remained a critical and cultural punching bag over the next two decades. (In the 1999 movie Office Space, an embittered office worker named Michael Bolton refuses to change his name. "Why should I change? He's the one who sucks.") But in 2011 he hooked up with The Lonely Island for "Jack Sparrow," a comedy triumph where Bolton is brought in to provide the hook on a club-ready rap song, but instead sings about Pirates Of The Caribbean. It earned many millions of views and substantial royalties for Bolton, who added comedy to his resumé, making his first appearance on Two And A Half Men the following year. Seems he got the last laugh.
"When A Man Loves A Woman" Songfacts
Michael Jackson - "Am I Black Or White?"
January 12, 1992
As Michael Jackson got older, his skin got lighter. Compare the cover of his 1979 album, Off The Wall with his 1987 album, Bad and you'll see the difference. So when he released a song called "Black Or White," the parody idea was carved up and put on a platter.
As "Am I Black Or White?" the In Living Color treatment hits on many of the eccentricities and rumors that made Jackson a gossip-column fixture:
I made a million by the time I was 10
I wrote a love song to a rat named Ben
And then I got a nose job
And changed by chin and made my skin light
Look me in the face and tell me
If you think I'm Black or I'm white
We later learned that Jackson had vitiligo, a condition that dapples the skin, leaving lighter patches. He used creams and other treatments to keep his skin an even color, which lightened it. But none of this was public in 1992.
Jackson's "Black Or White" video was also part of the parody. In the extended version (directed by John Landis, who also did "Thriller"), Jackson climbs on a car and beats it senseless with a crowbar before morphing into a panther and walking away. "Am I Black Or White?" envisions a more likely scenario: he's arrested. "I guess I am Black," he says.
The song is an earnest plea for understanding among races, and one Jackson didn't want satired. He let Weird Al lampoon "Beat It" (as "Eat It") and "Bad" (as "Fat"), but wouldn't sign off on "Black Or White," which Al wanted to turn into "Snack All Night."
"Black Or White" Songfacts
MC Hammer - "U Can't Touch This"
July 15, 1990
Like Bolton and Vanilla Ice, MC Hammer could certainly be called out for song stealing. His big hit "U Can't Touch This" is a reworking of "Super Freak" by Rick James. But there was something much funnier about Hammer: his parachute pants.
The song came with a dance Hammer devised called the Chinese Typewriter, where he shuffles side to side like a hermit crab on speed. When he did it with the parachute pants, it was dazzling. The video went into very heavy rotation on MTV and later influenced Psy's "Gangnam Style."
The In Living Color parody is all about the pants, with Tommy Davidson doing the imitation. Sample lyrics:
With pants like that I look like a genie
They give me a real nice breeze
Like a big red hammock under coconut trees
It's all good until the pants swallow him up and he falls off the stage.
Hammer got off easy, but two years later he was the target of another more biting skit: "Too Sold Out To Quit," a parody of his song "2 Legit 2 Quit" that zeroes in on his excessive sponsorship.
Weird Al Yankovic also got to this one, turning into "I Can't Watch This," a satire of bad TV.
"U Can't Touch This" Songfacts
Paula Abdul - "Promise Of A Thin Me"
November 10, 1991
Ever wonder why Paula Abdul was so darn nice even to the worst contestants on American Idol? A dancer and choreographer by trade, her first recording sessions were with Babyface and L.A. Reid, one of the hottest teams on the planet. They went on to craft many of Whitney Houston's hits, but when they produced Paula on "Knocked Out," it was rough sledding. Her record company put her in friendlier confines for her next efforts, teaming her with two little-known producers: Oliver Leiber and Elliot Wolff. With Leiber, she did "Forever Your Girl" and "Opposites Attract." Wolff supplied "Straight Up" and "Cold Hearted." They were both nice to her.
Her 1988 debut album contained four #1 hits; her next one, in 1991, had two more, including "The Promise Of A New Day," which got the In Living Color treatment.
Abdul was bashed as a thin-voiced singer who used her connections to land a record deal. She was also considered fat by absurd Los Angeles standards, where long and lean was the protocol. The video for "The Promise Of A New Day" used a digital video effects unit to vertically stretch the footage, making her look much thinner. In Living Color took aim, re-creating it as "Promise Of A Thin Me" with some scathing lyrics:
My voice is bad and my singing's a joke
Still make millions off of Diet Coke
How do I sing on TV?
Others do it with me
Abdul later revealed that she was bulimic at this time, developing the eating disorder when she was a teenager trying to look like the thinner dancers. In 1994, the same year she divorced Emilio Estevez, she got treatment.
As for her voice, here's what her producer Oliver Leiber told us:
"She's not the strongest vocalist, and everyone knew that. But when her voice is put in a certain setting, and when it's layered, it smooths out and it has a definite sound. A lot of people really love the way she sounds on these records. She's not Chaka or Mariah or Christina, or any of those women who can blow, but she had a sound on those records that totally worked. Much like Madonna, she wasn't the strongest vocalist, but Paula was a tireless worker."
"The Promise Of A New Day" Songfacts
Boyz II Wimps - "End Of The Road"
February 28, 1993
Boyz II Men's "End Of The Road" spent 13 weeks at #1 in 1992, breaking the record Elvis Presley held since 1956 with his "Don't Be Cruel"/"Hound Dog" single. In the tradition of vocal groups like The Stylistics and The Delfonics, it's a pleading song, with the Boyz trying desperately to convince the girl to give them another chance. A heartbreaker for sure, but also really thirsty. Do women really like a guy who begs?
In Living Color transformed the group into Boyz II Wimps, homing in on the spoken section of the song where Boyz II Men bass singer Michael McCary tells the girl he knew the whole time she was cheating on him, but stayed with her anyway and really wants to be back with her now. In the parody, David Alan Grier takes this part. We learn that she has a restraining order against him, and also slept with every other member of the group. He comes unhinged, showing the side of these borderline-obsessive love songs we rarely see.
"End Of The Road" wasn't the last "please take me back" megahit for Boyz II Men. In 1994, they released "On Bended Knee," where they get down and grovel. By then, In Living Color was off the air, but we can imagine Boyz II Wimps having some fun with that one as well.
"End Of The Road" Songfacts
Other noteworthy In Living Color parodies:
"Mr. Ugly Man"Marlon Wayans gets all contorted to play a hobgoblin version of reggae star Shabba Ranks in this take on "Mr. Loverman."
"Mama's Gonna Kick Me Out"
It says something about LL Cool J that even In Living Color didn't make fun of him. Instead, it's former Good Times star Jimmie Walker trying not to get kicked out of his mom's basement to the tune of LL's "Mama Said Knock You Out." Sample lyric: "I need to make a comeback, I ain't worked in years."
"Baby's Got Snacks"
How do you parody a song that's already hilarious? Turn "Baby Got Back" into "Baby's Got Snacks," with "Trail Mix-A-Lot" (Keenan Ivory Wayans) macking on girls with serious weight problems.
Baby, I wanna get with ya
'Cause your pants don't fit ya
"Cook It"
A parody of "Push It" by Salt-N-Pepa, "Cook It" might be the most genial of the In Living Color parodies, with the spicy rappers making some funky fresh meatloaf on their own cooking show.
May 10, 2022
Further reading:
90210 to Buffy to Glee: How Songs Transformed TV
TV Themes the Last Five Decades
Weird Analysis with Lily Hirsch, Author of Weird Al: Seriously
More Song Writing
