List of In Living Color sketches

Recurring sketches

A

• Al MacAfee – A parody of Joe Louis Clark, David Alan Grier plays a strict, yet clueless shop teacher with a bad hip. He is known for working as a Hall Monitor and using a bullhorn to yell at innocent students and teachers, while being oblivious to bad things going on around him, as well as the consistent rejection by a fellow female teacher, with whom he is infatuated. Various cast members portray students and teachers who put up with Mr. MacAfee.
• Andrea Dice Clay – Kelly Coffield portrays the female counterpart of raunchy, wise-guy comedian Andrew Dice Clay. With sayings like "Ya think that's easy to do when you're stacked like this?" and "The last time I saw something like that, it had an eraser at the end of it." A related set of skits featured Coffield as "Samantha Kinison," a female version of rage-filled comic Sam Kinison. Kinison himself appeared in a sketch, where Samantha Kinison is revealed to be his wife.
• Anton Jackson – Damon Wayans portrays a filthy, drunken homeless person with a unique world view. Amongst other happenings, he appeared in Po' People's Court, had his own Public-access television cable TV show entitled This Ol' Box, and had a marriage of convenience. He frequently carried with him his "personal facilities", a jar that he used as a toilet and which seemed to contain a floating pickle and brine. The character was also shown on an episode of Saturday Night Live hosted by Damon Wayans where Anton testifies in the O. J. Simpson trial, and was also briefly in 1992's Mo' Money featuring Damon and younger brother Marlon Wayans. According to Damon Wayne on his HBO special One Night Stand, the character is based on a guy named Anton who dated his sister Deidre and would do speedball.
• Arsenio Hall – The former late-night talk show host is played by Keenen Ivory Wayans, complete with a long index finger and prosthetic rear end. Many of Hall's mannerisms are incorporated into the sketches, including his riotous laugh and dance and the phrases "I haven't seen it yet, but my people tell me..." and "strive to be number one." Hall is also portrayed as being obsessed with his Coming to America co-star and friend, Eddie Murphy.
• Ace and Main Man – Jamie Foxx and Tommy Davidson play of a pair of bouncers who never seem to let anyone in the club that should be let in, because they do not think it is that person. Often enough, they run into the featured celebrity and proceed to deny them to the point where a fight is about to break out. Then, when their boss comes out, Tommy's hyper-active character flips on Jamie's character, leaving Jamie to humiliation, and Tommy's character going into the club, only to be immediately kicked out himself.

  B

• Mr. and Ms. Brooks – Kim Wayans and David Alan Grier play a seemingly loving elderly couple who constantly insult and attempt to kill each other. After numerous failed attempts, they resort to attacking each other, such as when Ms. Brooks realizes her husband had laid a trap for her and she pulls out a sword and says "Prepare to Enter the Dragon!", prompting Mr. Brooks to reply "The only thing I see draggin' around here is your saggy breasts!" Their old age causes them to fall to the ground and be unable to get up, when they are interrupted by someone who is under the impression they are about to engage in sexual intercourse. They usually end with "And we stiiiiilll together!"
• Benita Butrell – Kim Wayans portrays a neighborhood woman who breaks the fourth wall by gossiping directly to the viewer and airing her neighbors' dirty laundry once they are out of earshot. She ends her remarks on each of her targets by saying, "But I ain't one to gossip, so you ain't heard that from me." She claims to be very close to a "Miss Jenkins", who ironically is usually the target of her most vicious gossip.
• The Brothers Brothers – Two brothers both named Tom Brothers who discuss black issues despite not realizing they are black. The pair were a parody of the Smothers Brothers; the original sketch had them hosting their own TV show, akin to The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. Some episodes included their double dating, or applying to a country club and failing to notice its clandestine whites-only policy. In each sketch, they punctuated their conversations with short songs in which they accompanied themselves on acoustic guitar and upright bass.
• Background Guy – Jim Carrey plays a guy who does wacky funny stuff while news anchors are doing serious news commentaries. In one sketch he was a football player doing goofy antics while sports anchors are doing the halftime report during the Super Bowl; in another that featured the White House Press Secretary, he was doing even more bizarre things such as joining in a kickline of can-can dancers or recreating George Washington crossing the Delaware River.

  C

• Calhoun Tubbs – David Alan Grier portrays an old bluesman whose songs invariably insult or otherwise offend his audience. Catchphrase: "I wrote a song about it. Like to hear it? Here it go!" He always strums the same bar of blues and ends his little songs with a falsetto "Ahhhh haaa", and concludes with a shouted "Thank you very much!". He once claims to have written over 12,000 songs and sold more records than Michael Jackson and the Beatles in upper New Jersey. David Alan Grier based the character on the famed Ann Arbor, Michigan personality "Shakey Jake" Woods, with whom he was familiar from his days at the University of Michigan.
• Candy Cane – Alexandra Wentworth portrays a host to a children's television show. Candy has serious adult issues that she brings up on the would-be kiddie show, such as getting stood up on dates and men who had sex with her and never called her back. However, she still manages to smile and present the show like a female Mr. Rogers. Marc Wilmore appears as 'Jurassic Benny' a purple dinosaur. Candy loves him and Benny often rejects her on camera, then she gets angry and calls him out for him leaving after they've had their most recent affair off screen, to where the actor pulls off the mask and tells her to leave him alone.
• Carl "The Tooth" Williams – Jamie Foxx portrays a boxer a la Mike Tyson who has lost every bout he has been in. He is always getting beaten up by everyone he comes in contact with. One commentary said he looks like "a Ringling Brothers clown that got run over by a truck". The name is a takeoff on heavyweight boxer Carl "The Truth" Williams. Catchphrase: "Hollerin' 187 wit' my glove in ya mouth" is paraphrased from a line by Snoop Dogg in the Dr. Dre single: "Dre Day" One distinct physical characteristic of Carl's besides his prominent tooth, is his jheri curl.
• Cephus and Reesie – Kim Wayans and David Alan Grier play a pair of incredibly annoying soul singers, modeled slightly after Ashford & Simpson. Episodes with Cephus and Reesie included them mistakenly performing at a Bar Mitzvah, an advertisement for an album of theirs, which is eight CDs long due to them breaking songs such as "Silent Night" by one of them asking "If it was a silent night, how could it have been a holy night?", and an episode where they sing an extended rendition of "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" for a Death Row convict who is granted his last wish to hear some live soul music before he dies that very night. Cephus and Reesie were also said to have jammed with Frenchie and appeared in an off-Broadway show called "Get Off the Lord's Bus If You Ain't Got Correct Change."
• Cheap Pete – Chris Rock as a cheapskate who won't pay more than $1.25 for anything. His catchphrase is "Good Lord that's a lot of money!" The Cheap Pete character is based on and originated from a bit part Rock played in I'm Gonna Git You Sucka. Cheap Pete was also featured in Rock's film "CB4" and an audio track from his 1997 album "Roll with the New".

  D

• "The Dirty Dozens" – Stu Dunfy hosts a game show that is a cross between Jeopardy! and Concentration in which contestants are involved in a battle of insults. Two of the contestants that appear in almost every "Dozens" skit include returning champion T-Dog Jenkins and unlucky-with-categories contestant Amfeny Clark. Variations include Family Dozens and Wheel of Dozens. In one episode, Ed O'Neill guest starred as himself, portraying the show's "all-time champion" and defeating T-Dog.
• Duke and Cornbread Turner – Jamie Foxx plays a senior citizen named Cornbread who performs tricks with his dead German shepherd named Duke. In one skit Duke was shown to be the father of a litter of puppies. In another sketch it is revealed that Duke's real name is Jeremy Jolly Rancher Remington Steele Lewy Cadburry the 3rd to the 4th power. A running gag features Cornbread mistaking people he meets for children who died in tragic accidents. His catchphrase is "I'll be John Brown".
• "Dysfunctional Home Show" – An alcoholic, depressed, and incestuous divorced father named Grandpa Jack McGee hosts a housekeeping show, along with his promiscuous daughter, her abusive boyfriend-turned-husband, and Grandpa Jack's drunken, hateful mother. Grandpa Jack also had a son who was not screwed up like the rest of the family, and had to guide him away from his drunken mistakes, such as Grandpa Jack starting to shadow box when he heard an oven timer, and the son yelling offstage that is not a boxing bell, but the chime of an oven. The trademark quip for this show is that Grandpa Jack would say "pork and beans" in a slurred tone, as the family often dined on that particular dish.

  E

• East Hollywood Squares – An urbanized version of the original Hollywood Squares, with Peter Marshall as himself, along with such occasional real-life celebrities as Gary Coleman and Fred Berry. Cast members portrayed actors and actresses such as Dr. Dre, Antonio Fargas, Little Richard, Garrett Morris, and Isabel Sanford. Morris and Foxx later worked together on The Jamie Foxx Show.
• Ed Cash and Carl Pathos – Co-pastors of the "First Church of Discount Sin" and crooked televangelists, with Damon Wayans as Cash, the afro-wearing pastor who names and shames people who do not deliver their required tithes, speaks in nonsensical tongues, sells indulgences, and heals parishioners by taking their wallets. Pathos, portrayed by Jim Carrey, is a pastiche of televangelists such as Robert Schuller and Jimmy Swaggart with unusual tics and numerous sexual perversions. Cash and Pathos co-hosted a number of television shows, including The 595 Club and a straight parody of the Hour of Power in which Cash resorts to robbing the congregation when the necessary tithes do not come in; in each sketch, Pathos usually ends each service with a parody of a Southern gospel tune. In a later sketch, Cash and Pathos are called before Congress to account for their questionable practices.