In Living Color No Longer Among The Living

Lots of people were looking forward to the remake of Fox’s “In Living Color”, and I was one of them. I felt a kinship with the rebirth of the show because I was a tiny bit helpful in scheduling some of the auditions.

Jeffrey Gurian of Comedy Matters TV with Keenen Ivory Wayans out in the cold after auditions at The Laugh Lounge in NYC! The auditions were actually done indoors! LOL

LA producer Shauna Garr was working directly with Keenen Ivory Wayans the creator of the original show, who was very particular in the type of talent he was looking for. People who do characters, and especially a multitude of characters are few and far between.

L.A. Producer Shauna Garr with Richie Tienken owner/founder of The Comic Strip at the auditions I helped arrange!

That’s why I think Nick Kroll is so amazing, because he does so many characters and does them so well, as is evidenced on his new show on Comedy Central, which debuted on Wed. 1/16/13 simply called “Kroll Show”!

Jeffrey Gurian of Comedy Matters TV with Nick Kroll (L) and his writing partner John Mulaney from SNL at a comedy event in NYC!

I had two talented friends on the planned re-make. One was Jermaine Fowler who I got to know at The Comic Strip, and from some shows we did together, and the other was my longtime friend Kali Hawk, who has done amazing things out in Hollywood in both film and TV. I know her since she was just starting out in NYC, and I’m really proud of all her hard-won accomplishments.

Jeffrey Gurian from Comedy Matters TV and the spectacular Kali Hawk in LA at a party for Jeffrey’s book “Filthy, Funny, and Totally Offensive!” And if you look closely I think I’m wearing her necklace, cause it sure isn’t MINE!!!

This past summer up in Montreal at the Just for Laughs Festival, the biggest comedy festival in the world, I was chosen as the official celeb interviewer, and did 40 interviews, including one with Jermaine Fowler and one with L’il Rel who was also cast for the show!

I’ve had a lot of last minute major disappointments in my life, where things that were supposed to happen didn’t happen, so I can only imagine how the cast members felt to learn their big break was not going to be on this show.

Will Harris wrote in the NY Post that Keenen Ivory Wayans said, ” The bar for “In Living Color” is so high that, if I didn’t feel like we could sustain that, then I did not want to move forward.” I totally get that. Because when you remake a hit show, people expect it to be exponentially better and with the cast that came out of the original show, like Jim Carrey and Jamie Foxx, that would be some formidable task.

In that same article, FOX’s Pres. of Entertainment, Kevin Reilly was quoted as saying, ” The stars just didn’t align. I think the pilot made was pretty funny, but it just didn’t feel like we had the players. It didn’t feel like a series prospect, and I didn’t want to do just a one-off special.”

So all that work, and all that casting and travel and auditioning, and tension and stress was for nothing! Not really though, because everything you do in this business is HUGE. Most people will never even get the chance to be cast on a show, so the people that were should still feel very special!

I had fun helping Shauna and Keenen with the casting, by setting up some auditions at The Comic Strip and by sending a couple of people down to The Laugh Lounge, including a young, talented comic named Tyler Fisher who I think is gonna be very big!

Two comedy talents headed for stardom, Jermaine Fowler and Tyler Fischer!

I also got to be great friends with Chaunte Wayans, the daughter of one of the Wayans sisters, who’s a really funny comic as well based out of Atlanta! Watch out for her too!

Chaunte Wayans killin’ it onstage at The Comic Strip!

And on that note I’m out!

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