Tommy Davidson Says These ‘In Living Color’ Skits Ticked Off Celebs

In Living Color brought laughs, new talent, and hilarious new catchphrases like “two snaps up” to late-night TV.

The sketch comedy series aired on Fox from 1990 to 1994, and became a launching pad for Jamie Foxx, Jim Carrey, David Alan Grier, Kim Coles, Jennifer Lopez, Carrie Ann Inaba, and the Wayans family.

One of the staples of the show was making fun of celebrities. But in a new interview, original cast member Tommy Davidson told the “Art of Dialogue” YouTube channel two stars really hated being portrayed on the show.

“The only problem I’ve ever had with doing a celebrity was Arsenio Hall,” Davidson shared.

Series creator Keenen Ivory Wayans played Hall on several episodes. The skits showed an announcer introducing Hall–then a late-night talk show host–as “Eddie Murphy’s best friend.”

Wayans’ version of Hall smiled constantly, had a makeshift BBL, and would do somersaults around the stage. Davidson said Hall found the bit offensive.

“Keenen did the sketch, where his finger was real long, and he had a hi-top fade, looked a little bit like Frankenstein, and he liked Eddie Murphy, a lot. So when Keenen would laugh, the bottom of his feet said Eddie Murphy. [Arsenio] ain’t like that,” Davidson said.

Related: Oprah Calls ‘In Living Color’ Sketch ‘Hurtful’

Davidson laughed off the controversy, but he said Oprah Winfrey’s reaction to the show wasn’t funny, at all. “That one hurt me… she hurt my feelings with that one,” he admitted.

The comedian said he met the media mogul in 2013, at the premiere of the Lee Daniels film, The Butler, which featured Winfrey in the cast. Davidson recalled walking over to introduce himself and telling Winfrey his mother was a huge fan of her daytime talk show.

“She was like, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Thanks,'” Davidson recalled. “I was like, ‘Oprah just dissed me.'”

He said he was perplexed and asked someone there to make a formal introduction, hoping it would break the ice. That didn’t work either.

“Maybe I had a bad day and I saw it differently, but I had to think long and hard why she would do that. And if she didn’t like the sketch that we did, I would kind of have to understand,” he said.

We may never know what really happened, but it’s true Winfrey was no fan of the sketch.

In a 2024 interview on the “Jamie Kern Lima Podcast,” the former daytime TV titan mentioned the sketch and said it was “hurtful,” as previously reported.

Kim Wayans played Winfrey in the skit, which showed the comic hosting a talk show while eating a hotdog, devouring a candy bar, and roasting chickens on a rotisserie, while holding a microphone.

Winfrey found it upsetting. “Making fun of my weight was a national sport for 25 years,” she said in the podcast interview. “It was just accepted that you could make fun of me and my weight.”

“One of the most hurtful things was In Living Color had done a skit where the woman was doing something and she just kept eating and getting fatter and fatter and fatter, and the comedy bit was that eventually, she just exploded,” Winfrey added.  “The whole audience fell out [laughing] and the woman was me.”

Davidson has since gotten over his awkward introduction to Winfrey. “I haven’t seen her since, but I can understand it,” he said.