Characters / In Living Color!

Homey D. Clown

Actor: Damon Wayans

A perpetually cantankerous ex-convict who performs as a circus clown under the terms of his prison work release program, despite his dislike of both the job and people in general.

• Actually Pretty Funny: Even some of Homey's angriest rants will make him laugh. Case in point, one time had him comparing himself to Kunta Kinte and he could barely finish it without stifling a chuckle.
• "Angry Black Man" Stereotype: A rather justified example: his unspecified crime was implied to be a frame up and sent him to prison for some time and led to him becoming a reluctant circus clown.
• Aside Glance: Pretty rare for him not to do this.
• Breakout Character: He, along with Fire Marshall Bill and Blaine and Antoine, are the most recognizable characters and the only one to receive his own video game.
• Character Catchphrase: "I don't think so! Homey don't play that!"
• Everything Is Racist: He'll interpret just about anything as a racist insult.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": His real name (Herman Simpson) is revealed in one skit.
• Everyone Has Standards: Despite his negative attitude towards the system and "the man" generally, he also has a low opinion of street gangs as illustrated in the Santa sketch. He berates a young man for shoplifting as part of a gang initiation, warning him that he'll get nothing out of affiliating with a gang.
• Generation Xerox: Has a son that's exactly like him, clown outfit, sock and all, despite the implication that he was a deadbeat dad, prison bid nonwithstanding.
• Hidden Heart of Gold: Usually subverted. One sketch makes it seem as if Homey is going to be kind to a kid, only for him to resume yelling at the kid to get the hell away from Homey. The sketch featuring his son plays it straighter: When Homey learns that Homey Jr. was a runaway, he starts to chew Junior out for using him, and having no respect for authority... and admits that he's proud of him, promptly gifting him his original weighted sock as a reward.
• Improbable Weapon User: He carries a weighted sock and likes to use it on people who really get on his nerves. He's surprisingly handy with it, even wielding it like a nunchaku at one point. He later gifts his estranged son his original sock when he learned that he was a runaway, and Child Services had to take him back home.
• Misanthrope Supreme: He hates men, women and children equally, and is not shy about hitting them with his sock when they annoy or anger him. His son is the only person he showed some level of kindness to; and even then, Homey bopped him anyway.
• Sell-Out: "Homey Sells Out" and "Homey Meets The Man" sees Homey debase himself and compromise every last principle and belief he has, all in the pursuit of fame and fortune as a non-threatening cereal mascot. After he's completely sold out ("Rodney King was way out of line"), he finally gets to meet The Man in person... and bops him directly.
  "Homey NEVER played that."

Fire Marshal Bill Burns

Actor: Jim Carrey

An accident-prone and seemingly invincible fire marshal who causes more harm than good in trying to practice fire safety.

• Breakout Character: He, Homey, and Blaine and Antoine are among the most popular and recognizable characters on the show. He even makes a surprise cameo in The Stinger of Liar Liar.
• Character Catchphrase: "LEMME SHOW YA SOMETHIN'!" and "Don't worry, folks! I am a fire marshal!"
• Self-Mutilation Demonstration: He has no powers (though is heavily implied to have some degree of invincibility or an offscreen Healing Factor), but frequently uses himself as a voluntary target for his examples of the dangers involved with certain activities.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: In his early sketches, he still had hair (all the explosions eventually burned what was left of it off), and his demonstrations were somehow less destructive (i.e., he was left in one piece after the inevitable explosion).
• Happily Married: His wife is implied to be as destructive as him in her lone appearance.
• Large Ham: Would you expect anything less from a character portrayed by Jim Carrey?
• No Sympathy: He swings between this, Innocently Insensitive, and Lack of Empathy at times. He's aware that he causes disasters, but depending on the environment, either isn't aware or doesn't care. One time had him quipping a bar patron who accidentally electrocutes himself on a TV wire on water and another time had him giving marshmallows to a class of children to roast after he burned down their school.
• Slasher Smile: He always displays them, no matter how much damage is done or how badly injured he is.
• Stuff Blowing Up: Whenever Bill is onscreen, you can guarantee whatever building he's in won't be left standing by the end, thanks to his pyromaniac tendencies.
• Walking Disaster Area: Whenever he shows up, don't expect the set to still be intact by the time the sketch is over.

Blaine Edwards & Antoine Merriweather

Actors: Damon Wayans (Blaine) and David Alan Grier (Antoine)

Two Camp Gay critics who host the Men On... series. They cover everything from film to art.

• Character Catchphrase: They always say the phrase "Hated it!" to express disdain for a particular book, film, show or piece of art, especially if it has to do with women.
• Effeminate Misogynistic Guy: In spite of being gay, they both despise women and usually call them a variety of colorful names like "fish" and "scallop". They also dismiss any work that heavily features women with a "Hated it!"
• Screams Like a Little Girl: Blaine, frequently. Whenever he's excited, he cries out a high-pitched girly scream, be it at the prospect of being chased by football players or simply whipping cream in a bowl. Given how Damon Wayans has had this scream in other productions, it either is his natural scream or he's doing it for the sake of comedy.
• Unresolved Sexual Tension: The two men are primarily close friends, but they also flirt with each other every now and then.

Benita Buttrell

Actor: Kim Wayans

A neighborhood busybody who is quick to observe and comment on the various eccentric and dysfunctional characters she encounters.

• Breaking the Fourth Wall: If not an outright Fourth-Wall Observer. The majority of her skits have her treating the viewer as a neighborhood acquaintance, though nobody else seems to notice them. Only a handful of skits defied this, due to having actual characters to play off, and even then, she still broke the fourth wall in one of them.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Implied: whenever she's out in public, people either treat her with indifference or disdain.
• Gossipy Hens: Downplayed, as it's just her doing the gossiping, but she's just as effective.
• Hypocritical Humor: She ain't one to gossip, but...
  • Just don't say nothin' bad about Ms. Jenkins near her (though even that doesn't stop her from gossiping about her either, usually with the most vicious gossip).
  • She claims to be above her neighbors and acquaintances, even claiming that she works to better herself, but is just as dim and untrustworthy as them. A running gag is her having nicer things (diamond necklace, long hair, etc.) that ends up being destroyed due to her wearing them while cooking and burning them up.

Tom & Tom

Actors: Keenen and Damon Wayans

The hosts of the Black Like You talk show. In spite of being Black, they more so carry on like racist White men.

• Comically Missing the Point: Neither of them realize how racist they come off or even when racism is being displayed towards them. Case in point, a country club owner thought that they would be "Jesse fans" (meaning Jesse Jackson), but they assumed he meant Jesse Helms and thought that Jackson was "the brother who kept the nose".
• Fanboy: Both of them are huge fans of journalist Bryant Gumbel and comedian Byron Allen.

Calhoun Tubbs

Actor: David Alan Grier

An elderly blues singer whose quick-witted and bluntly honest songs tend to offend those whom he performs for.

• Catchphrase:
  • "Thank you very much!"
  • "Wrote a song about it. Like to hear it? Here it goes..."
• Comically Missing the Point: He doesn't seem to realize how damaging and hurtful his lyrics are (he is an old man). During his first skit where he sung at the funeral of a "friend" of his, by the time he was finished singing, the angry relatives of the man tried to charge at him and he believed that they were giving him a standing ovation.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: His brutally honest lyrics even once sunk a potential candidate's campaign due to singing about him being an insensitive tightwad and a thief.

Vera de Milo

Actor: Jim Carrey

A steroid-laden woman who possesses super strength and a pungent and potentially lethal odor.

• Brawn Hilda: She's about as sexy as you'd expect Jim Carrey in a bikini to be.
• Signature Laugh: Her horse-like cackling laugh.

Anton Jackson

Actor: Damon Wayans

A stereotypical homeless man who lives in a cardboard box and strives to earn money in different ways.

• Attention Whore: Subverted; he's not a jerk about it, but he does command people's attention whenever he's around others.
• Cardboard Box Home: Obviously. He even has his own home-improvement show called This Ol' Box.
• Crazy Homeless Person: Averted. In spite of his various eccentricities, he's actually quite insightful and very resourceful.
• Prince For A Day: One sketch has him end up temporarily wealthy due to some escaping bank robbers throwing their money into a dumpster where he just so happened to be sleeping at the time.

Clavelle & Howard Tibbs III

Actors: David Alan Grier (Clavelle) and Tommy Davidson (Howard)

Two affable hustlers who run Funky Finger Productions, a low-budget and incompetently ran film studio.

• Heterosexual Life-Partners: They get on very well with each other and have the same goals of becoming famous through underhanded or low-quality means.
• High Hopes, Zero Talent: Both men wish to become famous directors and/or producers, but between their odd approach, the cheap quality of their "films" and dim intellect, they seldom succeed.
• Impossibly Tacky Clothes: Their fashion sense is both tather gaudy and at least Two Decades Behind.
• Mad Libs Catch Phrase: Whenever Clavelle realizes he makes a mistake, he will often say, "Well, ain't that a X (blip, chocolate chip cookie, etc.)
• Only One Name: Clavelle doesn't seem to have a surname (or, he likely is just going by one name, like Prince or Madonna).
• Running Gag:
  • Howard pulling out his card in an outlandish way and shouting "Bam!" as he does.
  • Often, said card will have some sort of eccentricity to it (there's another phone number crossed out on it, the text is written in crayon, and at one point his "card" was shaved into his hair.)
• Stylistic Suck: Their videos are usually ridiculously bad or poor quality.

Lil Magic

Actor: Kim Wayans

A cheerful and enthusiastic young girl who goes on multiple auditions and is pushed by her quick-tempered Stage Mom.

• High Hopes, Zero Talent: Lil Magic (and her Mom) have aspirations for more future, but she clearly cannot sing, dance or act.
• The Pollyanna: In spite of her lack of talent and perpetual rejection, she remains a happy and optimistic child.
• Stage Mom: Her mother who pushes her to do numerous auditions a day, even as she is tired or unprepared.

Wanda Wayne

Actor: Jamie Foxx

A notoriously ugly and absolutely persistent single woman who is on the constant lookout for a partner who she wishes to "rock their world".

• Abhorrent Admirer: One of the most infamous examples. Between her aggressive approach and less-than-stellar looks, men are completely turned off by her.
• Black Gal on White Guy Drama: Averted. When stalked by a White Dracula, she insists that she doesn't mind "a little milk in her coffee".
• Gag Lips: Jamie Foxx pushes up his already full lips to give Wanda her signature snarl.
• Who's Your Daddy?: A fifth season story arc finds her giving birth to a baby girl and never learning the father in spite of her insistence on finding him.

Ed Cash and Carl Pathos

Actors: Damon Wayans and Jim Carrey

Two televangelists who care far more about money than the spiritual well-being of their parishioners.

• Bestiality Is Depraved: Pathos asks Cash if "the big B" is covered in his discount sin plan. Cash responds that Pathos has been a "bad boy" in an exaggerated goat voice.
• Blackmail:
  • Cash does this to Congress to get out of a congressional investigation into their finances.
  • Another sketch has them threaten to call the spouses of the parishioners who have confessed to cheating. The donations pour in as a result.
• Corrupt Church: For starters, they literally sell forgiveness.
• Extreme Libido: Pathos again. He literally licks a woman's face while testifying before Congress.
• Hiding Behind Religion: Implied since both seem to care mostly about fleecing their flock, even it means literally robbing them.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Cash gets his name from Creflo Dollar, while Pathos gets his mannerisms and sexual appetite from Jimmy Swaggart.
• Really Gets Around: Pathos, in a direct parody of Jimmy Swaggart.
• Ripped from the Headlines: The sketches were inspired by the controversy surrounding televangelism and especially the sexual escapades of Jimmy Swaggart.
• Scam Religion: Their church exists solely to make both of them very rich and give them access to women.