LIVING SINGLE (1996) 5x1, 5x2, 5x3 & 5x4 REACTION! | First Time Watch | Queen Latifah

Jaby don't watch Girlfriends by yourself, you definitely need a partner.

Girlfriends (Jaby, Achara, and Michael) The Game (Girlfriends spinoff) (Jaby, Achara, Michael) Insecure (Jaby and Vivian/Achara) How to Get Away With Murder/Power (Jaby & Brandon) Jamie Foxx Show (Michael and Kristen) Moesha (Michael & Achara) Everybody Hates Chris (Michael or Jaby solo)

INSECURE IS A DEFINITE MUST WATCH ?!!!

THIRD FUN FACT: it wasn’t just about Friends. With the cast of living single constantly had to fight to get things that you would normally get on a set. Everything down to the types of craft services. And even though they were a number one show, they were relegated to a smaller lot than friends, even though the black show was the inspiration.

Jaby does not need to Girlfriends on his own! He will get distracted every single episode! Too many beautiful women in that series 😂

SAD FUN FACT: when TC was a guest on the living single podcast, Erika Alexander (Max) tearfully told him that she didn’t know how to be max without him. And they really were connected in more ways than one. They were the two darkest actors on the show and they both share the same birthday! Erika was so upset that she wanted to leave and told them to let her go instead. That obviously wasn’t going to happen because she was actually in the breakout star of the show.

36:16 After being fired, Carson has stated that he was essentially "blackballed" from Hollywood for a period because he was labeled as difficult to work with after he acted as the cast spokesperson to voice grievances. He recalled a specific instance where a casting director told him, "I heard you were difficult, that you came to work unprepared. Later, he stated that he actually experienced a severe personal, financial, and professional downfall after the show, including losing multiple jobs, which he described as "devastating".

There's a whole context for what happened with Living Single that's important to know. This was around the time that Fox was becoming a big enough network that it wanted to "branch" out and develop shows that would reach a wider (read: whiter) audience. While they had 90210 and Melrose Place, the network was built on the strength of In Living Color, Martin, Living Single, and New York Undercover. All of those black shows were produced incredibly cheaply, with relatively underpaid actors despite the fact that the stars of all of these shows were either established comedians (Martin and John Henton), classically trained actors (Erika Alexander, Thomas Mikal Ford, Carl Payne, Michael DeLorenzo), or bonafied stars/legends (Kim Fields, Queen Latifah, Tisha Campbell, Damon Wayans). So because Fox was trying to reach a wider audience, they started messing with all of these shows. Keenan fought over In Living Color the whole time it was on the air. And by this time, the Wayans had walked away. New York Undercover was the first cop show with Black and Brown leads and they basically fired Michael DeLorenzo this same year and replaced him with a white actor. This happened again later with UPN and the WB, when they merged to become the CW and they dropped all the black shows and started building around teen shows and superhero shows. Hollywood is racist (as you know). What happens with Living Single in this last season was abhorrent. Outside of Queen Latifah and Kim Fields (who is a living legend and also a director), none of the cast really achieved any other success for nearly 20 years. Erika and Kim Coles talked about how there were no jobs waiting after this show. Erika didn't recover until recently (though she did a lot of other things like comic books and producing in the intervening years). This pattern happened 10 years later with Girlfriends and all the UPN black shows with none of those actors (except Tracee Ellis Ross) really working. And it's happening now after the relative boon of diversity in the 2010s. Other than Jay Ellis, no one from Insecure is really working at a high level (even Issa), as just one example. Diversity isn't a constant in the United States. It's a up and down cycle of bullshit where we get some great stuff for a period and everyone thinks it'll last, but America does what America does and retrenches. This is identical to every other industry and the overall politics of America. When we take this long view we cannot be surprised. But we can be - and are - infuriated by the inevitability of it.

I can tell that was Queen Latifah and Erika Alexander getting sad and upset over T.C. Carson leaving at 32:45-32:50, and not Khadijah and Maxine getting sad and upset about Kyle leaving, if that makes sense

TC Carson said he was labeled as "difficult" by the producers and that's why he could get work after the show. Same thing happened to Janet Hubert, who played Aunt Viv