so uh what you up to ooh they're setting me up on a date a date with a dude MMA what's up man they setting sin CL up on a date with a dude is everybody all right what happened I just saw Kadija naked I'm devastated what does that mean we're through it's over don't want you bye-bye I was surprised that and I never thought about it but you ultimately left the show prematurely no I got fired I got fired it wasn't that I got fired it was the way it was done remember Living Single I
dated a married woman once really no I'm just lying trying to get attention again better yet how many fans out there are still vibing with the show you know you have your wigs to cover your head and I have night school to fill mine all right if you're anything like the rest of us with a Hulu subscription or maybe you're borrowing a friend's password chances are you've been indulging in Living Single marathons that show was gold right it was part of Fox's iconic lineup alongside Martin in New York Undercover Martin we had the power lineup
we had Martin and then us talk about a black TV Trifecta now while we hold all these shows close to our hearts watching them as adults hits a little different you start picking up on things you might have missed back in the day when it comes to Living Single it's clear that the magic was strongest in the first and second Seasons remember how we used to give fake names to the guys who try to talk to us I was D right oo tonight I'll be Shaquan those episodes pure 9s black romcom Vibes the kind we
all fell in love with the next two seasons they were cool but let's be real they didn't quite hit the same so let's talk about it because I know you noticed it too the moment that beloved character was booted from Living Single the show was never quite the same become kind of the spokesman for the rest of the cast to go with issues Your Role is secured and you have no issues or whatever else but then you find out that you got fired yeah it had been written that I was going to London so I
asked some people the writers I said so are you all getting ready to fire me I just need to know so I can tie up some things and you know have my life straight and they no no we'll never break up the group we'll never never fck no no no we wouldn't do that we wouldn't do that and then I'm watching the episode when I'm leaving to go to London and not even 5 minutes later my phone rings it's my lawyer calling me to tell me that they're not bringing me back next year in that
last season what on Earth was going on there it was like watching a slow motion train wreck unsettling bizarre and at times downright terrible let's break it down first off who the heck is trip I mean he seemed like a nice enough guy but seriously you're going to introduce a brand new character in The Fifth Season we're way past the point of wanting to meet new folks trip take a seat then as if things weren't already spiraling Kyle Barker the swaave smooth talking heart of the show decides to hiil it to London in the second
episode that season I was at home and I asked them in the episode they were sending me off to London and I said so you getting ready to fire me I just need to know so I can line up my stuff and so I can be prepared they're like no we never break up the group look I wasn't exactly tuning in for a singing but come on Kyle was too vital to just up and disappear like that I heard a rumor which I think could be true with Living Single was a jumping off point for
another huge sitcom on NBC right yes yes friends it was it was interesting because when Living Single came out um shortly thereafter Warren Littlefield who was president of NBC they asked him if he could have any show on television and he said Living Single it was in the newspaper and the next thing you know here comes friends which was an amazing show and and they did a great job with it so I mean if you going and rock it that's the way to do it and don't even get me started on the Recycled story lines
Kadija dating yet another basketball player who you getting ready to live with live with live with then why am I trying to move here to be with you I'm kind of thirsty y want some soda really did we forget how much of a hot mess her thing with Grant Hill was back in season 2 girl how do you still not have this down then there's the whole Sinclair dressing up as a man episode why just why but the real kicker the other Kim the iconic Kim Fields she don't care nothing about Charles she is using
him she always wants what I have like what make a list start with these even make it to the darn finale she finally snags a rich man and is so head over heels that she can't even bother to say goodbye we didn't deserve that kind of betrayal and don't get me started on that finale episode we got Kyle Barker back sure but as a sperm donor for Maxine oh that's my profile of sperm donor 432 my man in the can really this wasn't just a disappointing season it was a chaotic mess and let's be real
we're still not over it and and rightfully so a number one black show when we went off the air they took us off half we didn't even finish the last season we they took us off like round Christmas or something halfway through and then they ran our repeats and our repeats were still number one for the rest of the year nobody even you know people just tuned in but hold up don't go anywhere just yet cuz we still got some low down dirty behind the scenes drama that'll have you clutching your pearls trust me what
went down when the camera stopped rolling is even more shocking than some of the wildest plat twists to know what Sound Stage you guys were on because they now Mark off like azien Harriet and d and d and friends and d and I wanted to know where the living single woman was but we weren't there we were on the ghetto lot and they had all the big shows or all the shows with white casts on the big lot and we were on the ranch lot we didn't have air conditioning we no we had to we
staged the walk out cuz we didn't have craft service did Warner Brothers have a master plan when they borrowed the essence of Living Single to create the meah hit friends well depending on who you ask it might just seem that way picture a head-to-head Battle of sitcom Supremacy six black folks versus six white folks each crew hold up in their respective Apartments plotting the next laugh John Hinton and the Living Single cast were seriously ticked off when friends was scheduled to air in the same time slide no we were on first we had did a
year we did our first season and then uh friends came that Following season so the following year they moved us the Thursday night but they moved us the Thursday night at 8:30 up against friends so so now you got you got Living Single the original friends up against back in the day on August 22nd 1993 Living Single burst onto our screens with an all black cast that was nothing short of revolutionary it was the show you couldn't miss capturing the hearts of young black viewers who found its stories not just entertaining but also relatable the
cast dived into issues that were real raw and Untamed exactly what the audience craved this show didn't just sit pretty in the TV Guide it dominated the ratings staying in the top five for African-American audiences throughout its entire 5 season run now fast forward a bit and Along Comes friends oh before you guys go can I just ask you a question yeah um when a guy breaks up with his girlfriend what is an appropriate amount of time to wait before you make a move oh I'd say about a month really i''s say three to four
half hour oh you've heard of it of course you have debuting a year later with a splash on September 22nd 1994 it brought its allwhite star study cast into our living rooms names like Jennifer Aniston Courtney Cox and Matthew Perry became household favorites and let's not forget this show stretched out for 10 seasons and a whopping 236 episodes so was it a case of imitation as the sincerest form of flattery or a strategic move by Warner Brothers get mad you know because you're not getting any credit people talk about oh what a great show that
was and it was like it was based on ours you know we don't get that type of credit so it's kind of flattering I mean because TV you know like you had Jackie gleon back in the day you had Jackie gleon that's you know that turned into The Flintstones you know it's fun but you acknowledged it for us we got no acknowledgement that's that's the thing that bothered me the most but it was just too similar it was six of us in uh six black folks in New York City versus six white folks in New
York City same apartment same apartment it was just like and they they'll say oh that was the most creative show in the world they don't give us that kind of love right out of the gate the 9s served up a juicy sitcom Showdown that was anything but fair friends and Living Single found themselves in a tug-of-war for viewers that were skewed from the start as friends skyrocketed in popularity NBC pumped it full of promotions Plastering every imaginable piece of merchandise from CBS to calendars all over New York City gift shops meanwhile Living Single virtually invisible
in the merchandising World left by Fox to wither away from the spotlight come on man what tell me the specific differences that you saw uh friends worked on the big lot so they got access to all the amenities that were on the Big Lot at the end of it they were making a $100,000 an episode or no a million dollars an episode something like that um we didn't Approach at least I never approached any of those numbers but here's where the drama really heats up fox in a bold and Brazen move shifted Living Single from
its cozy Sunday evening slot to a Cutthroat Thursday night face off directly against friends talk about a setup viewers were forced to pick aside catapulting friends into a cultural phenomenon that still binge today while Living Single tragically met its end after just five seasons and if you thought that was scandalous TC Carson who brought Kyle Barker to life claims he was canned from Living Single after he dared to call out Warner Brothers for sidelining their show in of friends in a revealing interview Carson didn't hold back about the drama Brewing behind the scenes so Carson
was like The Unofficial spokesperson for the crew always stepping up when things got tense with the producers he'd be the one to say okay y'all we need to talk whenever they had to tackle some drama on set I won't say a lot but there were times when we had issues on the show and we would come to them as a cast but I would be the spokesperson for it and so that last season before I left and they basically said well you know all these problems that you know we've been having they listen to you
you're the person they listen to so if you said something else then they would do that and I kind of looked at them I said well first of all we dealing with five grown people MH and they have their own mindset and their own ideas about what we're doing and everything we come to you with is a group decision not my decision but if you think I have that much power then I need to have a different job mhm Carson spilled that he got the boot from the series because the studio couldn't handle the cast
calling out what was really going down he didn't mince words either look even today if you're African-American you're expected to zip it and just do your job no questions no fuss just be grateful you're employed harsh right but that's the truth he's laying down the different issues you know sometimes it was script um the way we were being treated it was just various things that happened through the course of the the seasons yeah you know and when we had issues we talked to them about it even now if you're African-American you shut your mouth and
do the job yeah don't ask questions be happy that you got a job and my whole time on Living Single I was happy I had a job but I understood the importance of the job I had I understood the importance of what these characters meant to my community and so when I come to you with a problem it's because of that not because of ego and they looked at it as ego let's be real living single might not have lasted as long as friends but its impact absolutely massive did something that wasn't on TV we're
talking about a show that set the blueprint for so many others to follow and yet it often gets overlooked but here's the thing living single deserves all the credit especially since black creator too often don't get the recognition they deserve it's a Tale As Old As Time brilliant ideas coming from black creators only to be snatched up and repackaged by their white counterparts not today though we're giving Living Single its flowers the show didn't just entertain it made a statement Living Single was all about Black Excellence Throwing Shade at tired stereotypes and showing that black
people could be any anything they wanted stock broker attorney magazine editor you name it Kadija and Max two besties who met at the illustrious Howard University a historically black college and university mind you were at the center of this powerful narrative the show was more than just laughs it was about representation pure and simple Erica Alexander who played Max dropped some wisdom in an interview with blavity Inc she pointed out how crucial this representation was saying representation matters there are people who have come up to me who are in positions of power whether they are
politicians or lawyers that saw Max and Kyle and kadijah and saw themselves in those positions Living Single wasn't just a TV show it was a cultural movement that showed a generation what black Excellence looks like they're the kind of folks you'd actually want to hang out with down to earth hilarious and just vibing on the show now let's get one thing straight yeah they tackle racial issues but they're not drowning in the tired old stereotypes that usually get slapped onto black characters on TV you know the ones where every scene feels like a heavy-handed lesson
in struggle nah these characters are living their lives accurately reflecting the black community without turning their identities into a never-ending pity party as Kim koh's brilliantly put it in her chat with Entertainment Tonight We had a brother rocking his locks on Wall Street and a woman hustling to start her own magazine it was powerful then and it's still powerful now preach Kim preach but let's address the elephant in the room friends it's frustrating to see how Living Single got sidelined but can we put all the blame on friends not entirely NBC knew what they were
doing they scooped up a crew of actors who had undeniable chemistry and comedic chops to keep the laughs rolling but here's where it gets juicy does that mean Living Single should be left collecting dust a tragic casualty of Hollywood Shady treatment of black creators hell no media lives on forever baby and anyone can access it now sure friends might be the go-to Comfort watch for Millions but Living Single deserves to shine just as bright it's high time people woke up to the fact that Living Single isn't just some footnote in TV history it's the blueprint
