From the late 1980s to the mid-1990s, you could barely go anywhere without bumping into at least one member of the Wayans family on either the big or small screens. The sprawling clan of entertainers were almost everywhere you looked, wearing many hats on a number of productions that always tended to find a decent-sized audience.
Second-eldest sibling Keenen Ivory Wayans would do a lot of the writing and directing, but there you could bet your house on either creative or onscreen collaborations with actors Damon, Kim, Shawn and Marlon, and nearly every project bearing the Wayans name featured at least two members of the family.
One of their most popular efforts was 1996’s Don’t Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood, which spoofed and satirized the likes of Juice, Jungle Fever, South Central, Do the Right Thing, New Jack City, Dead Presidents, Friday, Boyz n the Hood and Menace II Society.
Don’t Be a Menace was a hit at the box office after earning $20 million on a budget of less than $4 million, while it went on to find a new life on home video, ultimately gaining cult classic status. A quarter of a century later and it’s experiencing a new lease of life on Netflix, having spent all of last week as one of the ten most-watched titles in the United States, as per FlixPatrol.
Published: Oct 11, 2021 04:18 am