Never intended to be in color

I've read a lot on the Internet about how this movie was originally filmed in color and then transferred to black-and-white. Some people seem to be under the impression that the film was intended to be in color and then Prince changed his mind at the last minute and had it processed into black-and-white on a whim.
I'm sure this was not the case. Black-and-white film stock was virtually impossible to get by the time this film was made. The few films that were presented in black-and-white during this time period were usually filmed on color stock with the intention all along of processing in black-and-white. The color cinematography was designed from the start to look good when processed black-and-white( and might actually look weird in color).

And besides, part of the reason why the film is so absurdly funny is that it's a take off of old corny black-and-white movies with two (then) modern black hipsters at its center. It had to be black and white.