Admitting that I can’t remember this character’s name will probably get me tossed out of the TV Geeks Club on my ear, but here goes. A sitcom with an all-black cast, middle- or high-school ages. (I can’t remember the name of the show either). The character was skinny, wore high-water pants with suspenders, and big, round owl-eye glasses.
You forgot Urkel? Are you for serious right now?
Thank you! I was driving both myself and the guy I work with crazy doing bad Urkel impressions trying to remember his damned name.
I was amazed when I learned that Jaleel White, who played Urkel, grew up to be a great-looking guy. This, along with the incredible transformation of Anthony Michael Hall, should give hope to spindly, dorky teenaged boys everywhere.
I’d like to smack that kid…!
His name is actually Steve Urkel. Not just “Urkel”.
Or Stéphan Urquelle, as was the case in some of the later episodes.
I bet he wouldn’t have looked too bad if he hadn’t been dressed up to look like a dork–just like America Ferrera isn’t really ugly, even though Betty is.
Why, oh why, can’t I forget him?
Does that mean I’m really old if my first thought was Roger (Ernest Thomas) from “What’s Happening”?
::sigh::
I have the exact same birthday as Jaleel White – November 27, 1976. We’ll be 31 next Tuesday!
[HIJACK]I think the nadir of the show Biography was when they profiled Reginald VelJohnson, the father on that show. Every BIO had much the same arc: happy music plays with shots of childhood, sad music for family tragedies, up and coming music for starting out, then success music, and then sad music for post-success tragedy, all interspliced with interview blips of friends and family or experts. It was pretty much the same whether it was Yoko Ono or Harry Houdini or Anne Frank.
For Reginald VelJohnson, whose life really hasn’t been that beset by tragedies evidently, the “sad post success music” and portion was when they got to the part of VelJohnson’s life when Family Matters was a hit but Urkel began eclipsing the show. The somber interview blips talked about how much trouble Reginald had adjusting to not being the star of his own show, Reginald talking about how depressing it was and how it made him rethink his career and what he wanted for life, yadda blah.
I was watching it thinking "Dude… you’re a black overweight actor in a field that is hard to achieve success in for anybody but especially for black actors and overweight actors (of, at best, moderate talent). You’re making more money in a week than most actors will make in five years for a show that seems to be written as a dayroom project at the Sherwood Schwartz Home for Hacks With Alzheimers and the only reason the show’s a success at all is because of that kid being so annoyingly memorable. Just cash your checks, set up some good investments, and when it’s over you can move to some town in Nebraska where you’ll be the biggest star in the community and appear in any role you ever wanted to play from Tevye to The Fonz at the local playhouse, or just sit on your butt and take it easy for the rest of your life, or whatever. This is NOT worth “sad music”, you are not Kurt Cobain or Jack Johnson or Gilda Radner.
Of course I don’t blame VelJohnson as much as the producers who obviously wanted to make melodrama where there was none, but still… the point is that Peter Graves saying Urkel is funny.[/HIJACK]
That’s hilarious, Sampiro. I’m still not sure why they chose VelJohnson to begin with as a Biography subject. I could see it as an “E! True Hollywood Story” maybe–but Biography was originally such a classy show, no? With people who were a huge deal–Amalia Earhardt, or as you mentioned, Anne Frank, Houdini.
Every time I watched Family Matters (all five of them) I really wanted Bruce Willis to do a walk on and start treating VelJohnson as the pretty much identical role he played in Die Hard.
What the hell kind of last name is VelJohnson anyway?
Has Reginald VelJohnson ever not played a cop?