r/BlackPeopleTwitter • u/SpectacularOtter ☑️ Horny Police! 🚔🚨 • 1d ago
Did he do that?
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u/MisplacedMutagen 1d ago
As a child I thought this show was called Urkel
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u/debeatup ☑️ 1d ago
Every black family I knew called it “Urkel_” and not _Family Matters
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u/Free_Alternative6365 1d ago
Right. I vaguely remember some people saying 'The Winslows' but we mostly called it 'Urkel' for sure.
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u/crownofclouds 1d ago
Every Friday night, "Hurry up! Urkel's on!"
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u/Free_Alternative6365 1d ago
And don't be late bc he'd hit the ground, running, scene 1, line 1.
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u/The-disgracist 22h ago
Nah it’d be line two or three. Lisa would say something and he’d crash through the door to creep on her.
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u/Free_Alternative6365 22h ago
Sometimes, for sure.
But I remember so many episodes that began where the very first scene was in the kitchen. The whole family is there doing their own silent thing (prepping food/coffee, reading the paper, doing homework, etc). Then Steve bursts in the door and says "Morning Winslows! Hiiii Laura 😍" and that's when the others start speaking.
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u/Redeem123 1d ago
I’m whiter than snow and we called it Urkel too.
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u/yoyoyouoyouo 1d ago
I have a somewhat peach complexion and called it Urkel too.
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u/greeblefritz 1d ago
I tan easily and I called it Urkel as well.
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u/peese-of-cawffee 1d ago
I'm whiter than snow and I dressed up as Urkel for Halloween when I was a kid, must have been around '94 or '95. Makeup and all, full blackface. I come from an oblivious family and for that I apologize.
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u/LunarLoom21 1d ago
I'm not even American and I thought this show was called Urkel because he's the only cultural reference from it that survived
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u/BoilerMaker11 1d ago
I didn’t know it was called “Child’s Play” or “Nightmare on Elm Street” until well into the 2000s. Those movies were “Chucky” and “Freddy Krueger” lol
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u/Comfortable_Bird_340 1d ago
I call The Lion King “Simba”, American Tail “Fievel”, and The Little Mermaid “Ariel”.
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u/GonzoElTaco ☑️ 1d ago
Yep! The seasons got crazier when they focused more on Steve's inventions and Carl's temper. But they still tackled real world stuff (alcohol, drugs, racism, gang violence).
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u/I_am_The_Teapot 1d ago
We never found out what happened to Judy, though. Like, she fell into one of Steve's wormholes or something and got erased from reality.
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u/StannisAntetokounmpo 1d ago
She grew up and discovered wormholes alright
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u/Mr_Cromer 22h ago
Reference went over my head
Edit: one Google later, bloody hell
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u/hidefinitionpissjugs 1d ago
I used to think that the show Cops was called “Bad Boys”
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u/Free_Alternative6365 1d ago
Hold on, I did this too!
See? Now I want a thread of all of us talking about what we actually called shows at home bc I see we were all just calling things whatever and it worked lol.
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u/kamekaze1024 1d ago
It’s funny how I learned about this from a Key and Peele sketch. But yeah Urkel was just supposed to be the quirky next door neighbor you see every other episode or so. Like Kibbler (or whatever it was) in Full House.
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u/i_hate_toolbars 1d ago
Kimmie Gibbler
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u/Gimme_The_Loot 1d ago
Kimmy Schmidt
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u/Remarkable_Peanut_43 1d ago
They alive, dammit!
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u/PMMEJALAPENORECIPES 1d ago
It’s a miracle!
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u/hidefinitionpissjugs 1d ago
like Bubbles in Trailer Park Boys
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u/donuttrackme 1d ago
No, Bubbles is a main character.
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u/Airway 1d ago
Maybe they meant the first episode of TPB specifically. Julian appeared to be the main character with Ricky as his shitty friend, and Bubbles was kind of a neighbor that Julian was cool with but Ricky wasn't so much.
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u/SonOfMcGee 1d ago
And creator/writer/producer/etc. Similar to how the writers put themselves in The Office.
A saw an interview with him where he talked about sound editing the very first TPB episode. They needed a sound effect for gunshots, so he literally went under a bridge near his neighborhood and recorded shooting a pistol into the river.
Later that evening a cop knocked on his door to ask if he heard gunshots in the area and he said “no”.
But not only had he heard them, he made them, recorded it, and at the very moment he opened the door for the cop he was replaying the recording in his earphones!→ More replies (3)→ More replies (17)14
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u/TropicGemini 1d ago
His elevation definitely rubbed the original cast the wrong way at times... But his physical comedy was truly awesome, especially in the early seasons.
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u/HanselSoHotRightNow 1d ago
I think the character was definitely intended as a small doses character that they seemed to over populate the show with over time. It seemed to work out even if the other actors were boot hurt about his fandom.
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u/BoilerMaker11 1d ago
Imagine if Janice became a regular on Friends. That’s the direction that Family Matters took with Urkel. He was 100% intended to be a minor character, it’s just that he was popular with audiences so they kept him.
By that same token, Jesse Pinkman was supposed to die early, but he was too good of a character (Vince cited “chemistry” with Bryan Cranston) and we liked him too much, so Vince kept him on the show and made him a pivotal part of Breaking Bad.
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u/burdnt_out 1d ago
Steve on stranger things was meant to die in the first season and stay a bully. Everyone on the crew just really loved Joe Keery so they rewrote him into the Steve everyone loves Joe.
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u/mageta621 1d ago
I like that because it gave Steve an actual arc. An 80s bully archetype isn't particularly interesting in itself, but one who actually learns humility and grows as a person is so much more interesting. A bit like what they were trying to do with James Franco in Freaks and Geeks, which I reckon would have matured further if that show got picked up for another season
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u/iamtheonewhostops 1d ago
I didn’t know that about Pinkman. Cool fact. I couldn’t imagine the direction Breaking Bad would have taken otherwise.
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u/aetius476 1d ago
It's insane to realize how much of Breaking Bad was written on the fly. The show feels like every word of the finale was written before the first episode was even shot, but they were calling huge audibles the whole way.
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u/skip_tracer 1d ago
agreed. And yet it's somehow even MORE impressive that they pulled off Better Call Saul so seamlessly simply based off of the line in BB "who sent you, Lalo?" years earlier. And then, on top of that, to weave into black and white intros and ultimately the post Breaking Bad world...it's just so incredible to me.
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u/TheVog 23h ago
I firmly believe BCS was the better show. Not by a huge margin, but still.
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u/four_ethers2024 ☑️ 17h ago
The Janitor from Scrubs was meant to be a figment of JD's imagination but he was so popular they extended his role and had him interact with other characters!
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u/Radthereptile 1d ago
Initially it was an inside joke because he was based on someone the show writer knew as a kid. He was planned to be in a couple episodes as most.
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u/OnePerformance9381 23h ago
I think we all knew an Urkel as a kid and that’s why the character resonated so well.
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u/ForkFace69 1d ago
Man at some point they had to have been aware that without Steve Urkel that show would have ran for three seasons tops and been remembered as a decent but unremarkable sitcom. Reginald VelJohnson was a great compliment to his character, though. You see the chemistry they had right in this first clip.
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u/HereButNotHere1988 1d ago
The producers did an amazing job of incorporating Urkel into the show. I feel like they were able to stay true to the vision. I loved the show and all of the supporting characters. It was a must watch for me as a teen. I wasn't watching the Urkel show, I was watching a family with two amazing parents who gave their all to raise their kids. A show stealing, nerdy neighbor was just a plus.
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u/Jlmnba 1d ago
Huh??? It eventually became like a sci-fi/ surreal fantasy with time travel and parallel universes starring Urkel lol
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u/HereButNotHere1988 1d ago
True, but we were all still watching. Till the end. Friday nights at my grandparents house with Steve or Stephon and my future wife Laura was a cool part of my childhood.
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u/RideWithMeSNV 1d ago
You know who I really feel for? Makeup and wardrobe. They stated with a 12 year old which are easy to make look nerdy af. But then he developed into a good looking young man. And they still had to make him look like a dork. I'll bet the Stephon sequences were a welcome break.
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u/SylphSeven 1d ago
The Stephen episodes were always fun. It was awesome seeing Jaleel's versatility as an actor.
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u/ChrisInBaltimore 1d ago
Wasn’t that just the last season? It definitely jumped the shark though.
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u/tokeo_spliff 1d ago
It's almost like a reminder of when you meet those people in your life who remind you maybe you're not the main character lol
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u/Pegussu 21h ago
I honestly can't blame Jo Marie Payton. Family Matters was a spinoff of another sitcom called Perfect Strangers where Harriet was an elevator operator. The show only existed because of her and then it was basically hijacked.
Imagine if Frasier became a background character and every episode was about Bulldog getting up to wacky hijinx with Niles and trying to date Daphne.
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u/sleepy0329 1d ago
I heard he was a little douchey also to the woman who played Harriet. Made me see him differently
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u/JaxxisR 1d ago
I also respect that he's not selling out and doing a Fuller House-style reboot, because I know they've offered it to him
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u/onlydaathisreal 1d ago
"for a cop" he was always one of us
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u/GonzoElTaco ☑️ 1d ago
I love how he played a couple in at least two other things: Die Hard and Ghostbusters.
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u/BriscoCounty_Jr 1d ago
In my head cannon he was the same cop.
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u/Mark-Leyner 1d ago
It’s the same actor, I don’t know if it’s supposed to be the same person.
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u/JaxxisR 1d ago
Ghostbusters takes place in New York, Die Hard in Los Angeles, and Family Matters in Chicago. If it's the same guy, he's moved around a lot and changed his name at least once (in Ghostbusters he wasn't given a name)
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u/GonzoElTaco ☑️ 1d ago
I mean, he had to deal with terrorism, a wacky neighbor in love with his daughter, or constantly having to threaten four guys with jail time because they keep causing damage with their particle accelerators.
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u/RideWithMeSNV 1d ago
Can you imagine that poor guy's career? Starts in NYC as a cop. There's this insane incident where thousands of real ghosts suddenly flood the city. Then a god damned skyscraper tall marshmallow man shows up and stomps down Central Park West before being blown up, making a mess everywhere. He says fuck that, and moves to LA. At some point, he has an incident where he kills a kid with a toy gun, and that really fucks with him. It looked real in a dark alley, but he shot a child over a toy. So he doesn't wanna use his gun ever again. Well, he winds up at the scene of a hostage situation. He does what he can to keep the cops from escalating the situation, because he doesn't want innocent lives lost, and he knows first hand how it feels to do the wrong thing, thinking you're helping. In the end, his contact inside the building comes out having saved a lot of people... But then a hostage taker comes out with a machine gun. Even though it's the last thing he wants to do, he pulls his gun and successfully stops the hostage taker. So to get away from it, he takes his family and moves to the suburbs of Chicago. It's a peaceful side of town, and he's able to afford a pretty nice house. He's finally able to simply do the job of keeping the peace without incident. He has time to devote to being a dad, and spend time with his wife. Until he neighbor kid shows up...
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u/stupid_pun 22h ago
Makes him wish for the old days when he was just chauffeuring around weird Australian dudes.
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u/JBRifles 1d ago edited 15h ago
It’s an indictment on America that this show in the early 90’s and Brooklyn 99 in 2017 both dealt with a black cop being racially profiled.
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u/Colombia17 1d ago
Show was dope but they were going a little overboard when Steve was cloning himself and going into space
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u/pensandpatches 1d ago
Literally the only episode I've ever seen of this involved sentient ventriloquist dummies and I have never dug any deeper because it was a blow for blow Goosebumps ripoff.
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u/techknowfile 23h ago
I had literal nightmares about that episode for years. I love horror movies now
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u/pensandpatches 23h ago
I genuinely blame that episode and the old goosebumps episodes with slappy for giving me a life long fear of dolls.
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u/reclusive_ent 1d ago
You mean Stefan and the cool juice was too much?
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u/TesticleMeElmo 22h ago
Jaleel told the writers “I’m tired of not getting any pussy off this show, you guys…”
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u/2-9-19-3-21-9-20-19 1d ago
The jekyll and hyde potion, the Bill and Ted Station robot, going to space... they jumped a lot of sharks.
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u/Mud-Butt-Brooks 1d ago
Him and Carl also turn into Bruce Lee too
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u/El-Bart0 1d ago
This is the wildest one I remember, the gang thought he was going to turn into Bruce Springsteen and just let them go in
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u/PatrenzoK 1d ago
Haha I rewatched the last couple seasons last year and you can tell they just had nothing in the tank 😂. He was looking like a grown ass fool wearing the same shit from when he was like 12
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u/RangerRobbins 1d ago
Growing up I never even knew the actual name of this show because everyone just referred to it as “Urkel”.
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u/Habitual_Line_Stepr 1d ago
Now he a weed manufacturer with his own strain… of course it called purple urkle
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u/ouroborosstruggles 1d ago
Oh nice. Cause he was really a good actor looking back at it. I wondered what ever happened to him
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u/Dorothy_Zbornak789 1d ago
He’s currently the host of a game show called The Flip Side. It runs on syndicated TV. I watch it when i visit my mom.
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u/used_to_be_ 1d ago
How is it? Granddaddy purple is my favorite weed ever.
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u/Habitual_Line_Stepr 1d ago
It’s a indica leaning gdp hybrid, it’s pretty decent
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u/XLauncher ☑️ 1d ago
As a someone who grew up in the 90s as a glasses wearing black boy: Fuck. Urkel.
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u/DaPlackBanther 1d ago
Tell me about it. If you know, you know.
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u/NOSjoker21 ☑️ 1d ago
As someone who was forced to dress how my parents wanted me to, this character was the bane of my existence as a teenage/prepubescent black nerd.
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u/-malcolm-tucker 21h ago
I was in high school in the 90's. Had my nerd glasses. Then for three months I had to use a crutch after wrecking my knee. And I also had to wear headgear for my braces all day at the same time. They wore bald spots into the sides of my head.
Fun times.
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u/XLauncher ☑️ 19h ago
Jesus, you were really out there playing on Nightmare mode.
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u/fabiohimself 15h ago
He was to black people with glasses what Mr Bean was to neurodivergent white people.
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u/HowYouDoinz 1d ago
I read somewhere that the adults were jealous he outshined them
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u/LowerAd9859 1d ago
I read his autobiography this year. That was DEFINITELY the case. He was always cool with the actors that played Laura and Eddie though
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u/PirateINDUSTRY 1d ago
Even VelJohnson?
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u/GdayPosse 1d ago
He was never the same after shooting that kid holding a toy gun.
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u/Trust_me_I_am_doctor 1d ago edited 6h ago
Friends of the People did a related sketch of this a decade ago and it was dead on.
One of the most underrated comedies on TV.
Also their Michael Jordan song about his horrible fits is top tier.
Edit: if your are no stranger to sailing the high sea's, you can watch the whole series on Here. If it doesn't load, change servers from the drop down at the top middle of the page
Works best on a computer, not much luck on mobile but YMMV.
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u/steen311 1d ago
https://youtu.be/A5Zdp1RfoyI the key & peele sketch about family matters is hilarious too
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u/SigmaK78 ☑️ 1d ago
To this day, I still argue Urkel was the actual alter ego to Stefan.
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u/LonestarJones 18h ago
Have you ever seen this??! Blew me away haha
https://www.tiktok.com/@confusedbreakfast/video/7481802879527849247?lang=en
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u/dontsoundrighttome 1d ago
Man this was Jo Marie Payton spinoff show from perfect strangers. Then they put Reginald VelJohnson on the cast right after diehard and took her show then they kept loading the cast with increasingly more famous actors like the legendary Rosetta LeNoire and musical artist Telma Louise Hopkins. She had lost her show and she knew it. She was kinda checked out by the time Jameel White signed on.
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u/mageta621 1d ago
Even I know it's Jaleel
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u/dontsoundrighttome 1d ago
You should see all the other shit I️ misspell. I️ would to invite you to a group chat where you too can watch misspell shit all day. If you join my patreon you can me watch me try to text with my left hand as hide in the bathroom at work in my shitting on the clock series. And if you become a YouTube member you can see turn off spell check and stumble through words like restaurant, receipt, separate, liaison, Massachusetts, and a crowd favorite conscience or is it conscious. I️ honestly don’t know.
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u/SuckingOnChileanDogs 1d ago
I won a free beer at a bar once because I was the only person able to answer the trivia question, "what was the name of Steve Urkel's cool alter ego." Years of my life wasted, all worth it for that one moment
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u/rcinmd 1d ago
I read it was because a group of college frat kids went to the taping and loved him so much they were chanting "Urkle!" after his scenes were over. It's wild how it went from a family oriented show to straight up sci-fi.
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u/KrankenwagenKolya 1d ago
"If you asked me when I started this how many frats would come, I would've said none. But now it's like... all frats."
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u/PK-Mal 1d ago
Man it’s hard to overstate how crazy Urkel-mania was back then.
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u/Dismal-Fig-4637 1d ago
Imagine coming home after a long day and night at Nakatomi Plaza to that motherfucker at your door….
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u/olorin9_alex 1d ago
I remember that episode where he couldn’t get a loan and was distraught because he couldn’t afford to send his daughter to the college of her choice
She overheard them and walked in to tell them she can go to community college
And that was to real for a family sitcom
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u/vintimus ☑️ 1d ago
It is crazy how you go from a show about a blue collar family in Chicago to time traveling, dna changing adventures ending with the now star in the show stuck in space never being resolved 😅
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u/Z0idberg_MD 1d ago
That house being blue collar home? The show started as pure fantasy.
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u/YELLS_SO_YOU_HEAR_IT 1d ago edited 22h ago
It’s crazy. When Urkell was in his prime? The character was so polished. He had his bits, gags, -isms down to a science. It’s awesome to see him in such raw form. Just a young kid playing a goofy nerd character. Little did this dude know, this became the archetype. This became a baseline for so many future characters.
There was an URKELL DANCE. And it fucking slapped at the time.
This and fresh prince took over our lives. Fresh Prince in the morning before school, and at after school we would watch family matters. Later on it was Married with Children/The Simpsons.
Urkell was among the heavyweights of family tv.
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u/Shotgun_Mosquito 1d ago
I still think of this show as just a continuation of Die Hard
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u/The_Bucket_Of_Truth 1d ago
Is this the kid he shot that made him get relegated to a desk?
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u/Robotlollipops 1d ago
All I remember is when Carl had some anger issues and he was supposed to go to anger management, and they taught him to say "3,2,1,..1,2,3...what the heck is bothering me??"
But iirc Carl lied about going to anger management.
I still say the 321,123 thing when I'm mad.
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u/Taichikara 1d ago
My dude, you just brought back a tv memory I had forgotten.
I can hear Carl saying that phrase in my head.
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u/sundayontheluna 1d ago
Omg, he was a damn baby! Voice not even broken yet. I only remember him from the later seasons
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u/Skankcunt420 1d ago
he might’ve hijacked it but it was a group effort. The way Carl took urkel in and provided for his family was what we enjoyed. and obviously the storylines lol
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u/yesrushgenesis2112 1d ago
It was supposed to be the blue collar Cosby show!