Trivia / Family Matters

• Acting for Two:
  • Jaleel White played Steve Urkel, Myrtle Urkel, and Stefan Urquelle (when Steve accidentally clones himself and have one be permanently Stefan). He even got to be a one-off criminal cousin, "Original Gangsta Dawg," leading to a Split-Screen Phone Call between these three characters (Steve, Stefan, and OGD). All of that, in addition to the transformation chamber, was to allow White some opportunity to not keep up the squeaky Steve voice, which got harder and harder as he grew up. This was also done because White was a talented character actor and impressionist. His Bruce Lee is actually quite good, and reportedly one of his favorite roles. This is partially averted with Urkelbot. While White did provide his voice, it was actually Michael "Boogaloo Shrimp" Chambers who portrayed him.
  • Reginald VelJohnson appeared a couple of times as Myrtle's father Big Daddy Urkel.
• Actor-Shared Background: Barry Jenner, Lieutenant Murtaugh's actor, was a Los Angeles Police Department reserve officer.
• Blooper:
  • In "Ice Station Winslow", a visible boom mic lowers into frame after Steve electrocutes himself.
  • In Season 5's "Rock Enroll", look through the kitchen door while the characters sing "Happy Birthday" to Steve; a random man (possibly a crew member) can be spotted walking through the set.
• The Cast Showoff:
  • Darius McCrary is featured singing on several episodes.
  • Jaleel White also is featured singing on several episodes, usually in his Urkel voice.
  • In the Bruce Lee episodes, Jaleel White got to show off his magnificent upper body and his love of kung fu. He also got to show his accordion playing, which is actually quite good. Finally, Steve was made into a basketball prodigy despite having no athletic talent anywhere else.
  • Telma Hopkins, a professional singer and former member of Tony Orlando and Dawn, was given plenty of opportunities to sing throughout the show's run. She got her own musical number in "Farewell, My Laura" and "The Good, the Bad, and the Urkel", and traditionally ended every Christmas Episode (excluding Season 7's) with a Christmas carol.
  • Reginald VelJohnson's singing and dancing.
  • Jo Marie Payton's singing in a couple of episodes.
  • Bryton McClure's dancing in some episodes.
  • Shawn Harrison's tap dancing was made into a plot point where Waldo learned the art in order to play better basketball.
• Cast the Runner-Up: Before being cast as Waldo, Shawn Harrison auditioned for the role of the bully Willie Fuffner.
• Channel Hop: From ABC to CBS for its last season.
• Contest Winner Cameo: The four children picked to be Steve and Laura's children for Carl's nightmare in "Father of the Bride".
• Corpsing: In "Life in the Fast Lane", Reginald VelJohnson audibly laughs when Steve breaks into a hyperactive dance. You can see Jo Marie Payton smack him on the back to reel him back into character.
• Creator Backlash:
  • According to Jaleel White, Reginald VelJohnson and Jo Marie Payton weren't happy with the decision to have him play Myrtle Urkel due to their concerns about how the then large number of Black men in drag roles affected the community's image in pop culture. This in turn put a lot of stress on White, to the point his father requested the producers not have him portray the character again unless it was his son's decision.
  • On Darius McCrary's podcast, Jaleel White expressed his displeasure with a particular scene from Season 1, where a tired Aunt Rachel comes home and lets out an exhausted "Oy vey!":
    Jaleel White: ... Aunt Rachel came through the door after a long day of work, and she dropped her bag and she said, "Oy vey!" ... and I'm like, "This is the most culturally-incorrect entrance a black woman could possibly have."
• The Danza: Maxine Johnson was played by Cherie Johnson.
• Dawson Casting: The late Michelle Thomas was in her mid-20s when cast as Myra Monkhouse. She was actually 7-8 years older than the other teen actors.
• Descended Creator: Richard Correll, one of the show's directors, voices and puppeteers Stevil the Demonic Dummy in the titular Halloween Episode.
• Hostility on the Set: It has been discussed among much of the cast that there was some resentment over Jaleel White dominating the show, and becoming the Breakout Character meant he had a lot more negotiating power with the producers. Jo Marie Payton said that White was a young kid with a chip on his shoulder at times. While Reginald VelJohnson doesn't deny it, he still speaks favorably of White and the show as a whole.
• I Am Not Spock: Family Matters pretty much killed any shot at Jaleel White being taken seriously as an actor, outside of voice acting. This is slightly subverted as White doesn't resent his most famous role and has fond memories of the series. Additionally, he seems to have transcended this if his current roles are any indication.
• The Other Darrin:
  • Judy was played by Valerie Jones in the pilot. Afterwards, she's played by Jaimee Foxworth.
  • The actor playing Richie were originally a pair of twins, since he was a baby during the first season.^note Joseph and Julius Wright were credited as Joseph Julius Wright (in the same vein as how Full House credited Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen for all but the final year of its eight-season run). The character went through Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome after this and he was recast with 4-year-old Bryton McClure.
  • Estelle's husband Fletcher was played by three different actors throughout the series. For most of the series, he was portrayed by Arnold Johnson. However, he was played by Whitman Mayo in the Season 6 episode "They Shoot Urkels, Don't They?" and Edmund Cambridge in the Season 7 episode "Best Years of Our Lives".
  • Jo Marie Payton, the original star of the show, left halfway through the show's final season and the role of Harriette was recast with Judyann Elder.
• Prop Recycling: In what's likely a case of Off-the-Shelf FX, Steve's time travel device uses what appears to be the bottom half of a Zeonizer spray painted silver.
• Real-Life Relative: Phynjuar Thomas, mother of Michelle Thomas, plays Myra's mom in "We're Going to Disney World Part 2".
• Recycled Script:
  • As with all Miller-Boyett sitcoms, the producers weren't shy about recycling ideas from other sitcoms. For example, the episode "Rachel's Place" is virtually identical to the Happy Days episode "Hot Stuff".
  • The Bruce Lee episodes pretty much follow the exact same formula, but with different circumstances: a group of thugs mess with Steve, he turns into Bruce Lee, then there's a big fight sequence. Even though they're incredibly impressive and entertaining, by the time you get to "Karate Kids", you'll notice a lot of rehashed material (some repeated karate moves, Steve's Slow Motion finishing move, the thugs getting scared away at the end, etc).
  • "No. 1 With a Bullet" and "My Bodyguard" have very similar setups: both involve Steve and Carl being forced to share a room together due to an incident with a criminal. The criminal's brother sneaks in to exact revenge on one of them, and the other takes him down in a Big Damn Heroes moment.
• Screwed by the Network: The producers signed a lavish two-season deal with CBS, which then abruptly canceled the show after only one season, with no opportunity to do a real finale.
• Those Two Actors: Telma Hopkins and Rosetta LeNoire both appeared as regulars on Gimme a Break!.
• Tie-In Cereal: A very perfunctory example, but there was an Urkel-Os cereal briefly sold in 1991 whose only real connection with the show was that it had Steve on the box.
• Typecasting: When hasn't Reginald VelJohnson been cast as a police officer?
• Un-Canceled: An animated Christmas special titled Did I Do That to the Holidays?: A Steve Urkel Story was originally set to release in December 2022, with Jaleel White returning to voice the character, before it was scrapped alongside multiple Warner Bros. projects following the merger with Discovery, Inc. However, it would receive a digital release in November 2023 under the title Urkel Saves Santa: The Movie!.
• Underage Casting: Darius McCrary was only 13 in the first season despite playing a high school freshman, and even though Eddie is the eldest of the Winslow children, McCrary is actually younger than Kellie Shanygne Williams (Laura) by a month. His height played a huge role in this, most likely.
• Wag the Director: Steve wasn't originally part of the Foodfight! scene in Season One's "Baker's Dozen", but Jaleel White wanted to participate so badly that he convinced the writers to add him at the last minute. They agreed, but unbeknownst to White, they didn't allow the character to actually partake in the fight; instead, he shows up at the end and gets pied by everyone else.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The original pilot script apparently had appearances from Balki and Larry, but these scenes were cut and the Required Spinoff Crossover was averted.
  • Rosetta LeNoire had initially passed on playing Estelle, as she preferred stage acting over working in television, especially as she was getting older. But her friend and former Gimme a Break! castmate Telma Hopkins, who had signed on to play Rachel, personally convinced her to give it a shot.
  • Aaliyah was in the final round of being cast as Judy Winslow along with Countess Vaughn and Jaimee Foxworth, who got the role.
  • Steve was only ever supposed to appear as a one-off character in his debut episode and never be heard from again.
  • Had the show returned for a tenth season, Steve and Laura would have married. There were rumors that Judy was also going to return for the season, with the reveal she had been living with her aunt, although Jaimee Foxworth debunked that rumor on her Facebook page.
• Word of God: It was widely believed that Jo Marie Payton left the show midway through the final season because she was disgusted that Jaleel White had become the star of the show. It was also believed that she reappeared in the series finale in an uncredited role. In a 2010 interview, however, Payton revealed that she wanted to leave the show for a while in order to do other projects, and when the Channel Hop to CBS gave her the opportunity to renegotiate her contract, she agreed in advance that she would do the first half of the season and then depart. She also revealed that contrary to popular belief, she didn't appear in the series finale.
• Written-In Infirmity: Myra appeared sporadically in the last season after her actress, Michelle Thomas, was diagnosed with a rare stomach cancer. She died five months after the show was cancelled.
• You Look Familiar:
  • Shawn Harrison appeared in the Season 1 episode "The Party", where he's credited as "Guy in Towel". He would later return more famously as Waldo Geraldo Faldo.
  • Ron Taylor portrayed Darnell Coleman in "The Big Reunion" and Pastor Peeble in "Choir Trouble".
  • Bumper Robinson appeared as Eddie's friend Kyle in "Rock Video". He then appeared in three more episodes as a love interest of Laura's named Daniel Wallace.
  • J. Lamont Pope portrayed three different minor characters in three different episodes before he portrayed his most well known role, Curtis Williams.
  • Tammy Townsend (Greta) first appeared in Season 3's "The Love God" as Jenny, the girl who screams about Steve in the Imagine Spot.
  • Garcelle Beauvais appeared in four episodes, portraying a different character in each one.
  • Judyann Elder first appeared as Sister Bernadette in Season 5's "Nunsense". In Season 9, she took over the role of Harriette Winslow following the departure of Jo Marie Payton.

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