Family Matters

[Ayen]

AKA "The Steve Urkel Show." All the time growing up me and the family could never remember the name so we just called it "The Steve Urkel Show." And for all intent and purposes, that's what it was. Family Matters started out as another show from the 80's about a traditional family going through day to day situations and having that "lesson" at the end. Along came Jaleel White and the whole setup changed. They even added new scenes with him in the opening of Season Two because he was so popular. We got him turning into the cooler... I forget his name, and Bruce freaking Lee! Teleporting to Paris (I think it was Paris), shrinking Urkel and Carl, the Urkel dummy during the Halloween show. Trout got weird, man.

Who else watched it?

[Jinx]

Full House for black people.

[Agent Proto]

It was not Full House for black people. It's not the same! The concept may be similar, but it's entirely not. Family Matters was a fun show to watch though. Not the best, but it was fun. Steve Urkel was the star of the show, even if he wasn't originally meant to be. The show just got so weird later on, and probably for the better (or worse). A black family sitcom wouldn't do so well back then.

And Steve's alter-ego's name was Stefan Urquelle btw.

[Colonel Angus]

I liked Family Matters better than Full House.

Yeah, Family Matters got real bad after they changed the mom. The stories got weirder.

[Ayen]

Jo Marie Payton unfortunately left when she felt there was no room left for her character to develop. I can see where she's coming from since it became all about the kids in the end. It started off as a spinoff of Perfect Strangers.

[Shiny]

Full House for black people.

It wasn't for black people it just had black people in it.

I liked it betetr than Full House, but I didn't think it was that good of a show. I still wonder why I watched shows like this and Growing Pains.

[Freya]

I never really watched this as a kid. If I remember it was already going on when I was born, similar to full house, but we just didn't watch it. I was young so I didn't pick tv channels.

[Del Murder]

Full House for black people.

It wasn't for black people it just had black people in it.

Yeah. Remember when nobody cared what the race of the people on TV were? I never thought of FM or Fresh Prince as 'Black shows'. It's so strange that we were so much more progressive in the 80s/90s than today.

FM was cool but when Urkel became the main character I lost interest. He was better as a whacky neighbor character.

[Depression Moon]

This was one of my shows back in the 90's, but yeah the show did get bad when the moms changed. The replacement mother wasn't as good as the first one, same goes for the one replaced in Fresh Prince, but at least that one was decent.

As much as I liked the show, the family was a little too goody goody for me.

[Shiny]

That's probably what bothered me about this show, Full House, and Growing Pains. How Will Smith and Ashley were in Fresh Prince were more accurate depictions of teenagers to me.