Family Matter's started off innocently enough as a Cosby Show ripoff, set to be centered around a "middle class" black family living in suburban Chicago. Using the momentum of Perfect Stranger's sassy elevator operator (a job I would imagine was in sharp decline in the late 80s), it is a spin off of that show.
Like any long running show, Family Matters can be broken up into different phases. The first phase was of course the "Cosby Clone" phase. However the thing about this approach is that it was no Cosby show. Instead this show had a bunch of under performing actors and characters who were one dimensional. The child actors in this show were all pretty bad. The adult actors were better, but given the juvenile nature of the script, not much could be done.
In this direction this series would have vanish umm, 3rd season, maybe 4th season at best. The fact of the matter was is that the comedy styling was more slap stick (as opposed to Cosby's more subtle comical styling). The Cosby show also had character growth and development(hard to juggle with the increasingly large plot, but it was successful in some instances). Family Matters didn't really allow the characters to grow much. The Carl Winslow of 1989 is the same Carl Winslow of 1998. Heatcliff Huxtable kept his character interesting with his interactions with the cast, and the child actors (who were all superior to Family Matter's child actors).
Ah, but alas, Jaleel White who had been roaming around the TV sitcom universe for a few years with cameo appearances here and there comes up as the geeky, annoying, and clumsy next door neighbor. Needless to say, he was an overnight success. And soon enough, he became the show's centerpiece attraction.
Steve Urkle became pretty much the face of the show, and he became a merchandise killing. We had a Steve Urkle rap, Steve Urkle doll, Steve Urkle music video, etc. This pretty much started the downward spiral for the show. Steve Urkle saved a show that was going to pretty much be a footnote in history or become an obscure "anyone remember that one show" hit on the internet. But the show lasted a hefty 9 seasons. I'd say from Season 2-6 was the Urkle phase.
After awhile, the Urkle character was becoming stale. It was kind of hard to buy that a nerd who looked like he was 6'7 (and had a bassy deep voice) could be some sort of docile nerd. The producers probably started to notice this, and started creating alternate versions of Urkle like Stefan. Of course that wasn't a great hit, and with Ukrle becoming stale, the show pretty much threw any idea at the wall. Some ludicrous situations happened like Urkle crashing a car into the Winslow's living room. Urkle shrinking him and Carl, and Steve Urkle actually separating from Stephan to create a totally separate version of himself. I'm not making this up! The last few seasons pretty much demonstrated that the producers had no idea what they were doing.
As producers pretty much came up with dumb idea after another to keep the show interesting, a male nurished supporting cast was suffering. Besides maybe Laura and maybe Karl Winslow, the rest of the characters got little to no screen time. And members of the Winslow family were systematically written out of the show, or retconned out of existence. One such popular tragedy was Judy Winslow, which was a pretty sad story. Contrary to popular belief, her last ever line in the show was "Grandma, when are you getting married", and she appears as a background extra. That's it. Her going up stairs and never coming down would have been too good of a send off. The run upstairs thing is just a urban myth.
Mother Winslow and of course Rachael, were written off of the show, along with a revolving door of recurring characters. Characters were introduced to make the show interesting like Waldo, Maxine to give up more asinine idiot characters. But no one triumphed Urkle.
Anyway, I'm sure the producers realized that they were at the point of no return. By 1998 Urkle popularity was complete gone, much of the supporting cast left in protest (like Harriett Winslow's actress), and the show was left with pretty much no direction. It appears that the producers were perhaps going to "reboot" the show in Season 10, as there appeared to have been plans to "reintroduce" many forgotten characters like the infamous Judy Winslow.
Overall the show surpassed expectations at least. As ABC's Cosby clone, the show probably would have been canned after the second season. Since the writers had no clue how to develop characters, the plots were simply just derivative sitcom filler seen 1,000 times before. I only feel sorry for Jamie Foxworth (she seemed like a pretty girl, but man did she have issues after she was dismissed) and Jahleel White. Jahleel type-casted himself, and could never really distance himself from his Urkle role. He tried with many short lived sitcoms, and failed. But I think he found new life as a voice actor in various cartoons, and animation movies. Eh, not such a bad ending.
The rest of the cast was terrible, and the actors who were good Thelma Hoskins all moved on to better things. As for the "kids" who knows what they're doing, but they were pretty much one trick pony's anyway. And Jamie Foxworth character actually seemed like she could have been a good actress, but got fired. The other adult actors like Karl Winslows actor (don't remember his real name) works sporadically, and grandma Winslow passed away in real life. The show was average, and it's commendable it lasted as long as it did.
Like any long running show, Family Matters can be broken up into different phases. The first phase was of course the "Cosby Clone" phase. However the thing about this approach is that it was no Cosby show. Instead this show had a bunch of under performing actors and characters who were one dimensional. The child actors in this show were all pretty bad. The adult actors were better, but given the juvenile nature of the script, not much could be done.
In this direction this series would have vanish umm, 3rd season, maybe 4th season at best. The fact of the matter was is that the comedy styling was more slap stick (as opposed to Cosby's more subtle comical styling). The Cosby show also had character growth and development(hard to juggle with the increasingly large plot, but it was successful in some instances). Family Matters didn't really allow the characters to grow much. The Carl Winslow of 1989 is the same Carl Winslow of 1998. Heatcliff Huxtable kept his character interesting with his interactions with the cast, and the child actors (who were all superior to Family Matter's child actors).
Ah, but alas, Jaleel White who had been roaming around the TV sitcom universe for a few years with cameo appearances here and there comes up as the geeky, annoying, and clumsy next door neighbor. Needless to say, he was an overnight success. And soon enough, he became the show's centerpiece attraction.
Steve Urkle became pretty much the face of the show, and he became a merchandise killing. We had a Steve Urkle rap, Steve Urkle doll, Steve Urkle music video, etc. This pretty much started the downward spiral for the show. Steve Urkle saved a show that was going to pretty much be a footnote in history or become an obscure "anyone remember that one show" hit on the internet. But the show lasted a hefty 9 seasons. I'd say from Season 2-6 was the Urkle phase.
After awhile, the Urkle character was becoming stale. It was kind of hard to buy that a nerd who looked like he was 6'7 (and had a bassy deep voice) could be some sort of docile nerd. The producers probably started to notice this, and started creating alternate versions of Urkle like Stefan. Of course that wasn't a great hit, and with Ukrle becoming stale, the show pretty much threw any idea at the wall. Some ludicrous situations happened like Urkle crashing a car into the Winslow's living room. Urkle shrinking him and Carl, and Steve Urkle actually separating from Stephan to create a totally separate version of himself. I'm not making this up! The last few seasons pretty much demonstrated that the producers had no idea what they were doing.
As producers pretty much came up with dumb idea after another to keep the show interesting, a male nurished supporting cast was suffering. Besides maybe Laura and maybe Karl Winslow, the rest of the characters got little to no screen time. And members of the Winslow family were systematically written out of the show, or retconned out of existence. One such popular tragedy was Judy Winslow, which was a pretty sad story. Contrary to popular belief, her last ever line in the show was "Grandma, when are you getting married", and she appears as a background extra. That's it. Her going up stairs and never coming down would have been too good of a send off. The run upstairs thing is just a urban myth.
Mother Winslow and of course Rachael, were written off of the show, along with a revolving door of recurring characters. Characters were introduced to make the show interesting like Waldo, Maxine to give up more asinine idiot characters. But no one triumphed Urkle.
Anyway, I'm sure the producers realized that they were at the point of no return. By 1998 Urkle popularity was complete gone, much of the supporting cast left in protest (like Harriett Winslow's actress), and the show was left with pretty much no direction. It appears that the producers were perhaps going to "reboot" the show in Season 10, as there appeared to have been plans to "reintroduce" many forgotten characters like the infamous Judy Winslow.
Overall the show surpassed expectations at least. As ABC's Cosby clone, the show probably would have been canned after the second season. Since the writers had no clue how to develop characters, the plots were simply just derivative sitcom filler seen 1,000 times before. I only feel sorry for Jamie Foxworth (she seemed like a pretty girl, but man did she have issues after she was dismissed) and Jahleel White. Jahleel type-casted himself, and could never really distance himself from his Urkle role. He tried with many short lived sitcoms, and failed. But I think he found new life as a voice actor in various cartoons, and animation movies. Eh, not such a bad ending.
The rest of the cast was terrible, and the actors who were good Thelma Hoskins all moved on to better things. As for the "kids" who knows what they're doing, but they were pretty much one trick pony's anyway. And Jamie Foxworth character actually seemed like she could have been a good actress, but got fired. The other adult actors like Karl Winslows actor (don't remember his real name) works sporadically, and grandma Winslow passed away in real life. The show was average, and it's commendable it lasted as long as it did.