Friday, October 27, 2017

My Takeaways from Entertainment Weekly's Family Matters reunion

Allegedly to celebrate Hulu's premiere of the complete run of Family Matters but probably just as an excuse to meet Reginald Vel Johnson, Entertainment Weekly brought the cast together for a photo shoot and interview session. Here are my takeaways, and bear in mind I hated the show and have little interest in watching it on Hulu except maybe to make fun of it:

1) Reginald Vel Johnson at 65 is even rounder and still looks cool.

2) The magazine has no interest in explaining what happened to Jaimee Foxworth (Google it), who was not part of the event.

3) Jo Marie-Payton and Reginald Vel Johnson talk about how they instantly hit it off when the show was casting--"The chemistry was so strong," she says--and I envision a torrid off-camera affair between the Winslow parents.

4) Somehow they manage to go a whole article without bringing up or even hinting at the rumor that the cast was irritated when it became the Urkel Show instead of the gentle family sitcom it was conceived as. How do you not get that in here?

5) EW asks if the cast would be up for a revival of the series, and 4 say yes...but Jaleel White's response is not included! What's the use of a revival without him? Were they afraid to ask him? Did he say no and they just didn't want to bum everybody out by printing it?

6) Family Matters  and ER shot on stages across from each other, and there was a basketball court that White considered his. The hoop was moved, and Goerge Clooney took over the court, and White tells a story of him figuring, "Well, I just have to kick his ass and remind him who this hoop belongs to." I don't know if I believe any of it.

7) White talks about playing Steve Urkel's cousin Myrtle and then crying and his dad telling the show he wouldn't do it again. Several years later, White reports, he walked into the writers' room and said, "If you guys want to do Myrtle again, I'll do it." He adds, "They just cheered."

I'm not sure I buy this, either, but I hope it's true because I love the image of Family Matters scribes puzzling over plotlines, then breaking into euphoric celebrations when told they could do another Myrtle story.

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