Family Matters

I honestly only liked the first few seasons of Family Matters. I think the name of this show ended up being a rather ironic name. Considering that the family was basically gone by the end, with Steve Urkel and other Jaleel White characters having taken over the show like a bad disease. Especially in the last season where they had lost the original lady playing Harriette Winslow (Jo Marie Payton) and Steve is the whole center to the show, with the ending acting like he had finally got Laura's love and even saved the world in his stupid trip up in the Space Shuttle.

I never really understood why everybody seemed to like the Steve Urkel/Jaleel White characters so much more than everybody else, even his others like Myrtle Urkel which was just a cross-dressing character done by Jaleel White. I would assume that this was simply because the girls in the audience thought Jaleel White's characters were so attractive. My favorite characters in this show were actually Carl Winslow/Reginald VelJohnson and Mother Winslow/Rosetta LeNoire; those two played their characters so well, and had some of the best lines in the whole show. The Waldo and Weasel characters were rather amusing too.

It's rather sad when you look at the show's poster, because it kind of symbolizes how the Family Matters show ended up in real life, Steve stands in front of the camera, with the family getting smaller and smaller in the background.

The character Urkel gets a lot of trash thrown his way, but look at what the actor himself did: He stole a sitcom. It doesn't happen often. Now I'm not certain when he was first introduced on the show, but I believe it was during the first season. He was the "wacky neighbor" with a crush on Laura -- nothing more. Within two seasons, the show was his. He owned it. Huge plot lines revolved around him; he got as much if not more screen time and dialogue as anyone else, and in many cases, more than the entire cast. Some may not like him, but he stole the show out from under the original cast through pure energy and originality. He developed a dead-pan 'look' that rivaled Johnny Carson's and one-upped Mr. Roper's. His physical comedy was outrageous, sometimes slightly ridiculous, but ideally suited to a basic family sitcom. Anyone of-age who has watched some TV in their time knows who Urkel was -- because he was dominant. Like him or not, Urkel is a unique, unforgettable character in TV history, and for that massive achievement, he deserves credit.

I know many are trashing the show because of Steve. But I agree with many of the those who say that Steve made the show what it was.

Granted Steve could be annoying at times. But thats what Steve was all about. Granted it got a little silly as the years past, but I'd watch Family Matters any time over The Nanny.

The story of "Family Matters" is a story about two distinct shows wanting to go on. One show is a down to earth family drama about real life issues. Stuff like gun control, gang violence and getting by in school. Then something happens towards the end of the first season. Laura needs a date to the school dance, so the dad calls up a friend to set her up with a boy named Steve.

This brings us to show #2, the Steve Urkel show. Test audiences and producers loved Jaleel White's Urkel. And quickly the show changed gears to make him the focus. The show's tone also drastically changed. Soon it became a sci-fi show that happened to take place in a family's house. Urkel would invent robots, time machines, teleportation pods and cloning machines.

People are divided on the show. Either they loved the down to earth family drama, or they loved the crazy out there stories with Urkel. It is an interesting show to follow. It is like the way the Fonz took over "Happy Days", but where the Fonz was super cool, Urkel is a super nerd. The show had some all-time great moments, but watching it from beginning to end, there are more duds than you may remember. Was the quality decline of the show to blamed on Jaleel White's character? Or as Urkel would ask..."Did I do that?"

Family Matters was the perfect show for the family. It wasn't sappy or annoying like most of the other family shows on tv. Carl and Steve Urkel were the best characters and the funniest. The show, like others, began to lose quality over the years and met cancellation. In my opinion, the show was better than all the other TGIF shows ever.