The Daily Zeitgeist - Icon Deep Dive #2: Steve Urkel

Episode Date: November 24, 2025

Hello, The Internet!™, and welcome to this spinoff episode of The Daily Zeitgeist we’re calling The Iconograph: a show about icons. In this episode, Miles and Jack are joined by writer/actor/comedian/podcaster Jacquis Neal to talk about another young scientist who stole America's heart (and probably did something bizarre and farcical with it): Steve Urkel, as played by Jaleel White We'll explore the character's creation, transmogrification, eventual cancellation and much more!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Hi, Kyle. Could you draw up a quick document with the basic business plan? Just one page as a Google Doc. And send me the link. Thanks. Hey, just finished drawing up that quick one-page business plan for you.

Here's the link. But there was no link. There was no business plan. I hadn't programmed Kyle to be able to do that yet. I'm Evan Ratliff here with a story of entrepreneurship in the AI age. Listen as I attempt to build a real startup run by fake people. check out the second season of my podcast shell game on the iHeart radio app or wherever you get your podcasts i'm stephen curry and this is gentleman's cut i think what makes gentlemen's cut different is

me being a part of developing the profile of this beautiful finished product with every sip you get a little something different visit gentlemen's cut bourbon dot com or your nearest total wines or bevmo this message is intended for audiences 21 and older gentlemen's cut bourbon Boone County, Kentucky. For more on gentlemen's cut bourbon, please visit gentlemen's cuthuburn.com. Please enjoy responsibly. The murder of an 18-year-old girl in Graves County, Kentucky went unsolved for years, until a local housewife, a journalist, and a handful of girls came forward with a story. America, y'all better work the hell up. Bad things happens to good people and small.

all towns. Listen to Graves County on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And to binge the entire season ad-free, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. And she said, Johnny, the kids didn't come home last night. Along the central Texas plains, teens are dying. Suicides that don't make sense. strange accidents and brutal murders.

In what seems to be, a plot ripped straight out of Breaking Bad. Drugs, alcohol, trafficking of people. There are people out there that absolutely know what happened. Listen to paper ghosts, the Texas teen murders, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Oh, hey guys. Welcome to this spinoff episode of The Daily Zykeyes. we're calling the iconograph, a show about icons. My name is Jack O'Brien. I co-founded the website, cracked.com. And for the past seven years, I've co-hosted a daily show with the comedian Miles Gray

about the zeitgeist. In regular episodes of that show, we cover what's happening in our shared consciousness, our zeitgeist through the news and pop culture of today. But on Monday mornings, on the iconograph, we're covering the zeitgeist through our icons, basically the stars of our shared consciousness. Years after they existed, you can say their name and everyone knows what you're talking about. If I say, good one, Einstein, my seven-year-old son knows I'm sarcastically making fun of him for saying something dumb. And when I say, good one, Urkel, he knows I'm making fun of him for saying something smart. I'm calling him a nerd. And those are our first two episodes. We started last week with Einstein, a singular historical figure who's iconic status.

us was sort of unavoidable based on who he was and what he did. Episode two, we're covering an icon whose popularity, I think, is interesting for how impossible it was to predict and how difficult it is to explain all these years later. I was trying to think of a modern equivalent for Erkel, and this is the best I could do, and it's not good. But imagine if when the Rizzler hit peak fame a couple years ago, he just kept getting more and more famous for like it's like two to three years instead of giving way to six seven and like Italian brain rot and shit. It was just the Rizzler. Just all those things were the

risler. It was just the Rizzler all the way down. That was basically the Urkel era. At the end, as always, I'll be back for my no, no, no, no, no book dump where I get to all the interesting stuff I didn't have time for in the episode. But let's get right into it. Here I am talking to Miles and special guest to Keith Neal about our icon number two, Steve Urkel. Hello, the internet, and welcome to this spin-off episode of Dernaley Zeitgeist, which we're calling the iconograph, instead of looking at the zeitgeist through current events, we're reconstructing it through the powerful pop-cultural hort cruxes that are our icons. Oh, our-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R. Our I. Our I-Hour.

We use these historical figures and famous characters to create meaning, to build identity, to see where we've been, to look at something we've just done, turn to the people around us, and ask the fundamental human question. Did I do that? Much more popular than the original pitch, Dear God, what have I done? That's right in the second episode. We're doing the Urkel, baby. Herkle, a one-off background character on an 80s and 90s sitcom who resonated with America's

shared consciousness so powerfully that he immediately became the star of not just his show, but American pop culture. I'm joined as always by my co-host, Mr. Miles Gray! Yes. Doing the intro like Daily Zakey

puts pressure on me to feel like I have to sing something when I go, say, hey, I'm in the building, I'm here. Unless you know all the words to the song that a company is doing the Urkle. In which case you're more than welcome. Definitely not. Definitely not. It involves rhyming the word Elvis with pelvis. And if that brings anything to mind, Miles, we're thrilled

to be joined in our third seat by an award-winning podcast host, writer, producer, actor, you know from Grand Crew, how I met your father. Also, the host of the truly great live show, Comedian Clash. It's Jakeez, Neo! Hey, don't forget crowd control either. Oh, yeah. Star of crowd control. Star of crowd control. It's a rare tradition. This day and age,

yes. Speed of the goodness in the site guys, nice page. Ah, what up, what up, what up? How's it going? The tradition of the grand design some people say is even harder to find. One of the most imprinted on my brain shots

from anything in the 80s and 90s is the fade out, like I think it was a helicopter shot where you're like seeing the family eating dinner through the window of family matters and then it like pulls back over the whole neighborhood. Oh yeah. You're like, whoa, this is taking place in the real world. This is Chicago. How did they do that? I used to pass that house up like I would, when my mom moved to the north side of Chicago where I was living before I moved to L.A., I would ride my bike to her house and like the street to go up. She lived off of Wellington, which is where the

Family Matters house was, still in this original form. It changed it a little bit. You ever look in the window to see if they were in there? All the time. It's like this. He's banging on the front door. He's banging on the front door. If we're graphing icons, as the name suggests, iconograph, Urkel would be pretty far from our first

episode's subject, Einstein, on the icon matrix. Einstein is pretty clear why he became famous. Urkel was like a pandemic America suddenly came down with like a virus that someone should invent a phrase for when something becomes popular and spreads like a virus.

I don't, but I feel like that would be a valuable thing. But yeah, one day he was a background character with a planned one episode arc. He was in one episode. And then the next day he was fucking everywhere. And I'm curious why we think that happened

but I want to ask first both of you guys, what do you guys remember of the Erkle era? The Erkel era for me because when did a Family Matters debut like 1990? 89.

89? Yeah, okay. So I was, by the time I was watching it was by this, I think for me it was probably like just seeing that like a black people show and the coolest person was like a young guy on it even though it wasn't a nerd or whatever.

That was kind of my first. I think because at the time I was consuming every show that had black people. people in it. Yeah. Because they're only like four. Right. But, but this was like one of the few that I watched a lot. And then my grandparents were prolific background actors on family writers. So I always used to watch two to see see if I would see my grandmother and my grandfather pop up on the show. And this will probably come up with some way. They, they were very good friends with Jaliel White because he moved out here and didn't

really have a lot of close family. And my grandparents were kind of like his adopted like L.A. family for a time while he was shooting the show. I met, yeah, I met Erkel, I've met Jalil many times when I was a kid because he would be at my grandparents' house. And people thought I would, well, my grandparents didn't have a hoop there. And at the time, he was like, fucking, like,

19. I was like a fucking boy. So he was kind of like, yeah, it was like, it definitely felt like a make a wish kind of thing. He's like, hey, how you've been? And then we'd have cookies and cream ice cream and then he'd leave. And then I'd be like, my grandparents are the coolest people ever. There's a clip on Colbert where he asks Jamie Lee

Curtis, who's been famous since she was like a child, if she ever asked anybody for an autograph. And she starts laughing and can't control herself. And then her one word answer, he's like, who was it? She's like, Erkel. Academy Award winner? Yeah. She's the only person she ever asked for an autograph was Erkel. That's time. What about you, Jockeys? Man, Erk, er, it's so funny because, like, Family Matters in itself, like, we just called it the Urkel show growing up. Yeah. So, like, we didn't even call it Family Matters anymore. It was like, you know, what you watching i'm watching urkel bro yeah that just meant the show you come overriday urkel's on yeah urkel's on man is urkel on oh yeah urkel is on uh so it was big in my household for sure because

that was also you know just a big time in black tv culture so for me it didn't stand out as anything special or different because in the 90s late 80s and throughout the 90s we had so many black television shows on tgIF or umbc or whatever so yeah It was just another, it was just like, oh, yeah, this is the full house black show. Right. This is the version of Full House for Black people that we get. And then, yeah, man, we were just invested in Urkel. And everybody else became supporting, like, characters.

Very quick. Like, it was one episode to the next. Like, we're going to talk about it. But it's crazy just how little they had planned and how he just came in and was so, good immediately this like child actor was so fucking good that they immediately were like so this is the show right right but yeah so family matters was initially created it was launched in 89 it was initially created in response to the success of the cosby show which premiered in 84 and skyrocketed to become the most watched sitcom on tv and every studio at the time wanted a quote black family show which i've always

Where's my Cosby Show? Yeah, yeah, exactly. So the Cosby Show is kind of an interesting representation of, like, how mainstream white culture wanted to make sense of the black experience in the 80s. Like, I feel like the 70s, you had the Jefferson's moving on up. And then, like, Reagan's America wanted to be like, well, racism has been solved. No more questions, Your Honor. They're no longer moving up.

They've arrived. the huxtables are rich, everything's good here. And there were also like multiple shows where poor black children were adopted by rich white parents and lived happily ever after in a fish out of water scenario. You had different strokes and Webster, both of that premise.

And so as the 90s are beginning, the makers of family matters thought America was ready for maybe a more like blue collar answer to the black experience in America. um nothing too scary you know carl the father played by reginald val johnson was a cop and it is with a heavy heart i must report that acab does include carl winslow oh man we got we can have one exception we'll look at the one exception give us oh he got through oh damn he got there's a fan theory that i want to get to a little later on uh that he because

he was always playing cops uh and there's a fan theory that the cop character he played in Ghostbusters, Die Hard, and Carl Winslow are all the same cop, just seen at different points. But yeah, the show was, like for the first, I think it was 11 episodes, it was what it set out to be. It was a world where money did exist, unlike in basically any other sitcom other than Roseanne. I feel like the default sitcom cast of the 80s and 90s did not really exist in a coherent economic universe. They lived in, like, mansions or giant Manhattan apartments. And, like, the only way to make sense of the cast of friends is that they all had rich parents.

Like, they had great apartments. They just hung out at coffee shops. They occasionally worked. But, like, the Winslow's had bills. Episode one was about them having to deal with, I forget whose mother it was. Maybe Carl's coming to live in a house that they were like, this is already too small for us. And in episode two, Harriet loses her job. So, like, that was what they were kind of doing, like, what Roseanne was.

We're like, what if people had bills to pay in this show? It was technically a spinoff of perfect strangers. Do you guys remember perfect strangers? Oh, right, is where Harriet. I kind of know, like, he's, like, weird. Right. So Harriet Winslow was the elevator operator at the Chicago newspaper where Larry and Balky worked. and the reason she loses her job

is she catches Larry and Balke kissing in the elevator and they get her fired instead of confronting their dark secret that's not true but I just wanted to I want a running theme of cousins

hooking up because our first episode Einstein fucked and married his cousin different times back then Carl also appeared on perfect Strangers, there was an episode of Perfect Strangers in which

Larry and Balky helped Carl stake out a mob boss. Oh, that's so funny. I feel just generally, like, any of our younger listeners who don't remember sitcoms, like, that is what, sitcoms were just, the plotting was just like, they were just making

shit up, like, as they went. Yeah, yeah. Which is how we got Urkel, incidentally. But, like, yeah, they were like, all right, so in this one, Larry and Balki are, like, helping a cop stake out the mafia but yeah i get it would seem carl was not just a cop he was a a cop who sucked shit at his job

uh since he used larry and balky to help stake out of the mom yeah that's probably not great also what the his resources are like yeah you're taking down the mob talk to these two fucking goobers to help you with your fucking k all right well in chicago by the way right right right which i i do just want to bring that up jakees you were growing up in chicago at the time i feel like there were was a real early 90s moment for Chicago like Uracle comes from Chicago

Home Alone took place in Chicago and as I was watching old episodes of Uracle or Family Matters I saw he had the same Jordan cut out as the kid from home alone

as Kevin does like that's with hands on hips Yeah it was just like the early 90s in Chicago like was just sometimes there's just a place where everything's coming together And, like, Urkel, Home Alone, and the Jordan Bulls all happening in Chicago at the same time.

Like, did you feel, did you, like, look around and you were like, fuck, man, things are happening here? I live in the center of the universe. I live in the center of the universe. I mean, honestly, not as much, but, like, I think because, especially at that age, like, the Bulls were so big and, like, everything was so big. So it was, and then, you know, the parts of Chicago that they show, the mom. when they're doing like establishing shots outside of the house are mostly like downtown Chicago or and you know I grew up on the south side so for me it was just like oh this is just like like you said like the center of the universe almost where it's not even like this is in

Chicago it's just kind of like yeah even Roseanne was set in Illinois which is not in Chicago but like everything felt like so relatable to me because they were like oh yeah man like Oh, right. Everybody lives here. Like, there's other cities? I guess you wouldn't notice that as a kid, you would just be like, yeah, of course it's set here. Why wouldn't it be set here? Yeah, because so many shows.

And then the shows that weren't set there were not set there famously, like the Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Right. You had to say where it was set if it wasn't set in Chicago. Exactly. Or they were like to keep emphasizing that it was Boston. They're like, I don't know. Yeah, guys, sorry.

We wish we could be. in Chicago. So the executive producers of perfect strangers and family matters were Tom Miller and Bob Boyette. They also executive produced Full House and the Hogan family. I don't know if you remember the Hogan

family. It was called Valerie. And then they got into a contract dispute with the actors playing Valerie and just killed her in a brutal car accident in between season one and season two. And then like the first episode, I still remember the first episode of season

too was them like being like what did you find anything in the car wreck of moms that we could keep as a keepsake like they were combing through the car accident that killed her oh they weren't even being like nothing to see here like no they're like let's play with her with her belongings damn yeah but they ruled the tgif lineup miller boyette which was a uh i believe we called a ratings Bonanza in the early 90s and I just want to put the ratings numbers into context here because this was

a time of monoculture that I feel like young people today probably can't even conceive of. So TGIF was watched by more people than watch anything on TV today. The most watched TV show in 2025 is Monday night football

which averages 16.7 million viewers for the entire 2025 season. So, like, Family Matter starts out as like a medium-sized hit and then season two, it really takes off once they're like, it's the Oracle show, guys. Everybody get on board or we're fucked here. Every season one through seven was watched by more on average viewers than watched Monday night football in 2025. It was like anywhere between 26.4 million viewers and 18.4. It was like crazy numbers. Yeah.

What would be like top numbers for shows now would be considered like, I think we might have to cancel this show. Oh, yeah. Back in the 90s and even partly of the 2000s. And I know TV has changed and shit. Yeah, because like what, NCIS, is it a 5.6 million? 5.6. So they took Family Matters off the TGIF lineup for average.

averaging 14 million. That was when they were like, fuck, we're out of juice here. Then it switched over to CBS and CBS aired it for one season and it was considered a complete disaster. It pulled in 8.17 million, which again would be higher than any like NCIS, which is like widely seen as like a massive hit today. Right. Yeah.

Jeez. Crazy, man. Yeah. And yeah, Brian's pointing out the U.S. population in 1992 was 255 million. So they were pulling in, yeah, the ratings numbers were at its peak. 16% of the American population were watching Family Matters every weekend. That's actually like the most mind-blowing. Like aside from everything else, we're going to learn about Oracle.

I'm the idea that no show comes close to like the concentration of like viewership of like a broadcast television show from the 90s, even today because of just everyone's, tension being fractured in a million places. Yeah. I think my numbers are off, but that's because, so ratings, ratings points, I think, are the percentage of people who have TVs. So it's the percentage of TVs that are, the share of people who have TVs who are watching it. So it was, yeah, it peaked at 16% of all TV viewers were watching. Family Matters. But you said, but you said it was being watched by at his peak, what, like 20 something plus million households? 26.4 million households on average. Yeah, that's still Not over the course of a season

That was just like Who was tuning in to watch Oracle every night That's adding in like the bad The bad season So like on average that show Still pulled in For the time era it was in 10% of Americans

Watching television Watching that show Like that's crazy Everybody was telling home Like this is what you did on Friday night Like if you went generationally If you asked people that are 36 And older

Say you watch Family Matters I'm sure that's It's like you're going to get an 80% return. Yeah, everybody watched it at some point. Like, I remember, like, I was just going back through and, like, checking out stray episodes. Like when our researcher, Dave Ruse would, like, mention a thing. I would, like, go look it up on YouTube. I'd be like, oh, yeah, I remember this episode.

There are, like, hundreds of episodes of the show. And I watched so many of them. Hi, Kyle. Could you draw up a quick document with the basic business plan? Just one page as a Google Doc. And send me the link. Thanks. Hey, just finished drawing up that quick one-page business plan for you.

Here's the link. But there was no link. There was no business plan. It's not his fault. I hadn't programmed Kyle to be able to do that yet. My name is Evan Ratliff. I decided to create Kyle, my AI co-founder, after hearing a lot of stuff like this from OpenAI CEO Sam Aldman.

There's this betting pool for the first year that there's a one-person billion-dollar company, which would have been like unimaginable without AI and now will happen. I got to thinking, could I be that one person? I'd made AI agents before for my award-winning podcast, Shell Game. This season on Shell Game, I'm trying to build a real company with a real product run by fake people. Oh, hey, Evan. Good to have you join us. I found some really interesting data on adoption rates for AI agents and small to medium businesses. Listen to Shell Game on the IHeart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

A decade ago, I was on the trail of one of the country's most elusive serial killers. But it wasn't until 2023 when he was finally caught. The answers were there, hidden in plain sight. So why did it take so long to catch him? I'm Josh Zeman, and this is Monster, hunting the Long Island serial killer, the investigation into the most notorious killer in New York, since the son of Sam, available now.

Listen for free on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts. All I know is, what I've been told, and that's a half-truth is a whole lie. For almost a decade, the murder of an 18-year-old girl from a small town in Graves County, Kentucky, went unsolved, until a local homemaker, a journalist, and a handful of girls came forward with a story. I'm telling you, we know Quincy killed her, we know. A story that law enforcement used to convict six people, and that got the citizen investigator on national TV.

Through sheer persistence and nerve, this Kentucky housewife helped give justice to Jessica Curran. My name is Maggie Freeling. I'm a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, producer, and I wouldn't be here if the truth were that easy to find. I did not know her and I did not kill her, or rape or burn, or any of that other stuff that y'all said. They literally made me say that I took a match and struck and threw it on her.

They made me say that I pour gas on her. From Lava for Good, this is Graves County, a show about just how far our legal system will go in order to find someone to blame. America, y'all better work the hell up. Bad things happens to good people in small towns. Listen to Graves County in the Bone Valley feed on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to binge the entire season ad-free, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus

on Apple Podcasts. It's okay not to be okay sometimes and be able to build strength and love within each other. Thanksgiving isn't just about food. It's a day for us to show up for one another. I'm Elliot Connie, host of the podcast family therapy, A series where real families come together to heal and find hope.

What would be a clue that would be like? I've gotten lots of text messages from him. This one's from a little bit better of a version of him. Because he's feeding himself well. It's always a concern. Like, are you eating well? He's actually an amazing cook. There was this one time where we had neighbors and I saved their dog.

And I ended up inviting them over for food. And that was like one of my proudest moments. This is family therapy. Real families, real stories on a journey to heal to listen to season two of family therapy every Wednesday on the black effect podcast network iHeart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts so the first episode of the show was repurposed from an old script for happy days and we'll get to how family matters is kind of similar to happy days in some ways.

But again, Urkel did not exist in the first episode. It was Harriet, Carl, Eddie, a teenage son who was obsessed with girls. Laura, a teenage daughter

who was obsessed with grades. Judy, the youngest daughter, who disappeared without explanation in the middle of season four. She was just like last scene walking down the aisle of a wedding as a flower girl

and then she just went away. And then Rachel, Harriet's younger sister, who also left after the fourth season, and then Richie Rachel's son but Erkel didn't exist didn't appear until the 12th episode of Family Matters and he was

supposed to be a one-off character I think they called him Erkel the alien the script says a boy Laura's age approaches their table he is Steve Erkel a Rick Moranus type he has a plastic pocket protector full of pens and carries a briefcase and I went back and watched this scene

and he's so good he's just like nailing first of all he didn't actually have glasses but he's nailing being unable to like see shit around him he comes up she's like take a hike Urkel

she'd rather eat worms and he says okay some other time then and then walks off and then Laura says geek city and then because of some classic sitcom shenanigans Carl accidentally

invites Urkel to go to the dance with Laura thinking that he's helping. Guess what he's not? She actually was planning on going with a guy that she likes better. It should be mentioned Carl fucking hates Steve Urkel the second he meets her. Like everybody hates Erkel right away. This was a type of, this was like sort of a stock sitcom character, which was a neighborhood or like a neighbor kid who was friends with one of the kids.

and then everyone else is just like, fuck you, Kimmy Gibbler. Yeah, right, right. Do you remember Kimmy Gibler from Full House? Yeah. They were so mean to her. I think, yeah,

what was the first show to really kick that up? I guess it's just one of those shared experiences. Like, I was a drifter kid who would just show up at friends' houses in the neighborhood. And they're like, oh, you were eating with us now? Did you knock before you came in?

Because that was one of the things they never knocked. They just showed up. Yeah, I wasn't like kicking my feet up on the couch. but like I would just go straight to like a room and they're like Miles is here okay all right so this is also an interesting thing that people might not like younger listeners might not have an appreciation for was how much it was a live experience um and so this is according to Jaliel White who played Steve Urkel a group of white frat boys was in the studio audience for that episode and kept chanting we want the nerd we want the nerd wait for because they liked him or they were racist or they were gonna like kick his ass no it was like they liked him

they were that in just the idea of them like holy shit bro those frat boys are crazy about this guy bring a freaking nerd out so the producers immediately decide to write Erkl into every episode moving forward wait is that based off of the audience response or the rate it's based off

the audience response everybody was like you can hear there's like a different quality to the live studio audience when he comes on like the laughs are just like, people are going fucking crazy for this kid. They don't even have to use the lap track anymore. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, so the producers are probably behind camera looking at each other like, holy shit. This kid's doing it. This, like, I was just talking about this with someone recently how this is such a good example of how TV

used to be written where you could get the responses of the audience in the building and, like, the view in public and be like, I think we need to pivot before the season was over because like they would start writing like there were so many episodes of television episodes especially sitcoms where you know the season would be premiering while they're still writing and filming the last five to ten episodes of the of the season

and like there will never be another urkel like in the way that it happens oh yeah yeah not in this way but because you you would have to wait to season two to even get this phenomenon and then they have to be reintrodu. But they got to reintroduce him as a main character organically from season one where they get to pretend like this was their. Right, right. I meant that. Yeah, we meant this. This is what it was. Yeah. And when I came up with Urkel, I knew they wouldn't be able to handle it until at least 12 episodes into the season. Yeah. Yeah. One of the producers also knew that they'd struggled when after just two Urkel episodes had aired, he saw some kids urchalizing at a mall

which was walking around with their pants hiked up imitating Urkel and he was like again without the internet the way you'd learn something went viral was seeing kids like doing it at the mall and you're like holy shit I think we've got something Urkleizing

but yeah the guy come up with that term these kids were urcalizing he put it in quotes so I think that was you see these kids these days urcalizing so Bickley and Warren who ended up being like kind of the main showrunners and creative forces behind the show

were veterans of happy days and the way that like in addition to the frat boys freaking out and yelling we want the nerd and then being like more nerd the reason that I think they were prepared to do that is because this is exactly what happened on happy days with the Fonz

in the first few episodes of Happy Days the Fonz doesn't speak he's like this kind of background character who's just like the epitome of cool and then by the end of the first season he's such a huge part of the show and such a cultural phenomenon that they considered renaming the show

Fonzies Happy Days and so they were basically ready to pivot right away because they'd seen it happen before but it's just so weird that like in the whenever the fuck Happy Days was on like the thing that everybody wanted to see was like a 36 year old guy

playing a cool high school student and now it was just like, nerd. Nerd. Nerd. Holy shit. The nerd. We want the nerd. The nerd. Yeah.

It's cool though because Erkel was like, for me, the three top black characters in the 90s were Martin, fresh friends, Will Smith, Fresh Prince, and Erkel. And they were all so different. Like, Martin was like,

you know, he was like the fun, goofy character that like, I wish I could like be as funny as Will was like the suave cool dude that I wish I could be and get all the girls and the honeies that he was getting and Urkel was probably more close to well yeah he was wild but like he was more close to how some of us probably felt which is like kind of like an outcat so it was like a nice connection even though he was so nerdy it was also like oh like this nerdy dude can like harass this girl like which he was like he was. doing on that television stalker? His main bit was sexual harassment. It was sexual harassment and people still like him. Because he's a nerd. Which is probably problematic. It is

problematic. But still we're joking. But like the cool thing about Urquh, it was like, it was like, oh shit, this is a black character that I can connect to. That feels attainable unlike being Will Smith. Yeah, or Martin Lawrence for sure. Yeah. And he was never

like, there's definitely like a Pepe Lepewue element to his character in that like his main overall like motivation is laura and his love for laura but he's never up in her you know he's never like inappropriate like he you know he's never he's never like physically at least in that you know episodes that i remembered he was just kind of like she would be like you're a nerd and then he'd be like next time then you know that was kind of they they had the interaction they had the dynamic nailed down from the first episode that he was just sort of this unshakable.

I think that's what also is kind of relatable because not everybody is like Will Smith is going to pull up, you know, doing that thing. And then they're like, oh, Will. Like most people, I feel like Urkel embodies sort of like having a crush on somebody that you were like, man, I might as well be Urkel here. I just like this person.

And it was just kind of sort of done in this harmless way that also felt like relatable, but also could be like funny and, you know, empowering on some level. Not that it was like, it was empowering in-cell men everywhere. But like more so that it's like, yeah, it's normal. Yeah, sometimes, look, you're Erkel, you know, and that's all right.

Because Erkel's smart. And Erkel's funny. We'll get to where they like start incorporating. They're like, actually, Erkel can be anything once he steps into this machine. Machine. Yeah. With spinning wheels and dials on it. And he could become a slothel.

lightly lame version of a cool guy. Yeah. Something, yeah. So smooth. Cocaine is a hell of a drug. But it basically, the show immediately changed its format to being a type of sitcom that has an alien character in it, you know, like Mark on Mark and Mindy, Balky on Perfect Strangers, Alf, literally, you know?

He could just be this like sort of bizarre off the wall character and the writers. were like we felt very freed from that and the audience was there for it. Oh, for how malleable Urkel could be just as a character. Yeah.

Yeah, I will say the one thing that is a little bit a little humpy in the whole Urkel Uvra is doing the Urkel. The Urkel dance is very dick forward. Right.

It's very, it's like, yeah, it's just very due to Urkel and it's just pumping the dick out. Yeah, it's just pump your dick out. out, which, like, part of it is that he is, you know, a person who walks with his pelvis out like a dork, but then there's a lot of humping the air, which was the, which was our custom at the time. That was how we danced.

Yeah. It was like a dog that just got done humping something and then got pulled off. Well, also, humping was just such a prevalent word back then, too. Like, we were saying humping a lot, you know, there ain't no humping around. There was just, yeah. It was that time where we weren't quite putting together. What are you doing with your hips exactly? Let me describe it to you in the lyrics to this song.

So just a little bit about Jaliel White and Miles, maybe you can talk about your experiences with him. But he grew up in L.A., started acting in commercials when he was three years old. So there's a Toys R Us commercial and an Oreos commercial where he's just like, you know, this adorable kid. And watching it, I was like, oh, shit. Like, I definitely remember the Toys R Us ad. It was like the, I don't want to grow up. I'm a Toys R Us kid. Right.

And he's, like, I just didn't realize this kid was like in my life from my earliest memories. He was basically, you know, always there. I think he was about the same age as me. So. Yeah, it was only one set of footsteps on the beach, huh? I turned back around. Erkel was carrying me. The whole time.

I didn't even know he was the voice of, like, Sonic until after. family matters. Right, right, yeah. Like, and I was like, wait, Urkel's the voice of Family Matters and also the fact that we don't even call him by his real name. I know. I mean, you know, now if I mentioned him, I do.

But whenever you put me back in Family Matters time, he's just Urkel. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I think that speaks to the Iconicness. What's the word you're going to use here? Yeah. Iconicness. Iconicynography.

Yes, exactly. Yes, that's, I just speaks to it when you're like, I'm sorry, sir, you are Urkel. Yes. But I do know your real name, but it's just kind of your reputation proceeds. So he was 12 when he first read for the role of Steve Erkel. His mom was focusing a lot of energy on his acting career, and she always made sure that he came dressed for auditions in the character's role.

And so she, like, picked up some two small pants that she was about to donate to a yard sale and dressed him in like a tucked plaid shirt, snap on suspenders. um and borrowed his dad's oversized prescription glasses so he didn't even wear glasses which he's really good at acting like he can't see anything for being someone who he's fucking nailing well i'm sure if you grow up with a parent with glasses that big you're probably you're used to teasing them because they can't see shit observing the world yeah and yeah yeah uh his inspiration was a combination of pee we herman and ed grimly martin shorts hyperactive character who wore hiked up pants i i feel like i Brimley, that's where the similarities, I mean, maybe there's, like, some of the physicality

in it, but Ed Grimley is a Martin Short character, and he just sounds like Martin Short. He's just got real Martin Short energy. I mean, the physicality definitely, now that I think of, like, how Ed Grimley's kind of stiff, you know, like these weird ways. And also Dick first, kind of, you know. Every room he enters, he enters Dick first, as they said about Urkle. Yeah. So you become the man, Jack.

Yeah. Jack, why don't you try it sometime? Yeah. You know, next time I see you. They could go well for me. Think of, imagine a string. I actually enter it like with my dick tucked back, just like very, very frightened. Hunched over.

Yeah, yeah. You're going to kick me in the, in the dick, aren't you? He's walking and grabbing his ankles. Weird. I don't even know how he do that. That's the hard way to walk. That's right. It's a worse.

He doesn't know how he came up with the nasally high-pitched voice and the snorting laugh. He just says he was temporarily possessed, which. that is what you hear from people like in these moments of inspiration where they're just like, I just like went out of my body for 15 seconds and he like came back and the casting director and producers were all cracking up. And that's how Urkel was born essentially. I love the idea that that was, he went out of body to do Urkel. Like it was divined from God. It was. He was like, it came down. We were blessed with Urkel. Did I do that?

Oh, my God. The sound of an angel. The sound of an angel. My God. Yeah. Oh, God. I'm so, please don't. Are we going to get an update on his finances by the end of this recording?

No. I do know, like, sort of. Yeah. Sort of. But he could have made more money. At a certain point, they like wanted to launch a Saturday morning cartoon for him. And ABC was like, You know, ABC's, I don't know if they were owned by Disney at this time, but they were, they were like, no, you work for us.

We don't want the character to become overexposed, which is some bullshit. Yeah. But yeah, when he was doing it, it read through every, like nobody could keep stay in character. It was just like, when he looks into Kelly Williams, who played Laura's eyes and says his first line, she like broke and was like, where did you get this guy? oh man I just love that I feel so good as a kid because he's a kid you know yeah and this is first thing and and to do like a character

it's not like you're you're getting direction and it's like this is what Urkel does it's like he's a nerd or whatever but your version of that is so transcendent that people are like oh my god man yeah got to get this kid his own show his only inspiration was a Rick Moranus type right Rick Moranus can

eat shit. This guy's killing it. No, I'm just sure. Moranus is great too. I mean, because like, what Moranus are they? I mean, I get Moranus is always wearing glasses. They look like that. Oh, yeah, Ghostbusters. Yeah, because I mean, the chunk of the kids came out in 89, so it wasn't that. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, he had some irkel in him, but, uh, yeah, it's like to say. Meek, but like the way he embodied it, though, with just the walk and like the always, he is, to me. Which I also find this funny. Erkle is like one of the prototypes for like a SpongeBob square pans. Yeah. Just like so so definitively like nerdy or his own like brand of person. Unslappable.

Yeah, you can't do shit to him. You can't tell him shit. Yeah. Yeah. And then he'll have moments where he like relates to you and like, oh, this is not a nerdy relatability. but he comes right back to who he is. And, like, it's so funny because I was watching an episode of Erkel,

of Family Matters. That's okay. In this house, in this house, Family Matters is Erkel. Family Matters is Irckel. And he's in his little car. He's in this little car that he had, which was like a beetle or something. Oh, yeah, that, like, with that had the door, there was like the front part. Yeah.

Yeah. And, like, he's listening. He was like, I'm listening to my favorite song. And it is the boom, brum, brunt, brunt. it's the SpongeBob music. Oh shit. It's the sponge. It's that music.

And this is like four years before SpongeBob, four or five years before SpongeBob even came out. And I was just like, this has to be like Stephen Hillenberg, I think was the creator, SpongeBob's name. I think he had to like have Urkel in his mind when he was creating. I mean, nobody. Nobody didn't have Urkel in their mind after the early 90s, you know, who was live at that time.

Like, that's the thing about an iconic character like this is that it becomes, like I always talk about how Jim Belushi, or not Jim Belushi, John Belushi, like going back, I never, you know,

that was before my time. And then when I go back and, like, watch his movies or his S&L stuff, I don't find it that funny. And I think it's because he was so iconic that people like Chris Farley built their shit, like,

top of his and so it was like an evolved version of that and so it was almost like I had seen the thing that was built after the person had like digested and like kind of created something new out of that and I wonder if that's because they've tried to bring Erkel back like he uh the character made a cameo and like a Scooby-Doo cartoon and stuff like that and uh it seems like it didn't take And I just wonder if, like, he was so iconic, so everywhere that, like, he's just been sort of absorbed into all other culture to the degree that it's just like, we've already seen the evolution of Oracle. I wonder if it's also because, like, our idea of a nerd has evolved so much since then. Like, it's not like the geek pocket protector type people that, like, Revenge of the nerds. then that gives way to Urkel.

And then now we're like, man, fuck a nerd. Yeah. It's just kind of like hostile because we kind of like, it's a stand in for like Silicon Valley people in a weird way. Yeah, they fucked it up. They fucked it up for everyone. It's not the same quite,

it's not just, I think it's just culturally our perspective on like the nerd is different. Where like, and Urkel was empowering and now we're like, we're kind of off like to be like, small fucker's a nerd kind of thing. Like, you know what the nerds are.

now is kind of almost like Stefan. And not like, I know he was portrayed to be cool. Stefan Arkell. Stefan Arkell. But he, in my opinion, he was what a nerd's idea of what a suave person

would be. Yeah. Right, right, right. Like Donald Trump is a poor person's idea of what a rich person is. Like she is the nerds version of what a cool guy is. Elon thinks he's Stefan Urkel. Yeah. Right. You know what I mean? And that's your like, might get

the fuck out of here with this shit. I bet Elon Musk thinks Stefan Rakel is so fucking cool. He watches clips of Stefan Rakel before he walks into a room just to get into character. I mean, because the other thing, just to Jackie's point, is he also made being a quote-unquote nerd not a bad thing at all. In fact, he showed you that you could be so secure in yourself that people could insult you to your face. And you just found a way with your words to be like, okay, and that's what you think. I'm fucking, I'm still here. Yeah.

And that I think is also, we were just not used to seeing that kind of archetype for a character is to be like, yeah, I'll eat that. He came around in some form as Steve Urkel today, and it was the same performance. Like, it's so winning and so lovable that, like, all the shit we're talking about, like, you know, associating with Silicon Valley. I don't think people would have that. Like, he, he would be okay. I think he could do all right

out of the context of, you know, a show that when you watch it, it's pretty old. It feels old as fuck. I felt like I was watching old footage of people down at the boat dock waving at a boat. You know, it's like this is where it used to be entertainment to people. Waited three hours to do that too. Yeah. We waved for three hours. Even the boat was gone.

We're still waiting. Watched it crushed over the horizon. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I'm not sure why necessarily why it happened other than like super talented like there's a bunch of good articles for it like the New Yorker wrote about it and said he was like

you know always knocking shit over snorted when he laughed but constant good cheer powered by White's admirable comic timing and shameless mugging made him a favorite of audiences and quickly a permanent member of the cast and Jaliel White says he was seemingly oblivious Steve would just

keep coming around uniquely self-assured in his own mind which was the thing that like Steve Urkel and Stefan Rakel had is they were both very confident you know he also says he was not just smart he was brilliant he seemed to take in and immediately dismiss whatever people thought of him

yeah he was like an inventor he was like a child inventor he's a genius yeah yeah we'll get to that part because they did like kind of really explore the studio space with uh with Urkel being the alien character thing they were like all right so Urkel's got

a time machine in this one right is that i guess like happy days they had to jump the shark too at some point yeah they did that shit quick they didn't wait very fat very long they were like all right steven this one you're a robot for some reason all right cool cool the catchphrase did i do that uh he said it for the first time in the second episode he was in uh after after laura's first date he was i like i was trying to figure out how they did it because i actually watched an earlier episode and the cold open was Steve Erkel coming in and trying to lift weights with Eddie and then like getting pinned under the thing. So I think they just like immediately went and

shot cold opens that they could stick at the front of other episodes with Erkel in them. And the very first one of that they did. Eddie, this is kind of weird for Eddie's character who's, you know, just into girls and sports and stuff. He's he's making a model. ship on the dining room table and Erichl knocks it over and then says, did I do that? And that was the second episode and it became his catchphrase despite the fact that they also tried, I've fallen and I can't get up. Yeah, they tried that for a little bit. And you love me, don't you?

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on Apple Podcasts. You know the shade is always Shadiest right here. Season 6 of the podcast Reasonably Shady with Giselle Bryan and Robin Dixon is here dropping every Monday. As two of the founding members of the Real Housewives Potomac were giving you all the laughs, drama, and reality news you can handle. And you know we don't hold back.

So come be reasonable or shady with us each and every Monday. I was going through a walk in my neighborhood. Out of the blue, I see this huge sign next to somebody's house. Okay. The sign says, Because my neighbor is a Karen. Oh, what? No way!

I died laughing. I'm like, I have to know. You are lying. You, my guess, y'all. They had some time on their hands. Listen to reasonably shady from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. So, yeah, Miles, to your point about jumping the shark and how people are like, Happy Days used to be good.

And then there was an episode where, like, Fonzie had to jump a shark on a, a shark tank on a motorcycle. And that's when it got ridiculous. Family Matters went pretty quick down that path. He went from being like a smart kind of sciencey kid to just Einstein level creations. He created a lifelike Urkel bot, a cloning machine where there could be two Urquels. And they actually, the split screen was pretty good. Yeah, I guess more like Nikola Tesla than Einstein to Brian's point. As we talked about in the first one, Einstein wasn't like really an inventor.

He was more of a high thought haver. A time travel watch. Damn. And the Urkel Transformation Chamber, which I watched an episode with it and I was like, oh shit, I remember just every detail about this one. It's kind of, it kind of reminds you of the thing that Jeff Goldblum goes into and the fly.

But then they have like little spinny things on the outside that are just like, look like they're made of cardboard that are just spinning around. It was, I feel like it was just a metallic silver spray painted porta potty. Yeah, that's exactly what it was. With some like Nickelodeon like gadgets on it.

Yeah, exactly. It was like some she'd sound double there. Yeah, it was like They had high enough level of production that they could do split screen stuff and like have two steves but then the transformation chamber looked like shit

You're like no literally like That is a porta potty That you just spray painted And put lights around the front of Didn't he also wasn't he able to splice his DNA Or something because there's the one He became Bruce Lee Yes

So that's what yeah The transformation chamber Gave him access to becoming characters like Bruce Lee Urkel an ass-kicking, fairly racist version of Erichael, three appearances. I felt seen, though, in that episode. Finally, a black age and on TV.

There you go, I'll take it. I'll take it. Tried to get even smarter for an MIT admissions interview and turned himself into Einstein, Erkel, who for some reason morphed into Elvis Erkel. He just became Elvis, because I'm pretty sure it was just like they were like, Steve, you have a good Elvis.

Right, right, right. And then it accidentally transformed Carl into Carl Urkel. Laura had a Laura Urkel episode. Original Val Johnson, like a very seasoned stage actor. So, you know, was probably like, well, I should like have fun too. You should probably take advantage of the fact that I'm a great actor. You think he's doing that around the writers? He's like, you know, I can do Urkel too.

Right. And they're like, well, hold out, Reginald. There's a funny key and peel sketch, whereas. It's like the producer of the show is like doing Coke in his office. And then original Val Johnson like comes in and it's like, you motherfucker, this was supposed to be a serious family sitcom. Look what it's become. And then like an evil version of Erkel comes in and kills everybody.

And then that gave rise to Stefan Urkel, the smooth alter ego of Steve Erkel. He invents a serum called Cool Juice that can alter his DNA. His goal is to win Laura's heart. And, which is kind of sad. It's like, yeah, I always felt like he was self-loving, you know, but instead he tried to shed his personality to impress a girl. Don't do that, guys.

She should love you for who you are. And I just want to tell those, I wish I could go back in time and tell my young self, a porta potty is not an Urquil transformation chamber, even though it looks the same. You tried so many times. I tried jumping in and everything. We tried that juice for me. You tried that blue juice. Yeah.

Cool juice for me was a great metaphor that prepared me for drinking alcohol for the first time and how I felt about myself. For me, it was human waste that got on me when I jumped into a porta potty. I'm kind of like Jaquise O'Brien. I feel fucking cool as hell. And then I can play Jack O'Brien. Yeah. I'm a season actor, but I can play Jack. I know what to do with my hands.

I can do O'Brien. Watch this. Do you guys remember, though, I got to talk about, first of all, he also played his, like, girl cousin. Yes. At one point, you remember that? Mm-hmm. Yeah, he went full clumps and did, like, a full family. Don't let him put you in that way.

The worst episodes of television of all time is when he played, like, his thug cousin. Thug cousin. Yeah. Eugene original gangster dog Urkel. Yeah, I watched the scene where he is confronted by. Carl that and he like makes points about police harassment and Carl comes back with some very by the book respectability politics about how like I wouldn't be harassing you if you didn't if you would pull your damn pants up which is interesting for him because the first

time he met Urkel like that his mugging around Urkel in the first scene when he meets him He just immediately is like, ugh. It's like, it's got shit his pants. It's like the energy that he's giving. But yeah, there's Myrtle Urkel, which is his girl cousin. And then Cornelius Eugene, original gangsta dog, Urkel. Keep in mind that the show was written and produced almost entirely by white people. Yeah, no, that's such a believable name.

This feels like the kind of thing that would happen to a lot of black sitcoms is you would get the, like, the real episode. episode like that had a message and then suddenly like you're like I know white people didn't write this part right like there's something here maybe input maybe yeah yeah yeah because that was that's that's that sounds like the kinds of things black people would talk about but not something that would bubble up like that I picture a 90s white writer's room talking about because like you had those same moments in like every black show has those moments and like in the ones I've seen where the writers talk about it you can tell like a lot of those episodes end up being collaborative with like the with the actors, too, who were kind of bringing their own perspective into the right. Yeah, I had that same thought that this was, like, with input from the cast being, like, and there were plenty of episodes that took on more serious issues. There was an episode where Laura tries to get people to learn at school about black history and is told to go back to Africa and has the N-word spray painted on her locker. Yeah.

Eddie gets pulled over by a racist cop who is Carl's co-worker, and he's like, are you a why did you pull my son over and he's like I'm a racist cop you can't prove anything and then Eddie and Laura get beat up by a gang members I feel like that one might have been written by white writers that they're like these gangs are out of control they were just on a date to Tony Roma's yeah I look at the show like that too or like this whenever I watch shows like that and like you see how uh harriet comes down who's played by um mary joe mary joe payton yeah uh who also was considered you know a trained well trained actor yeah right at that point and i'm like man you know because she eventually joe marie sorry joe marie pey okay yes joe marie payton's apologies

to that to that icon uh she left the show in the last season because she's like i can't take this shit no more. Man, I'm just, I'm almost like a fifth character on this show. Do I, do I, do I, does my character only just come down the stairs and say, now what's going on down here? What's going on? Right. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that is essentially what everybody got relegated to in the Urkel episodes, which were most of the episodes. And there were like, really like there, I was watching the episode where do the Urkle is the, the Urkel dance, which they tried really hard to make happen um the episode where he is like trying to spice up the dance and he's like uh eddie hit it and like has somebody like play some music and then like teaches everybody how to do the article

uh lorence tate is like a side character oh he's the bully right yeah yeah he's the bully and i think he started spiking the punch or something um but it's yeah there's like great actors throughout and oh listen all the 90 shows they've i've i've musical guests, they would have, like, concerts on these shows. I love, I love that shit about all these shows. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

They also made him do the Urkel. Like, they would just, so he, in one episode, I think he creates a rocket and, like, flies into, or no, a jetpack, flies up and lands in Wisconsin and with the family from step by step. And then there's a step by step episode with Erkel on it. Like, they were just using him wherever. they could to like get the ratings up across the TGIF lineup. That's wild that like, they're like to support your ailing ratings.

We're going to fly in our nerd from the main show in to spice it. Because he was on full house too, I remember. Yeah, he came on was on full house. That's right. It was kind of a weird one on step by step because I think the thing he does is he helps

the youngest daughter who like looks like she's, you know, seven years old by like taking her the dance because she can't find a date to the dance. And then, like, spices up the dance by doing the Urkel, which, again, a very dick forward dance, like, lots of humping the air. Yeah, yeah. Which, again, was our custom at the time, but makes sort of a weird fit. And so you can actually tell that they have, like, toned down the choreography a little bit for the seven-year-old dance that you know.

Right, right. Maybe not this one. But, I mean, to the point of Urkel was everywhere, uh, he, they also made him do the Urkel at the beginning of the American Comedy Awards. he came out and made B. Arthur do the Urkel but Milton Bradley put out a board game called Do the Erkel which included a lyric

sheet for the Erkel dance with instructions to sing with a rap beat Oh Sing with a rap beat in your heart There was also Erkel owes cereal He had his own cereal There was just fruit loops

But with banana and strawberry flavorage rings it was nasty yeah it was made by it was made by the good people at Ralston aka Ralston Purina find purveyors of dog food

that's fucked up I remember it was nasty I was like this is some bird food I think we can repurpose those urkelos do you remember the Urkel lunchbox no well what do you mean was there like a specific one very I didn't remember it either but there's apparently a very

iconic Urkel lunchbox that everybody has. Was it him just like with the look like no, it's like when he? Yeah. And it had the National Museum of American History. It has the catchphrase, did I do that? Yep. Did I do that?

Yeah. Every era of kids has their things that are like the iconic for them. It's like Paw Patrol for Sir. Erkel was just that for everybody from elementary school to middle school, I feel. But it's just, yeah, but even like now, it'll never just be like, it's just that one thing.

Like, there's like five things that all kids like now. You know what I mean? Versus like the one thing when we were kids. The one thing. You vote Sesame Street, Ninja Turtles, Key Man, Barbie, My Little Pony or Care Bears. Yeah. And I feel like Bart Simpson was like kind of the opposite because they were around the same time. And like Bart Simpson was also like a kid of the same age who was on.

t-shirts and lunchboxes and everything. But so the, the Urkel era came to an end after a eight season run. He was 12 when he started playing Urkel and the show was on the air for nine seasons. As you can see in the O.G. Urkel episode, he's, you know, by the end of the show's run, he's 21 years old. And he complained to the producers that doing the Urkel voice was physically painful, which like I can only imagine.

imagine, like, doing that for 20-something episodes a season. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Especially as your voice is changing, too. Yeah, he was a kid when the show started. Yeah, you're probably fighting it so hard because, you know, what is he? Like, barely a teenager when he starts and then 21 years old. Not even a teenager. He's like 12, 13 for real.

Yeah. You'd have to ask Megan Kelly to weigh in on this, but I think he's not technically a teenager. Technically not a child. And at a, like, during the height, like, seventh season, it was still, going really well, and there was, like, a reporter who was in the dressing room, like, doing a story on the show, and he was quoted as saying, and I do remember this coming out. If you ever see me do that character again, take me out and put a bullet in my head and put me out of my misery. Julele White said to the reporter, they were like, uh-oh. He grew to hate that character.

Yeah. Like, and grew to, because people would just be like, you know, there's a story of him driving on the street once and, like, somebody is like, are going here. he just like goes off on him because he's like, that's not my fucking name. Yeah. That's not my name. So,

you know, it kind of becomes like a curse as well, to an actor, especially because nobody can see you as anything else. Right. Or the rest of your career,

generally. And he did not do well with that in his 20s and 30s, which is understandable. Yeah, for somebody who like carried a fucking sitcom, like incredibly popular sitcom on his shoulders. Like, it was, it was, you, you would have thought there's a chance that he goes on to do other

things, especially because, you know, he didn't really look like Steve Uracle outside of things, but he's gone on to, like, the main thing he's doing now is he has a, uh, weed business, like he's a cannabis connoisseur, uh, and that's a story. Yeah. About that? About Purple Erkel? I think. I think.

Nah, I know this is probably not true at all. But I think I probably had a. probably had a small hand an urkel like going to like the weed business so I used to have a show called I used to have a show called past that blunt right and in February of 2020

right before the pandemic maybe two weeks a week before the pandemic hit so this was one of the most irresponsible shows that happened around that time but the show premise was it was all black cast we would smoke a bunch of fucking weed backstage. We would come on stage, perform an hour of comedy high, and we would also pass out weed in Hotbox UCB Franklin, which is theater in Los Angeles. That was the premise of

the show. And it was a midnight show, too. So it would be packed. It would be 100 people in a room just hotboxing a theater while we're just having a good old black funny time. And my last guest for the last past that blunt before the pandemic hit was Jalil White. And we got them so high, so high he fell asleep on stage. I'm not lying. He fell asleep on stage like he was performing with us

and like he was our monologist and our interviewer and then he like sat down like toward the second half of the show and he was just on stage sleep and his manager like tapped him and was like come on bro we got to get up out of here because he had said before like I don't smoke weed that much

I haven't smoked weed in a long as time and it was his first time smoking it And then, lo and behold, less than a year later, here comes Purple Urkel. And he has a wee business. So I think that was a spark for him. You got him so high. It created a new career. A new career for him.

Listen, I know that that probably has nothing to do with it, but I'm going to attach to that. That I got Urkel publicly into the business. I mean, I know that strain existed before, like, I feel like, from the tooth from the a aughts is the first time I heard of purple Urquil as a strain but yeah but he wasn't involved with it no no no this is just people being like

this is that purple or you know people just named it whatever the fuck it was but I don't doubt that you sending him off into lockdowns with that experience and a lot of time on his hands he's like you know what maybe there's maybe there's something yeah because now 710 labs markets a strain

called purple Erichol featuring an image of Erichol as the logo and he is involved in that So he's finally getting... Loved him. Yeah. Yeah, man. He was excited as hell.

He was there. And he was like, this is dope, man. This is great. Everybody's... And now he's like, fuck it. I'm in no business now. Hell yeah. All right.

I just want to end with the fan theory about Reginald Val Johnson. So he played a cop all over the place. He played a cop most notably probably in Ghostbusters, die hard, and family matters, among other places. He just looked great in a cop uniform, and so people wanted him to be a cop.

He was like on Cojack as a cop. But the fan theory is that those three biggest appearances are all part of the same fictional universe. So in Ghostbusters, his role is he basically takes the Ghostbusters from prison to City Hall, where they're talking to the mayor. And during that movie, you might remember that the way the Ghostbusters explain the haunting that's about to happen is with a Twinkie. And they're like, if you take the size of this twinkie, the amount of ectoplasm that's in the city right now where this twinkie would actually be 30 blocks long. So just stow that away from memory. Ghostbusters happens. And he gets the Twinkie explanation, assuming based on this fan theory, that they use to explain the size of the haunting that's coming.

He then witnesses, it's the same night that a giant snack food mascot attacks New York City, kills presumably many. people. By the time we see him in L.A., he's eating Twinkies like, he's, it's his character's like main thing. He like walks up to the 7-Eleven with like a arm full of Twinkies and John McLean asks him like what are the, what's in those things? And he like knows all

the ingredients by heart and he's also shot a kid and is haunted by the memory of that kid. He just at one point is like, shot a kid. Oh, when he's Al Powell. When he's Al Powell. Right, right, right. Yeah, we don't know, I don't think we learn his name in Ghostbusters.

So based on this fan theory, after the events of Diehard and he shoots the main bad guy terrorist, he has to go into witness protection to hide from the terrorists since he shot and killed like the big bad one. They're getting by under their new names when a magical neighborhood kid who would be about the age of the kid he shot in LA starts bothering his family and he like can't get rid of him. He immediately hates Urkel. The first episode, like I said, he's just like constantly, like, his face looks like he took a shot of Mallort anytime Erkel's around.

Wow. All right, Chicago reference. Yeah. And even though everything Erkel does is adorable, he's like, what the fuck is this? There are later episodes where Erkel becomes a haunted doll. So, like, magic exists in this universe. It uses time travel,

so it could technically fit with the Ghostbusters universe. So the theory would be that Steve Urkel is actually the ghost of the kid who Al Powell. Al Powell shot. And his catchphrase is the one thing Al kept saying to himself, the day that changed his life after he shot, that kid who had a toy gun, did I do that? Or dear God, what have I done? I feel like that, you know. Want some cheese?

Want some cheese? I just Swiss cheese This body The version of the fan theory I've heard is that like he After Diehard goes crazy And like the whole family is in his mind But I feel like it's better

If it's just like he's in witness protection And the only magical thing is that it's It's Urkel is the ghost of the kid Haunting his family Universe like where magic is real But it's like not really being done In a fucked up evil way It's like I don't know

This one kid kind of makes himself a weird Bruce Lee guy. There's some magic. This guy's haunted by a kiddie shot. I mean, at least a cop is being haunted for their bad deeds somewhere. Yeah. Yeah, not all ghosts are bad in the Ghostbusters universe. That's true.

You know, I'm just saying. That's a slimer. Jekis. Thank you so much for joining us. Where can people find you, follow you, all that good stuff? Hell yes. I always love going back to the 90s. Shout out your Lil White.

And Erk, Erk Man. Also, Justice for her, I can't even remember her name, but Urkel got so popular on that show. And we can't even remember her name. They regulated that, they regulated that girl to the upstairs bedroom and she never came back downstairs. So, family matters. Oh, Judy.

Yeah, Jamie Foxworth. Yeah, she was like, yo, man, we can't have more kids than we need. You got to go. Dang, she's the youngest and she's your age, Jack. That's well. Yeah. Oh, she's, she's your age in real life. She's 45, yeah.

Damn, man. Yeah, yeah. Judy also catches some serious strays in Erkel's biography in a Jaliel White's like memoir. Yeah, he's like, she never liked me. She would just, uh, and she was, I know, she was young. But like, I guess by the later seasons, he was like, she was mean and she like didn't want to ever do the schoolwork that we had to do on set, you know, because you're basically going to school on the set.

What a fucking nerd. He was dropping a dime on her for not doing set school. Yeah, yeah. 20, 30 years later? Hey, man. I still hate the kids that were mean to me when I was a kid, you know? Especially the ones that were younger than you, bro. You couldn't even do that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. She gets, like, her Ph.D. She's been working on you. He goes to the graduation. I'm like, boom. She wouldn't even do work. She wouldn't even do the work on set.

That Urkel? Man, I appreciate y'all having me talking about. Steve Urkel, Ikele, that he is. Find me everywhere online at Jackees Neal and jackeysneal.com. Also, yeah, man, got a lot of those shit. Crowd Control got a season two. So that's going to be filming pretty soon. Yeah.

Comedian Clash coming to a city near you probably. We're going back on tour next year. Amazing. So good. Everybody should go check it out. Miles, where can people find you? At Miles of Gray. And then the other shows, you already know.

It's in this feed you're listening to now. All right. And God bless you if you don't know about the Daily Zykeyes and you just listen to this episode. Yeah, there you go. This is not what it usually is. Statistically, there is someone to be like, let me check out this Daily Zikegeist to hear about it. They didn't talk about Monday. We'll be doing more shit like this every Monday.

Fascinating Urkel facts, though. All right. So I guess there's this daily Zikeye show that's just about Urkel facts. This is your favorite show. Yeah, well, that's not what they normally do. It's iconic, forget it. Yeah, it's an epic show. All right.

Thank you guys. All right. That was iconograph number two, Steve Erkel. Couple research things I didn't get to for the No, No, No, No. Book dump. He was named, Steve Erkel was named after a real guy. And that real guy claims it ruined his life. But it kind of feels like one of those things where it could have been all in his head. So since Urkel was supposed to just make one appearance on family matters, the writers didn't put a lot of thought into his name.

And one of the producers, Michael Warren, thought it'd be cute to name him after one of his longtime friends, a fellow writer producer named Steve Erkel, ERkel, E.R.K.E.L. And when Erkel, of course, took off like a rocket, Urkel, E.R.K.E.L found himself with one of the most famous names in America. And he claimed. that it like really messed him up. He's like the LA Times interviewed him and he said last week at a bank in Encino they even balked at depositing cash. The teller looked at the deposit slip and then she looked at me and then she looked at the slip again

then she looked over at the manager. I actually don't believe I don't think. I think this could be an example of like a Tim Robinson character who's chair breaks and people laugh and he's suddenly convinced every time someone laughs in a room that he's in. They're

laughing because his name is Erkel. But Warren, the Family Matters producer, felt really bad about it, said this has caused a number of awkward situations for Steve. It's made his life difficult. Had I known this would go on for years, I wouldn't have used his name. I'm going to be very careful

about naming characters after my friends in the future. Good life lesson. And then just a couple more theories on like why, and I don't think it's any one reason. I do think in many ways it comes back to race as so many things in American culture do.

He became popular at a time when America was like interested in black culture, but they didn't want any of the difficulties caused by systemic racism. And Brian the editor in the chat called him the most unthreatening black character you could possibly come up with. But yeah, we were coming out of an era of white monoculture. A few years after the start of Family Matters, Do the Right Thing Came Out. And, you know, classic film that's in the library. of Congress climaxes with a race riot. And critics at the time were like, hmm, too angry. That part

didn't make sense. Why would he do that? He's so mad. And then a few months later, the L.A. riots happened. And yeah, even then, people, you know, it wasn't nominated for a best picture that year, even though it should have been. And I think Driving Miss Daisy won best picture. Also, some people credit the character of Oracle with popularizing the archetype of black nerd. There's a podcast that claims without Urkel, there would be no Obama, which that's not at all how I view Obama, but that was their take on it. And I mean, Jaliel White has said that when, you know, the reaction at the time, when Urkel kind of became massive in 1991, the New York Times ran an article about the first unapologetically nerdy black male character on TV. And Jaliel White has said

He's heard from tons of self-professed black nerds who felt seen by Erkel's character, but he also just thinks, and I think it's all of these things, but I do think that he created something truly original and important in his book, Julio White says there was no prototype for who he was. All TV characters, and this is true, having worked very briefly in TV, all TV characters are created based on something that previously worked. Webster was created by ABC because of the character Arnold, on different strokes.

While a great many of the storylines from Family Matters might have been borrowed from previous family themed television shows, Steve was unlike any character ever brought to life by a black performer on television. And importantly,

this kind of singular new creation that wasn't based on anything else was a complete accident. You know, the good stuff has to sneak in through the cracks in the, you know, solid foundation they think they're building. And, you know,

they thought he was a one-off joke and had to be told by the audience, no, this is your show. We want the nerd. And finally, because I don't think we got to it in the conversation, to answer the question of whether Urkel

would have been on the Epstein flight logs, there's some troubling. You know, he was a scientist, primarily motivated by horniness, but there was a sweetness to him, and he didn't need access to the Lodita Express because he had a jetpack,

So I'm going with no, Urkel would not have been in the flight logs if he was a real person existing in the modern world. Erkel Elvis, definitely on there, unfortunately. All right, that is going to do it. We are back later today with another episode of The Daily Zekegeist and back a week from today with iconograph number three. And back a week from today with iconograph number three about Miss Piggy with Jamie Loftus. We will talk to you all then. Bye. Hi, Kyle. Could you draw up a quick document with the basic business plan? Just one page as a Google Doc. And send me the link. Thanks.

Hey, just finished drawing up that quick one-page business plan for you. Here's the link. But there was no link. There was no business plan. I hadn't programmed Kyle to be able to do that yet. I'm Evan Ratliff here with a story of entrepreneurship in the AI age. Listen as I attempt to build a real startup run by fake people. Check out the second season of my podcast, Shell Game, on the IHeart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Stefan Curry, and this is Gentleman's Cut.

I think what makes Gentleman's Cut different is me being a part of developing the profile of this beautiful finished product. With every sip, you get a little something different. Visit Gentleman's Cut Bourbon.com or your nearest Total Wines or Bevmo. This message is intended for audiences 21 and older. Gentleman's Cut Bourbon, Boone County, Kentucky. For more on gentlemen's cut bourbon, please visit gentlemen's cuturban.com. Please enjoy responsibly.

The murder of an 18-year-old girl in Graves County, Kentucky, went unsolved for years, until a local housewife, a journalist, and a handful of girls came forward with a story. America, y'all better work the hell up. Bad things happens to good people in small towns. Listen to Graves County on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And to binge the entire season ad-free, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. And she said, Johnny, the kids didn't come home last night. Along the central Texas plains, teens are dying.

Suicides that don't make sense. Strange accidents. and brutal murders. In what seems to be, a plot ripped straight out of breaking bad. Drugs, alcohol, trafficking of people. There are people out there that absolutely know what happened.

Listen to paper ghosts, the Texas teen murders, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.