[Embedding disabled. Click image to be taken to video. It is way worth it.]
For my birthday last month, my bro bought me the first season of Family Matters on DVD.
It joins my random seasons of Full House and Boy Meets World on the shelf, to make for quite the fun TGIF collection. (Someone please release Step by Step on DVD already!)
It took me just about a week to plow through the first season of Family Matters. It's an interesting watch, because it starts out as a sincere family sitcom about Carl and Harriet Winslow, their kids and extended live-in family members.
Then around episode 12, out of nowhere, nerdy next-door neighbour Steve Urkel shows up and becomes the show. Seriously, the back 10 episodes of the season each involve Urkel in some capacity, plus a secondary storyline featuring another member of the family.
I watched many of the episodes with fondness, recalling the classic storylines from my youth. The episode where the family attempted to open a bakery out of their kitchen. The episode where Laura couldn't get a date for the dance. The episode where Aunt Rachel damaged Carl's police car the night before he was to drive it in a parade.
One episode I had absolutely no recollection of, however, is called 'Rock Video,' which actually serves as the first season finale. It involves Eddie and his friends making a music video for some sort of televisied music video competition. When his band members ditch Eddie after he hogs all the camera time, his family steps in to create the above music video with a family-friendly message to enter into the competiion.
(Spoiler alert: they win!)
The music video is positively absurd. It reminds me a little bit of The Cosby Show opening theme (but way lamer), where cast members showed off their dance moves. It also reminds me a little of that episode of Saved by the Bell where the girls shoot a music video under the name Hot Sundae. And of course it also reminds me of the equally-positive music video for 'You Gotta Believe,' by Lenni Frasier on Ghostwriter.
Producers clearly went to great measures to unnecessarily incorporate every cast member into this unnecessary culmination of an unnecessary storyline. Check out Mother Winslow at the tunrtables. Was it just mandatory in the 90s to produce a music video at some point in your sitcom's history?
Please take a watch, and let me know if you remember this storyline at all (I'm truly shocked I don't remember this ridiculousness).
Then let me know which part of the video is your favourite/most absurd. I'm so torn between Aunt Rachel's dramatic singing, the kids' dancing on the kitchen island, and the end sequence where the whole family sticks their head in a circle.
(Shockingly, Steve Urkel doesn't play a part in any of this.)