Icon Deep Dive #2: Steve Urkel

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.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Oh hey, guys, welcome to this spinoff episode of The
Daily Zeitgeist. We're calling The Iconograph, a show about icons.
My name is Jack O'Brien. I co founded the website
cracked dot 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

(00:24):
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

(00:44):
year old son knows I'm sarcastically making fun of him
for saying something dumb. And when I say good one, Urcle,
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 whose iconic status was sort of unavoidable based

(01:05):
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 Racle and
this is the best I could do, and.

Speaker 2 (01:24):
It's not good.

Speaker 1 (01:26):
But imagine if when the Rizzler hit peak fame a
couple of years ago, he just kept getting more and
more famous for like I guess, like two to three years,
instead of giving way to six seve and like Italian
brain rotten shit, it was just the Rizzler. Just all
those things were the Rizzler. It was just the Rizzler

(01:46):
all the way down. That was basically the Erkle era.
At the end, as always, I'll be back from my
no No, No, no note 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 guests Jackise Neil about
our icon number two, Steve Urkle, Hello the Internet, and

(02:08):
welcome to this spinoff episode of Dirt Alley Zeitgeist, which.

Speaker 2 (02:12):
We're calling the Iconograph.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
Instead of looking at the Zeitgeist through current events, we're
reconstructing it through the powerful pop cultural work. Truxes that
are that are our icons.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
Are are our are our eye are our.

Speaker 1 (02:31):
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, turned 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

(02:52):
have I done?

Speaker 2 (02:53):
That's right.

Speaker 1 (02:53):
In the second episode, we're doing the Aracle Baby Circle,
a one off background character on an eighties and nineties
sitcom who resonated with America's share 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.

Speaker 2 (03:13):
Mister Miles.

Speaker 3 (03:15):
Yes, I doing the intro like dailies. I guess it
puts pressure on me to feel like I have to
sing something when I got to sing nothing.

Speaker 2 (03:22):
I'm in the building.

Speaker 1 (03:23):
I'm here unless you know all the words to the
song that a company is doing the Oracle, in which
case you're more than welcome.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
Definitely not definitely.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
Involves rhyming the word elvis with pelvis uh and if
that brings anything to mind. Myles, 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.

Speaker 2 (03:50):
It's Jackiesney.

Speaker 3 (03:53):
Don't get crowd control Eitherible Yes, don't star of crowd
Control Stars crowd Control so rare.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
Yes this day and age.

Speaker 4 (04:04):
Yeah sees in the guy's nice page as a tradition
under grand is.

Speaker 2 (04:19):
Almost imprinted on my brain.

Speaker 1 (04:21):
Shots from anything in the eighties and nineties 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.

Speaker 2 (04:39):
This is Chicago. How did you use that?

Speaker 5 (04:42):
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 LA I
would ride my bike to her house and like the
street to go up she lived on.

Speaker 2 (04:54):
She lived off of like Wellington.

Speaker 5 (04:56):
This is where the family Matters house was still in
this original and they changed it a little bit.

Speaker 1 (05:01):
You ever look in the window to see if they
were in that.

Speaker 2 (05:07):
The front door.

Speaker 1 (05:09):
If we're graphing icons, as the name suggests, iconograph Erkele
would be pretty far from our first episode subject Einstein
on the icon matrix Einstein. Uh, it's pretty clear why
he became famous. Erkele was like a pandemic America suddenly
came down with, like a virus that so much. Should

(05:32):
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.
They were he was in one episode, and then the
next day he was fucking everywhere. And I'm curious why
we think that happened. Uh, But I want to ask

(05:55):
first both of you guys, what what do you guys
remember of the Erkele era.

Speaker 2 (06:00):
The Oracle era for me?

Speaker 3 (06:02):
Because when did The Family Matters debut, like nineteen ninety
eighty nine, eighty nine, Yeah, okay, so I was by
the time I was watching.

Speaker 2 (06:09):
I think for me it was probably like.

Speaker 3 (06:11):
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 in it
because they were only like four, but this was like
one of the few that I watched a lot. And
then my grandparents were prolific background actors on Fan, so

(06:33):
I always used to watch two to think see if
I would seeing my grandmother or my grandfather pop up
on the show, and this will probably come up with somebody.
They were very good friends with Jalil 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 la family for a time while he was
sharing the show.

Speaker 2 (06:53):
I met, Yeah, I met.

Speaker 3 (06:54):
I've met Jalil many times when I was a kid,
because he would be at my grandparents' house and people
thought I would, uh, well, my grandparents didn't have a
hoop there, and at the time he.

Speaker 2 (07:03):
Was like fucking like nineteen, I was like a fucking boy.

Speaker 3 (07:07):
He was kind of like, yeah, it was like it was.
It definitely felt like a make a wish kind of thing.
He's like, hey, how you been, and then we'd have
cookies and cream ice cream, and then he'd leave, and
then I like.

Speaker 2 (07:15):
My grandparents are the coolest people ever.

Speaker 1 (07:17):
There's a clip of 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?

Speaker 2 (07:32):
She's like rkle Academy Award winner.

Speaker 1 (07:34):
Yeah, She's the only person she ever asked for an
autograph was an Arkle.

Speaker 2 (07:38):
That's what about you, jackies man.

Speaker 5 (07:40):
It's so funny because like family matters in itself, Like
we just called it the Arkle Show growing up. Yeah,
so like we didn't even call it family matters anymore.

Speaker 2 (07:49):
It was like, what you watching? I'm watch an rkle
bro Yeah, I just meant the show you arkles on? Yeah,
urkles On man is urkle On? Oh yeah, erkle is on.

Speaker 5 (07:58):
So it was big in my household, sure, because and
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 nineties late
eighties and throughout the nineties, we had so many black
television shows on TGIF for NBC or whatever. So yeah,

(08:20):
it was just another It was just like, oh, yeah,
this is the full house black show. This is the
version of full House for black people, right that we
get and then yeah, man, we were just invested in
Arkle and everybody else became supporting.

Speaker 1 (08:37):
Very quick, like it was one episode to the next like, well,
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 is like child
actor was so fucking good that they immediately were like,
so this is the show, right right? But yeah, so,

(08:59):
Family Matters was initially created. It was launched in eighty nine.
It was initially created in response to the success of
The Cosby Show, which premiered in eighty four 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 hears my Cosby Show. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

(09:21):
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 eighties, Like I feel
like the seventies 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

(09:45):
no longer moving up there, 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 and Strokes and Webster that premise.
And so as the nineties are beginning, the makers of

(10:07):
Family Matters thought America was ready for maybe a more
like blue collar answer to the black experience in America.
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 a cap does
include Carl winslow Man.

Speaker 5 (10:32):
We can have one exception, one exception he got through
Oh damn, you got all right?

Speaker 1 (10:37):
Well, yeah, there's a fan theory that I want to
get to a little later on that he because he
was always playing cops. 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 eleven episodes, it was what

(11:01):
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 sitcomcast of the
eighties and nineties 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

(11:23):
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 Winslows 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

(11:45):
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, where like what if
people had bills to pay? In this show? It was
technically a spinoff of Perfied Strangers. Do you guys remember
Perfect Strangers.

Speaker 2 (12:03):
All right, is were Harriet I kind of like weird.

Speaker 1 (12:06):
So Harriet Winslow was the elevator operator at the Chicago
newspaper where Larry and Balki worked, and the reason she
loses her job is she catches Larry and Balki kissing
in the elevator and they get her fired instead of
confronting their dark secret.

Speaker 2 (12:22):
That's not true, but I just wanted to.

Speaker 1 (12:28):
I want a running theme of of cousins hooking up
because our first episode Einstein fucked and married his cousin.

Speaker 2 (12:36):
Yeah, different times. Back then, Carl.

Speaker 1 (12:41):
Also appeared on Perfect Strangers. There was an episode of
Perfect Strangers in which Larry and Balki helped Carl steak
out a mob boss. I feel like, just generally, like
any of our younger listeners who don't remember sitcoms, like
that is what sitcoms were.

Speaker 2 (12:57):
Just the plotting was just.

Speaker 1 (12:59):
Like they were making shit up like as they went,
which is how we got Urkle incidentally, but like, yeah,
they were like, all right, so in this one, Larry
and Balki are like helping a cop steak out the mafia.
But yeah, I guess it would seem Carl was not
just a cop. He was a cop who sucked shit
at his job. Since he used Larry and Balki to

(13:22):
help steak out the mob, yeah, that's probably not great.

Speaker 3 (13:25):
Also his resources or like, yeah, you're taking down the mob,
talk to these two fucking goobers to help you with
your fucking k al.

Speaker 2 (13:32):
Right, well in Chicago, by the way.

Speaker 1 (13:35):
Right right right, Yeah, I do just want to bring
that up, Jaquise, you were growing up in Chicago at
the time. I feel like there was a real early
nineties moment for Chicago, like Racle Comes from Chicago, a
Home Alone took place in Chicago, and as I was
watching old episodes of Ercle or Family Matters, I saw

(13:57):
he had the same Jordan cut out as the kid
from Home Alone as Kevin does.

Speaker 2 (14:02):
Like with hands on him.

Speaker 1 (14:04):
Yeah, it was just like they the early nineties in Chicago,
Like was just sometimes there's just a place where everything's
coming together, and like Rkele Home Alone and the Jordan
Bulls all happening in Chicago at the same time. Like
did you feel did you like look around, You're like, fuck, man,
things are happening here.

Speaker 2 (14:23):
I live in the center of the universe.

Speaker 5 (14:26):
I mean honestly, not not as much, but like I
think because especially at that age, like the bulls were
so big and like everything was so big because so
it was. And then you know, the parts of Chicago
that they show the most when they're doing like establishing
shots outside of the house are mostly like downtown Chicago

(14:47):
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 said
in Illinois, which is not in Chicago.

Speaker 2 (15:02):
But like everything felt like.

Speaker 5 (15:04):
So relatable to me because they were like, oh yeah, man,
like everybody lives here.

Speaker 1 (15:12):
There's other cities now. I guess you wouldn't notice it
as a kid. You would just be like, yeah, of
course it's set here. Why wouldn't it be set here?

Speaker 5 (15:19):
And then the shows that weren't set there were not
set there, famously, like The Fresh Prince of bel Air, right, you.

Speaker 1 (15:27):
Had to say, you'd like to say where it was
said if it wasn't set in Chicago exactly cheers. They
had to keep emphasizing that it was Boston. 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

(15:50):
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 just
killed her in a brutal car accident in season one.
In season two and then like the first I still
remember the first episode of season two was them like

(16:12):
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.

Speaker 2 (16:20):
Oh, they weren't nothing to see here, Like let's play
with her with her belongings. Dan.

Speaker 1 (16:27):
Yeah, But they ruled the TGIF lineup Miller Boyette, which
was a I believe we call it a ratings bonanza
in the early nineties. 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

(16:51):
more people than watch anything on TV today. The most
watched TV show in twenty twenty five is Monday Night Football,
which averages sixteen point seven million viewers for the entire
twenty twenty five season. So like Family Matter starts out
as like a medium sized hit and then season two

(17:12):
it really takes off once they're like it's the artical show. Guys,
everybody get on board or we're fucked here. Every season
one through seven was watched by more on average viewers
than watch Monday Night Football in twenty twenty five. It
was like anywhere between twenty six point four million viewers

(17:32):
and eighteen point four It was like crazy numbers.

Speaker 5 (17:36):
Yeah, it would be like top numbers for shows now
would be considered like I think we might have to
cancel this show.

Speaker 2 (17:46):
Oh yeah back.

Speaker 5 (17:47):
In the nineties and even partly of the two thousands,
and I no TV has changed and shit, but.

Speaker 3 (17:52):
Yeah, because like what ncis is it a five point
six million five point six So they took Family Matters
off the TGIF lineup for averaging fourteen million.

Speaker 1 (18:06):
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 eight point one seven million,
which again would be higher than any like NCIS, which
is like widely seen as like a massive hit today.

Speaker 2 (18:25):
Right, Yeah, jeez, crazy man.

Speaker 1 (18:28):
Yeah and yeah, Brian's pointing out the US population in
nineteen ninety two was two hundred and fifty five million,
so they were pulling in. Yeah, the ratings numbers were
at its peak, sixteen percent of the American population were
watching Family Matters every weekend.

Speaker 3 (18:45):
That's actually like the most mind blowing, like aside from
everything else we were going to learn about our oracle.
I'm the idea that no show comes close to like
the concentration of like viewership of like broadcast television show
from the nineties even today because of just everyone's attention
being fractured in a million places.

Speaker 1 (19:06):
Yeah, yeah, I think my numbers are off, but that's
because so a 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 yeah, it peaked at
sixteen percent of all TV viewers were watching Family Matters.

Speaker 5 (19:26):
But you said, but you said it was being watched
by at his peak, what like twenty something plus million house.

Speaker 1 (19:31):
Twenty six point four million households on average. That's still
not over the course of the season. That was just
like who was tuning in to watch Eracle.

Speaker 5 (19:39):
Everything that's 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 ten percent of Americans
watching television, Yeah, watching that show, Like that's crazy.

Speaker 1 (19:54):
But everybody was going home like this is what you
did on Friday night.

Speaker 2 (19:57):
If you went generationally, if you asked people that are
thirty six and older, say you wusch family matters, I'm
sure that's like you're gonna get an eighty percent return.

Speaker 1 (20:06):
Okay, 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.

Speaker 6 (20:22):
And I watched so many of them.

Speaker 1 (20:35):
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, Arkle did not exist. In
the first episode. It was Harriet carl Eddie, a teenage
son who was obsessed with girls, Laura, a teenage daughter

(20:57):
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, Harry's younger sister, who also
left after the fourth season, and then Richie, Rachel's son.
But Rkle didn't exist. Didn't appear until the twelfth episode

(21:20):
of Family Matters, and he was supposed to be a
one off character. I think they called him Erkle the Alien.
The script says a boy Laura's age approaches their table.
He is Steve Rkele, 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

(21:43):
so good. He's just like nailing. First of all, he
didn't actually have glasses, but he's nailing, like being unable
to like see shit around him. He comes up, She's like,
take a hike, ercle, she'd rather eat worms, and he says, oh, okay,
some other time. Then and then walks off, and then

(22:03):
Laura says geek city. And then and then, because of
some classic sitcom shenanigans, Carl accidentally invites Racle 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 Verkle the second he meets her,

(22:25):
like everybody hates everybody hates hercle 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 is friends with one of the kids and
then everyone else is just like fuck you.

Speaker 2 (22:44):
Kimmy Gibbler. Yeah right, Do you remember Kimmy Gibbler from
They were so mean to her?

Speaker 3 (22:52):
I think, yeah, what, what was the first show to
really kick that off? I guess it's just one of
those shared experiences like I was. I was a drifter
kid who would just show up a friend's houses in
the neighborhood and they're like, oh.

Speaker 1 (23:02):
You were eating with us, Now, did you knock before
you came in, because that was one of the things
they never knock.

Speaker 2 (23:08):
Showed up. Yeah, I wasn't.

Speaker 3 (23:09):
I wasn't like kicking my feet up on the couch,
but like I would just going straight to like a
room and they're like, miles here, okay, all right.

Speaker 1 (23:16):
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. And so
this is according to Julil White, who played Steve Urkle,
a group of white frat boys was in the studio
audience for that episode and kept chanting, we want the nerd,

(23:38):
We want the nerd. Wait for because they liked him
or they were or they were going to like kick
his ass.

Speaker 2 (23:45):
No, it was like they liked.

Speaker 1 (23:47):
They were that just the idea of they were like,
holy shit, bro, those frat boys are crazy about this
guy Nerd out. So the producers immediately decided to write
Urkle into every episode moving forward.

Speaker 3 (24:00):
Wait, is that based off of the audience response or
the race.

Speaker 1 (24:03):
Based off of 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.

Speaker 2 (24:15):
H have to use the lab chock yeah, yeah, yeah,
you love them. Oh.

Speaker 3 (24:19):
So the producers are probably behind camera looking at each.

Speaker 2 (24:21):
Other like holy shit.

Speaker 5 (24:25):
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 viewing
public and be like, I think we need to pivot
before the season was over, because like they would start writing,

(24:46):
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.

Speaker 2 (24:59):
And like there were will never be another Arkle like
it happened. Oh yeah, not.

Speaker 5 (25:05):
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 reinjured. But they got to
reintroduce they got to introduce him as a main character
organically from season one where they get to pretend like
this was there.

Speaker 3 (25:20):
Right right, I meant that, yeah, we mean this was
was Yeah, And when I came up with Erkle, I
knew they wouldn't be able to handle it to at
least twelve episodes into the season.

Speaker 2 (25:29):
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (25:30):
One of the producers also knew that they'd struggled when
after just two Arkle episodes had aired, he saw some
kids rklelizing at the mall, which was walking around with
their pants hiked up, imitating Erkle, and he was like, again,
without the Internet, the way you'd learned something went viral
was seeing kids like doing it at the mall, and

(25:50):
you're like, holy shit, I think we've got something klizing.

Speaker 2 (25:55):
But yeah, the guy, the guy come up with that term.
These kids were erklizing.

Speaker 1 (25:59):
He put it in quote, So I think that was
you see these kids these days irkalizing. 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

(26:22):
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 Fons.
In the first few episodes of Happy Days, the Fons
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

(26:42):
of the show and such a cultural phenomenon that they
considered renaming the show Fonzie's 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

(27:03):
thirty six year old guy playing a cool high school student,
and now it was just like.

Speaker 2 (27:10):
Nerd, nerd. Yeah, shit, the nerd, we want the nerd,
the nerd. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (27:16):
It's cool though, because Erkle was like, for me, the
three top black characters in the nineties were Martin Fresh, Friends,
will Smith, Fresh, Prince, and Erkele and Over, like 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,

(27:37):
like the suave cool dude that I wish I could
be and get all the girls and the honeyes that
he was getting.

Speaker 2 (27:43):
And Erkele was probably more close to well.

Speaker 5 (27:47):
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 duke can like harass
this girl like on that.

Speaker 2 (28:06):
Was sexual harassment.

Speaker 5 (28:08):
Maybe a sexual harassment, and people still like him because
he's a nerd, which is probably problematic.

Speaker 2 (28:14):
It is probably like still we're joking.

Speaker 5 (28:17):
But like the cool thing about Rko, it was like
it was like, oh shit, this is a black character
that I can connect to that feels attainable, unlike being
poor Smith.

Speaker 2 (28:27):
Yeah, or mar Lawrence for sure. Yeah. And he was.

Speaker 1 (28:29):
Never like he there's definitely like a peppy lupew element
to his character in that like his main overall like
motivation is Laura and his love for Laura.

Speaker 2 (28:42):
But he's never up in her.

Speaker 1 (28:45):
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 interact, they had
the dynamic nailed down from the first episode that he
was just sort of this unshakable.

Speaker 3 (29:07):
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.

Speaker 2 (29:14):
That thing and then they're like, oh, will.

Speaker 3 (29:16):
He Like most people, I feel like rkle and bodies
are like having a crush on somebody that you were like, man,
I'm I'm I might as well be rkle 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 that it was like it was

(29:36):
empowering in cell men everywhere, but like more so that
it's like yeah, it's no, yeah, sometimes look your rkle
you know, and that's all right because Rkle's.

Speaker 1 (29:45):
Smart and get to where they like start incorporating they're like, actually,
rkle can be anything. Once he steps into this machine
machine yeah, with spinning wheels and dials on it.

Speaker 5 (30:00):
He become a slightly laying version of a cool guy
yeah something.

Speaker 2 (30:06):
Yeah, so smooth. Cocaine is a hell of a drug,
but it basically.

Speaker 1 (30:10):
The show immediately changed its format to being a type
of sitcom that has an alien character in it, you know,
like more Mork and Mindy Balki 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,

(30:32):
we felt very freed from that and was there for it.

Speaker 2 (30:37):
Oh for how malleable Erkle could be just as a character. Yeah,
I will say the one thing that is a little.

Speaker 1 (30:44):
Bit, uh, a little humpy in the whole ercle ubra
is doing the The Erkle dance is very dick forward.

Speaker 2 (30:56):
It is very like it's very due to Erle and yeah,
dick out.

Speaker 1 (31:01):
Yeah, it's just pumping your dick 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.

Speaker 2 (31:21):
Well, keep umping it.

Speaker 3 (31:22):
Humping was just such a prevalent word back then too,
Like we were saying humping a lot, you know, ain't
know humping around there was just yeah, it was it
was that time where we weren't quite putting together. What
are you doing with your hips? Exactly a bunch of.

Speaker 2 (31:39):
To this song.

Speaker 1 (31:42):
So, uh, just a little bit about Julia White and
Miles maybe you could talk about your experiences with him.
But he grew up in La started acting in commercials
when he was three years old.

Speaker 2 (31:54):
So there's a Toys r Us.

Speaker 1 (31:56):
Commercial and an Oreos commercial where he's just like, you know,
this adorable kid, and I 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. 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.

(32:17):
I think he was about the same age as me.
So there's only one set of footsteps on the beach.
I turned back around, was carrying me the whole time.

Speaker 5 (32:26):
I didn't even know he was the voice of like
Sonic until after Family Matters, right right, yeah, Like.

Speaker 2 (32:33):
And I was like, wait, Racle's a voice Family Matters.
And also the fact that we don't even call him
by his real name.

Speaker 1 (32:39):
I know.

Speaker 5 (32:40):
I mean, you know now if I mentioned my dude,
but whenever you put me back in Family Matters time,
he's just Oracle.

Speaker 2 (32:46):
Yeah, because I think that speaks to the iconicness.

Speaker 3 (32:50):
What's the word you're going to use here, yeahs iconicography, Yes, exact, Yes,
that's it. I just speaks to it when you're like,
I'm sorry, sir, you are Erkele.

Speaker 2 (33:03):
Yes, but I do know your real name, but it's
just kind of your reputation precedes you.

Speaker 1 (33:07):
So he was twelve when he first read for the
role of Steve Erkele. 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

(33:28):
on suspenders, and borrowed his dad's oversized prescription glasses, so
he didn't even wear glasses, which he is really good
at acting like he can't see anything for being someone
who he's fucking nailing.

Speaker 3 (33:42):
Well, I'm sure if you grew up with a parent
with glasses that big, you're probably you're used to writing
them because they can't.

Speaker 2 (33:48):
He's serving the world.

Speaker 1 (33:50):
Yeah, and his inspiration was a combination of Peewee Herman
and Ed Grimley, Martin Schwartz's hyperactive character who wore hyped
up pants. I feel like Grimley. 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

(34:10):
Short energy.

Speaker 3 (34:11):
I mean the physicality definitely now that I think of,
Like how Ed Grimley is kind of stiff.

Speaker 1 (34:19):
First, kind of you know, every room he enters, he
enters dick first. As they said about Oracle.

Speaker 2 (34:26):
Yeah, how you become the man Jack? Jack? Why do
you try it sometime? Yeah? You know, next time I
see you, they could go for me, think of imagine.

Speaker 1 (34:35):
Actually enter it like with with my dick tucked back,
just like very very frightened, hunched over.

Speaker 2 (34:41):
Yeah, you're gonna kick me in the in the aren't you.
He's walking and grabbing his ankles.

Speaker 4 (34:46):
Weird, But even that's right.

Speaker 1 (34:52):
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 fifteen seconds and he like came back and the
casting director and producers were all cracking up, and uh,

(35:15):
that that's how Erkele was born.

Speaker 2 (35:18):
Essentially.

Speaker 3 (35:18):
I love the idea that that was he went out
of body to do Urkle, like it was divined from God.

Speaker 2 (35:24):
Or it was. It was, oh, my god, the sound
of an angel. The sound of an angel. My god. Yeah,
oh god, I'm so at.

Speaker 3 (35:38):
Least are we are we going to get an update
on his finances by the end of this recording?

Speaker 1 (35:43):
No, I did he I do know, like sort of yeah,
sort of, but he could have made more money there.
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 they were owned by Disney at
this time, but they were. They were like, no, you

(36:03):
work for us. We don't want the character to become overexposed,
which is yeah, some bullshit, but yeah. When he was
doing it a read through, every like nobody could keep
stay in character. Everyone's just like he when he looks
into Kelly Williams, who played Laura's eyes and says his

(36:25):
first line she like broke, and was like, where'd you
get this guy?

Speaker 2 (36:32):
Oh? Man, I just loved it. Was so good as
a kid, because he's a kid, you know, first thing,
and to do like a character.

Speaker 3 (36:40):
It's not like you're you're getting direction and it's like
this is what Erkle 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, yes, kid
his own show.

Speaker 1 (36:53):
The only inspiration was a Rick moranis type, right, Rick
moranis can eat ship. This guy's killing it.

Speaker 2 (37:00):
Uh. Miranda's great too.

Speaker 3 (37:04):
I mean because like, what what Mirandas are they? I mean,
I get Mirandas is always wearing glass like that. Oh yeah, gosh,
Bushers yeh, because any of the chunk the Kids came
out in eighty nine, so it wasn't that.

Speaker 1 (37:13):
Yeah, yeah, the Kids. Yeah, he had some erkle in him, but.

Speaker 5 (37:18):
Uh yeah, it's like to say that meek, but like
the way he embodied it though with just the walk
and like they always he he is to me, which
I also find this funny. Rkle is like one of
the prototypes for like a SpongeBob SquarePants.

Speaker 2 (37:36):
Yeah just like yeah, so.

Speaker 5 (37:39):
So definitively like nerdy or his own like brand of
person us.

Speaker 2 (37:47):
You can't do it to him, you can't tell that ship.
Yeah yeah.

Speaker 5 (37:51):
And then he'll have moments where he like relates to
you and like, oh, this is not a nerdy relatable relatability,
but he comes right back to who he is, and
like it's so funny because I was watching an episode
of Urkle of family Matters.

Speaker 2 (38:06):
That's okay in this house, in this house, in his
little car.

Speaker 5 (38:12):
He's in this little car that he had, which was
like a Beatles Oh yeah, that was like the front
from the front. Yeah, and like he's listening. He was like,
I'm listening to my favorite song and it is the
it's the SpongeBob music.

Speaker 2 (38:31):
Oh shit is that music?

Speaker 5 (38:38):
And this is like four years before SpongeBob, four or
five years before Smongebob even came out.

Speaker 2 (38:42):
Uh, And I was just like, this has to be Like.

Speaker 5 (38:45):
Stephen Hillenberg, I think was the creator of SpongeBob's name.
I think he had to like have Rkle in his
mind when he was creating.

Speaker 2 (38:52):
I mean, nobody SpongeBob.

Speaker 1 (38:54):
Nobody didn't have Irkle in their mind after the early nineties,
you know who was alive at that time. Like that's
the thing about 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

(39:14):
I go back and like watch his movies or his
SNL stuff.

Speaker 2 (39:18):
I don't find it that funny.

Speaker 1 (39:20):
And I think it's because he was so iconic that
people like Chris Farley built their shit like on 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

(39:42):
of that. And I wonder if that's because they've tried
to bring Urkle back, like he the character made a
cameo and like a Scooby Doo cartoon and stuff like that,
and it seems like it didn't take. And I just
wonder if, like he was so iconic so everywhere that
like he's just and sort of absorbed into all other

(40:04):
culture to the degree that it's just like we've already
seen the evolution of RCLE.

Speaker 3 (40:11):
I wonder if this is 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 Urkle,
and then now we're like, I maan a fuck a nerd.

Speaker 2 (40:28):
Yeah, it's kind of.

Speaker 3 (40:29):
Like hostile because we kind of like it's a stand
in for like Silicon Valley people in a weird way.

Speaker 2 (40:34):
They fucked it up. They fucked her for everyone.

Speaker 3 (40:36):
It's not the same quite, it's not just it's just
I think it's just culturally our perspective on like the
nerd is different, where like yeah, and Rkle was empowering
and now we're like we're kind.

Speaker 2 (40:47):
Of off like to be like this smokefucker is a
nerd kind of thing, like.

Speaker 5 (40:50):
You know, you know what the nerds are now, it's
kind of almost like Stefan uh right where and not
like I know he was portrayed to belt or Kell,
Stephan Urkel, but he, in my opinion, he was what
a nerds idea of what a suave person would be,
right right right.

Speaker 1 (41:11):
Like Donald Trump is a poor person's idea of what
a rich person is. Like she is the nerds version
of what a guy is. He's Stephan Urkel, right, you
know what I mean? And you're like, might I get
the fuck out.

Speaker 2 (41:23):
Of here with this?

Speaker 1 (41:26):
Elon Musk thinks Stephan Urkell is so fucking cool. He
watches clips of Stefan Urkel before he walks into her
room just to get into I mean.

Speaker 3 (41:37):
Because the other thing, just to Jackiees'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

(41:58):
I think is also we were just not used seeing
that kind of archetype for a character is to be like, yeah,
I think that.

Speaker 1 (42:04):
He came around in some form as Steve Rkle 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

(42:24):
context of you know, a show that when you watch it,
it's pretty it's pretty old.

Speaker 2 (42:30):
It feels old as fuck.

Speaker 1 (42:31):
I felt like I was watching old footage of people
down at the boat dock waving at a boat.

Speaker 2 (42:36):
You know, it's like this is used to be entertainment.
Waited three hours to do that too.

Speaker 1 (42:40):
Yeah, we waved for three hours even though the boat
was gone.

Speaker 2 (42:45):
Waiting watched it crushed over the horizon. H Yeah.

Speaker 1 (42:49):
I'm not sure why necessarily why it happened, other than
like super talented, Like there's a bunch of good articles
for 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,

(43:12):
and Julia 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 Erkele and Stefan
or Kel 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.

Speaker 2 (43:32):
Yeah, he was like an inventor. He was like a
child inventor. It's a genius. Yeah, yeah, super genious. Yeah,
we'll get to that part.

Speaker 1 (43:38):
Because they did like kind of really explore the studio
space with with Erkele being the alien character.

Speaker 2 (43:46):
Thing.

Speaker 1 (43:46):
They were like, all right, so Erkele's got a time
machine in this one.

Speaker 3 (43:50):
Right exact quickly like Happy Days. They had to jump
the shark two at some point.

Speaker 1 (43:54):
Yeah, they they did that shit quick. They didn't wait
very fast, very long. They were like, all right, Steve,
in this one, you're a robot for some reason.

Speaker 2 (44:03):
All right, cool? Cool?

Speaker 1 (44:05):
The catchphrase did I do that? He said it for
the first time in the second episode he was in
after Laura's first date. He was like, I was trying
to figure out how they did it, because I actually
watched an earlier episode and the cold open was Steve
Rkle coming in and trying to lift weights with Eddie

(44:26):
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 Erkele 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

(44:46):
and stuff. He's making a model ship on the dining
room table and Ericle knocks it over and then says,
did I do that? And that was the second an
episode and it became his catchphrase, despite the fact that
they also tried I fallen and I can't get up.

Speaker 2 (45:07):
Yeah, they tried that for me and you love me,
don't you? Something with cheese? Got any cheese cheese?

Speaker 1 (45:28):
So yeah, Miles to your point about jumping the shark
and how people are like happy days used to be good,
and then they there was an episode where like Phonsie
had to jump a shark on 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

(45:50):
level creations. He created a life lifelike Arkle, bought a
cloning machine where there could be two Erkle and they
actually the split screen was pretty good. Yeah, I guess
more like Nikola Tesla than Einstein. To Brian's point, as
you talked about in the first one, Einstein wasn't like
really an inventor. He was more of a high thought

(46:13):
have a time travel watch and the Ercle 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 it's kind of it kind of reminds you of
the thing that Jeff Goldblum goes into in The Fly.
But then they have like little spinny things on the

(46:35):
outside that are just like look like they're made of cardboard,
that are.

Speaker 3 (46:38):
Just I feel like it was just a metallic silver
spray painted porta potty.

Speaker 2 (46:43):
Yeah, yeah, like Nickelodeon like gadgets on it. Yeah, exactly exactly.
It was like some sheets on doubled there. Yeah, it
was like hot.

Speaker 1 (46:54):
They had high enough level of production that they could
do split screen stuff and like have two Steves. But
then the information Chamber looked like shit, you're.

Speaker 3 (47:02):
Like literally like that is a porta potty that you've
just spraypainted put lights around the front of.

Speaker 2 (47:07):
Didn't he also wasn't he able to splice his DNA
or something because there's the one who became Bruce Lee. Yes,
so that's what.

Speaker 1 (47:14):
Yeah, the Transformation Chamber gave him access to becoming characters
like Bruce Lee Erkele, an ass kicking, fairly racist version
of Erkele three appearances.

Speaker 3 (47:26):
I felt seen though in that episode back on TV.

Speaker 2 (47:33):
Fine, there you go, I'll take it. I'll take it.

Speaker 1 (47:36):
Tried to get even smarter for an MIT Admissions interview,
and create turned himself into Einstein Erkele, who for some
reason morphed into Elvis Erkele. 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 Erkele. Laura had a

(47:59):
Laura Rakele episode Reginald val Johnson, like a very seasoned
stage actor, so that, 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.

Speaker 3 (48:12):
You think you're doing that around the writers, He's like,
you know, I could do Rkle too, right, you know,
And they're like, whoa's.

Speaker 1 (48:19):
Ernie kem peel sketch where it's like the producer of
the show is like doing coke in his office and
then Reginald Vell Johnson like comes in and it's like.

Speaker 2 (48:28):
You motherfucker.

Speaker 1 (48:29):
This was supposed to be a serious family sigam when
it's become and then like an evil version of Verkle
comes out and kills everybody. And then that gave rise
to Stefan Erkel, the smooth alter ego of Steve Erkele.
He hadvents a serum called cool Juice that can alter
his DNA. His goal is to win Laura's heart, and

(48:51):
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. Uh,
don't don't do that, guys. She should love you for
who you are, and.

Speaker 3 (49:05):
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 oracle transformation chamber, even.

Speaker 2 (49:11):
Though it looks the same. Try jumping in and everything.
For me, Yeah, for me, it was a.

Speaker 1 (49:18):
Great metaphor that prepared me for drinking alcohol for the
first time and how I felt about myself.

Speaker 2 (49:24):
For me, a human waste that got on me when
I jumped into a porta potty, which I'm kind of
like ja Keith O'Brien as hell.

Speaker 5 (49:37):
Then I can play Jack O'Brien. Yes, I'm a season actor,
but I can play some man know.

Speaker 2 (49:43):
What to do with my hands. I can do O'Brien.
Watch this, do you guys?

Speaker 5 (49:48):
Remember, though, I gotta talk about First of all, he
also played his like girl cousin.

Speaker 2 (49:54):
Yeah, at one point, uh huh, he went full clumps
and did like full family problem.

Speaker 5 (50:02):
The worst episodes of television of all time is when
he played like his cousin.

Speaker 1 (50:09):
The cousin Eugene original Gangsta dog Erkele.

Speaker 2 (50:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (50:14):
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 uh buy 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,

(50:36):
which is interesting for him because the first time he
met Erkele like that his is mugging around Erkele in
the first scene when he meets him, he just immediately
is like ugh, like it's was like got his pants
is like the energy that he's giving. But yeah, there's
Myrtle Erkele, which is his girl cousin. Uh, and then

(50:58):
Cornelius Eugene original Gangsta dog Rcle. Keep in mind that
the show was written and produced almost entirely by white people.

Speaker 3 (51:08):
Yeah, 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, like they had a message,
and then suddenly like you're like, I know, white people
didn't write this part, right, Like there is something here
maybe input maybe yeah, yeah, yeah, because that was that's
that's that. That sounds like the kinds of things black

(51:29):
people would talk about, but not something that would bubble
up like that ID picture a nineties white writers room
talking about because like you had those same moments in like,
every black show has those moments, and like and 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
are kind of bringing their own perspective into the right yeam.

Speaker 1 (51:48):
So 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's
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

(52:11):
cop who is Carl's coworker, and he's like, are you
a why'd 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 gang members. I
feel like that one might have been written by white
writers that they're like, these gangs are out of control.

Speaker 5 (52:32):
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 Harriet comes down, who's played by Mary Mary Joe Peyton, Yeah,
who also was considered you know, a trained, well trained actor.

(52:56):
Yeah at that point, and I'm like, man, you know
because she eventually Joe Marie sorry Joe Marion yees, Joe
Marie Payton's apologies to that, to that icon. She left
the show in the last season because you're like, I
can't take this shit no more.

Speaker 1 (53:11):
Man.

Speaker 2 (53:11):
I'm just I'm almost like a fifth character on Yeah, wow,
do I do? I does my character only just come
down the stairs and say, now, what's going on? What's
going on?

Speaker 6 (53:19):
Right?

Speaker 1 (53:19):
Yeah? I mean that is essentially what everybody got relegated
to in the Erkele episodes, which were most of the episodes,
and there were like really like there. I was watching
the episode where do the arcle is the Arkle dance,
which they tried really hard to make happen, the episode

(53:40):
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 started teaching
everybody how to do the racle.

Speaker 2 (53:51):
Lorenz Tate is like a side character.

Speaker 1 (53:54):
He's the bully, right yeah, yeah, he's the bully, and
I think he starts spiking the punch or something.

Speaker 2 (54:00):
But it's yeah, there's like great actors throughout and.

Speaker 5 (54:05):
Oh listen all the nineties shows, they like musical guests.
They would have like concerts on these shows.

Speaker 2 (54:11):
I loved. I loved that shit about all these shows, right, yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (54:15):
They also made him do the ercle like they would
just so he in one episode, I think he creates
a rocket and like flies into or no, a jet
pack flies up and lands in Wisconsin and with the
family from Step by Step and then there's a Step
by Step episode with Erkele on it, like they were

(54:36):
just using him wherever they could to like get the
ratings up across the TGIF lineup.

Speaker 2 (54:42):
That's wild.

Speaker 3 (54:42):
They're like, they're like, to support your ailing ratings, We're
gonna fly in our nerd from the main show in
Via because he was on He was on Full House too,
I remember, right, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (54:54):
It was kind of a weird one on Step by
Step because I think the thing he does is he
helps the youngest her 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 arkle, which
again very dick forward dance, like lots of humping the air,

(55:15):
which again was their 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. Maybe not
this one, but I mean to the point of erkle
was everywhere. They also made him do the arkle. At
the beginning of the American Comedy Awards. He came out

(55:36):
and made b Arthur do the arkle. But Milton Bradley
put out a board game called Do the Ercle, which
included a lyric sheet for the rakle dance with instructions
to sing with a rap beat. Oh, sing with a
rap beat in your heart. There was also erkele Oh's cereal.

(55:57):
He had his own cereal. There was just those fruit
loops but with banana and strawberry flavored. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (56:04):
Rings. It was nasty.

Speaker 1 (56:07):
Yeah, it was made by it was made by the
good people at Ralston aka Ralston Purina find Yers of
dog food.

Speaker 2 (56:17):
That's fucked up. I remember it was nasty. I was like,
this is some bird food. I think we can repurpose
as erkle O's. Do you remember the Erkle lunchbox? What
do you mean?

Speaker 6 (56:30):
Very?

Speaker 1 (56:30):
I didn't remember it either, but there's apparently a very
iconic Erkle lunchbox that everybody.

Speaker 2 (56:35):
Yeah I had was it? Was it him, just like
with the look like.

Speaker 1 (56:40):
Yeah, and it had the National Museum of American History.
It has the catchphrase did I do that at yep? I?

Speaker 2 (56:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (56:50):
Every era of kids has their like things that are
like the iconic for them. It's like paw Patrol for
Arkle was just that for everybody from elementary school to
middle school.

Speaker 2 (57:02):
I feel like it's.

Speaker 3 (57:03):
Yeah, but even like now, it'll never just be like
it's just that one thing, Like there's like five things
at all kids like now, you know what I mean,
versus like the one thing when we were one thing
Sesame Street, Ninja, Turtles, he Man, Arbie, my Little Pony
or care Bears.

Speaker 2 (57:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (57:22):
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 doing the market of
the same age, who was on T shirts and lunchboxes
and everything. But so the Racle era came to an
end after an eight season run. He was twelve when

(57:42):
he started playing Racle, and the show was on the
air for nine seasons. As you can see in the
og Ercle episode, he's you know, by the end of
the show's run, he's twenty one years old, and he
complained to the producers that doing the Erkle voice was
physically painful, which like I can only imagine like doing

(58:03):
that for twenty something episodes a season.

Speaker 5 (58:07):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, especially as your voice is changing too. Yes,
he was a kid when the show started.

Speaker 3 (58:12):
You're probably fighting it so hard because you know, what
is he like barely a teenager when he starts and
then not even twelve thirteen for real.

Speaker 1 (58:22):
Yeah, you have to ask Megan Kelly awigh in on this,
but I think he's not technically a teenager, technically not
a child. And 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

(58:43):
see me do that character again, take me out and
put a bullet in my head and put me out
of My Misery, Julia White said, they were like grew to.

Speaker 2 (58:53):
Hate that character.

Speaker 5 (58:54):
Yeah, like because people would just be like, you know,
there's a story of him driving on the street on
saying like somebody is like, are going he just like
goes off on him because he's like, that's not my
fucking name.

Speaker 2 (59:06):
Yeah, that's not my name.

Speaker 5 (59:08):
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 twenties and thirties, which.

Speaker 1 (59:26):
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 Rkle outside of things.
But he's gone on to like the main thing he's

(59:46):
doing now is he has a weed business, like he's
a cannabis connoisseur.

Speaker 5 (59:52):
Story, Yeah about that, I think I think now I
know this is probably not true at all, but I
think go Ahead probably had a small hand and arcle
like going to like the weed business.

Speaker 6 (01:00:08):
Wow.

Speaker 5 (01:00:08):
So I used to have a show called I used
to have a show called Past That Blunt, right, and
in February of twenty twenty, 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,

(01:00:30):
we would come on stage perform an hour of comedy high,
and we would also pass out weed in hot Box
uc B Franklin, which is a 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 one hundred people in the room, just hot
boxing for a theater while we're just having a good
old black funny time. And my last guest for the

(01:00:52):
last Past That Blunt before the pandemic hit was Jalill
White and we use them so high, So High. He
fell asleep on stage. He fell asleep on stage like
he was performing with us and like he was ar
monologist and our interviewer. And then he like sat down,

(01:01:13):
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 it out of here, because he has said before
like I don't smoke weed that much. I haven't smoked
weed in a long ass time. It was his first
time smoking it. And then lo and behold, less than
a year later, here comes Purple Arkle and yeah, it's

(01:01:33):
a wee business. So I think, damn, that was a
spark for him passing that.

Speaker 2 (01:01:40):
I'm so high. It created a new career, career career
for him.

Speaker 5 (01:01:45):
I know, listen, I know that that probably has nothing
to do with it, but I'm attached to that that
I got Rkle publicly into the I.

Speaker 3 (01:01:53):
Mean, I know that strain existed before, like this, Like
I feel like from the two from the Ots is
the first time I heard a purple racle as a strain.

Speaker 2 (01:02:03):
But yeah, business, no, no, no, this is just people
being like this is that purple organis. People just named
it whatever the fuck it was.

Speaker 3 (01:02:10):
But I don't doubt that you sending him off into
lockdowns With that experience and a lot of time on
his hands.

Speaker 2 (01:02:16):
He's like, you know what, maybe there's maybe there's something.

Speaker 1 (01:02:19):
Yeah, because now seven to ten Labs markets a strain
called Purple Oracle featuring an image of Ercle as the logo,
and he is involved in that.

Speaker 7 (01:02:28):
So he's finally getting loved him. Yeah, yeah, man, everybody
loved it, and he was like this is dope, man,
this is great. Everybody's and now he is like, fuck it,
I'm in no wed business now.

Speaker 2 (01:02:40):
Oh yeah, all right.

Speaker 1 (01:02:41):
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, Diehard,
and Family Matters, among other places. He just looked great
in a cop uniform and so people wanted him to

(01:03:01):
be a copy was like on Kojak 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

(01:03:23):
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 thirty
blocks long, So just stow that away from memory. Ghostbusters
happens and he gets the twinkie explanation, assuming based on
the fan theory that they use to explain the size

(01:03:45):
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 LA he's eating Twinkies like he knew
he's it's his character's like main thing. He like walks
up to the seven to eleven with like an armful

(01:04:05):
of twinkies and John McClain asks him, like, what are
what are in 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
and Powell, yeah, we don't know. I don't think we

(01:04:25):
learned his name. And 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

(01:04:46):
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 hercle the first episode, like
I said, he's just like constantly like like his face
looks like he took a shot of malort anytime Urkle's.

Speaker 2 (01:05:02):
Around Wow our Chicago reference.

Speaker 1 (01:05:05):
Yeah, And even though everything Erkle does is adorable, he's like,
the fuck is this? There are later episodes where Erkle
becomes a haunted doll. So like magic exists in this universe,
it uses time travel, so it could technically sit with
the Ghostbusters universe. So the theory would be that Steve
Rkle is actually the ghost of the kid who Al

(01:05:28):
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?

Speaker 2 (01:05:40):
Did I do that? Or Dear God, what have I done?
I feel like that, you know? I want some gee,
want some geese? I just swiss cheese.

Speaker 1 (01:05:57):
Uh the version of the fan theory. I've heard the
like he after Diehard goes crazy and like the whole
families in his mind. But I feel like it's better
if it's just like he's a witness protection in the
whole protection only magical thing is that it's it's Rkle
is the ghost of the kid, like.

Speaker 3 (01:06:13):
That 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. Uh, 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.

Speaker 2 (01:06:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:06:31):
Yeah, not all ghosts are bad in the Ghostbusters universe,
and that's true. I'm just a slimmer Jaquis. Thank you
so much for joining us. Where where can people find you?
Follow you all that good stuff?

Speaker 2 (01:06:42):
Hell?

Speaker 5 (01:06:43):
Yes, I always love going back to the nineties. Shout
out to Lil White and Irk Man. Also Justice for
I can't even remember her name, but Erkle got so
popular on that show.

Speaker 2 (01:06:54):
We can't remember her name.

Speaker 5 (01:06:55):
They regulated that they regulated that girl to the upstairs bedroom.
Machine never came back downstairs. Family matters j H Jamie Foxworth. Yeah,
she was like, yo, man, we we can't have more
kids than we need.

Speaker 3 (01:07:09):
You got Yeah, dang, she's the youngest and she's your age, Jack,
that's what Yeah, Oh ju she's she's forty five.

Speaker 2 (01:07:16):
Yeah, damn man. Yeah yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:07:19):
Judy also catches some serious strays and heracles biograph and
Julia White's like memoir. Yeah, He's like, she never liked me.
She she would just uh and she I know she
was young, but like I guess by the later seasons,
he was like she was she was mean, and she
like didn't want to ever do the schoolwork that we

(01:07:40):
had to do on set, you know, because you're basically
going to school on the set.

Speaker 2 (01:07:43):
What a fucking nerd. He was dropping a dime on
her for not doing set school. Yeah. Twenty thirty years later.

Speaker 1 (01:07:50):
Hey man, I still hate THEO were mean to me
when I was in when I was a kid.

Speaker 2 (01:07:55):
You know, especially the ones that were younger than you.

Speaker 3 (01:07:58):
Bro you could oh yeah, yea yeah exactly. She gets
like our PhD, she's been working on you. He goes
to the graduation like boom, she.

Speaker 2 (01:08:07):
Wouldn't even do work. She won't even do the work
on set.

Speaker 5 (01:08:12):
That uh, man appreciate y'all appreciates ho'all having me talking
about Steve rkle Icon that he is. Find me everywhere
online at Jackie's Neil and jackiesneil dot com. Also, yeah,
man got a lot of shits. Crop Control got a
season two, so yeah, it's gonna be filming so soon. Yeah,
Comedian Clash coming to a city near you, probably be

(01:08:35):
going back on tour next year.

Speaker 2 (01:08:36):
Amazing, so good. Everybody should go check it out. Miles
where can people find you? At Miles of Gray?

Speaker 3 (01:08:42):
And then that the other shows you already know you
are in this feed you're listening to now, all right,
and God bless you if you don't know about the
Daily zeit Geist and you just listening to this episode.

Speaker 2 (01:08:53):
Yeah, there you go.

Speaker 3 (01:08:54):
She's not what it usually Statistically, there is someone who
be like, check out this Daily zeite Geist to hear
like they didn't talk.

Speaker 2 (01:09:00):
Come back Monday. We'll be doing more shit like this
every Monday. Fascinating arkle facts though.

Speaker 1 (01:09:04):
All right, so I guess there's this Daily Zeitkeuy show
that's just about Erkle facts.

Speaker 2 (01:09:12):
But this is your favorite show. Yeah, well that's not
what they would normally do, see iconic except forget it.
Yeah it's an arch show. All right, Thank you guys.
All right, that was iconograph number two. Steve Erkele.

Speaker 1 (01:09:27):
Couple research things I didn't get to uh for the
No No No note book dump. He was named Steve
Verkle was named after a real guy. Uh, 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 Erkele was
supposed to just make one appearance on Family Matters, the

(01:09:50):
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 produce her named Steve Erkele e er
k e L. And when Erkele, of course took off
like a rocket, Erkele er k El found himself with

(01:10:11):
one of the most famous names in America. And he
he claims that it like really messed him up. He's
like The La Times interviewed him and he said, last
week at a bank and insino. They even balked at
depositing cash. The teller looked at the deposit slip and
then she looked at me. Then she looked at the
slip again. Then she looked over at the manager. I

(01:10:32):
actually don't believe. I don't think. I think this is
like could be an example of like a Tim Robinson
character whose 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 Erkele. But Warren, the
Family Matters producer, felt really bad about it. He said

(01:10:53):
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

(01:11:13):
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.

(01:11:34):
But yeah, this 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.

Speaker 2 (01:11:52):
Why would he do that? He's so mad?

Speaker 1 (01:11:55):
And then a few months later the La riots happened,
and yeah, even then people 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 Racle with popularizing the
archetype of black nerd. There's a podcast that claims without Rkle,

(01:12:16):
there would be no Obama, which that's not at all
how I view Obama, but that was.

Speaker 2 (01:12:23):
Their take on it. And I mean Jaliel White has
said that.

Speaker 1 (01:12:27):
When you know the reaction at the time when Erkele
kind of became massive in nineteen ninety one, 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 Erkele's character. But he also just thinks,

(01:12:49):
and I think it's all of these things, but I
do think that he created something truly original and important.
In his book, Juliel 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.

(01:13:11):
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

(01:13:32):
sneak in through the cracks in the solid foundation they
think they're building. And you know, they thought he was
one off joke and had to be told by the audience, no,
this is your show.

Speaker 2 (01:13:44):
We want the nerd.

Speaker 1 (01:13:45):
And finally, because I don't think we got to it
in the conversation, to answer the question of whether Ercle
would have been on the Epstein flight logs, there's some troubling.

Speaker 2 (01:13:58):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:13:58):
He was a scientist primarily motivated by horniness, but there
was a sweetness to him and he didn't need access
to the low led Express because he had a jet pack.
So I'm going with no, Erkle would not have been
in the flight logs. If he was a real person
existing in the modern world. Erkele Elvis definitely on there. Unfortunately.

Speaker 2 (01:14:21):
All right, that is going to do it.

Speaker 1 (01:14:23):
We are back later today with another episode of the
Daily Zeitgeist, 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.

Speaker 2 (01:14:40):
We will talk to you all then Bite