The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air hid an insurgent heart beneath neon slapstick. Club. For most of the history of television, the barrier to syndicationand to profitabilityhas been 1. The shows that have made it to that mark are an unusual group. Many were big hits. Some found small cult audiences. Still others just hung on as best they could and never posted numbers quite low enough to be canceled. The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air Season 4 Episode 26' title='The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air Season 4 Episode 26' />The Fresh Prince of BelAir is an American sitcom that originally aired on NBC from September 10, 1990, to May 20, 1996. The show stars Will Smith as a fictionalized. But first, lets get the disappointing deets out of the way. In a new interview with Digital Spy, Fresh. Episode Recap The Fresh Prince of BelAir on TV. Watch The Fresh Prince of BelAir episodes, get episode information, recaps and more. The Fresh Prince of BelAir season 4 Country of origin United States No. TM 2016 Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. A Time Warner Company. All Rights Reserved. TBS. com is a part of Turner Entertainment Digital which is a part of. In. 10. 0 Episodes, we examine the shows that made it to that number, considering both how they advanced and reflected the medium and what contributed to their popularity. In this edition, we look at The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air, which ran for six seasons and 1. NBC from 1. 99. 0 to 1. Here is a sentence that is inarguably bizarre without context Every Fresh Prince fan should feel indebted to the Internal Revenue Service. Here is a sentence that may sound even more far fetched The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air was one of the most subversive network sitcoms of its time. Regarding that first improbable sentence When Will Smith met music producer Benny Medina, Smith had already won the first Grammy awarded in the rap category as part of the duo DJ Jazzy Jeff The Fresh Prince. He had already made a fortune. But Smith was particularly receptive to Medinas pitchthat he star in a television show based on the producers childhood move from Los Angeles Watts neighborhood to Beverly Hillsfor one simple reason He had already spent a fortune, too, and he neglected to send the government its share of his earnings. Smith was nearly bankrupt after the IRS assessed his unpaid taxes at 2. The show was a shot at solvency, and Smiths wages were garnished 7. Medina and his partner Jeff Pollack capitalized on Smiths eagerness for a steady paycheck and brought him to see Quincy Jones, who wanted to produce a sitcom starring the charismatic MC. I need you to come to my house after the Soul Train Music Awards. So everyone went to his house, Smith told James Lipton in an episode of Inside The Actors Studio. The details of Medinas childhood were fuzzed to match the stars biography. The main character would also be named Will Smith, and like Smith, he would be born and raised in West Philadelphia. According to Smith, nobody asked him if he could act before the deal was signed. He did not know how in his first scenes on the series he is clearly mouthing along with other actors lines. Smith treated Fresh Prince like an acting bootcamp, and his lack of experience didnt hamper the show. NBC put the fledgling actor front and center from the beginning and let his charisma compensate until his acting caught up. NBC didnt have the threat of tax evasion charges to deal with, but the network was as desperate as Smith to make Fresh Prince a profitable sensation. Cheers and The Cosby Show were still on the air, but winding down. Seinfeld had only aired five little watched episodes. NBC wanted a new hit with a hook for younger viewers, and the network pinned high expectations on the sitcom. The network heavily hyped Fresh Prince, banking on the Banks family becoming a younger, hipper, richer Californian iteration of those golden Huxtables. Though it initially floundered in the ratings, The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air developed an audience with the help of the network hungry for a hit. Out of all the shows NBC introduced that fall, only Law Order and Fresh Princegot sophomore seasons. After the first season, the network continued to promote the show with younger viewers, courting the Blossom audience by having Will Smith befriend Mayim Bialiks spunky hat wearing teen. This was a confusing move by NBC because Smith appeared as himself on Blossom, but later on Blossom showed older brother Anthony dating Hilary Banks in a crossover episode, implying that in the Blossom universe both Will Smith the adult rapper and Will Smith the fictional teen student existed. While the Blossom promo appearances were confounding in their universe building, NBCs overall advertising blitz and continued support of the show worked. It ran 1. 48 episodes over six seasons, from 1. During that time, Smiths starpower skyrocketed. By the end of the series he had starred with Martin Lawrence in Bad Boys and filmed what would become his biggest role to that date as a wisecracking alien puncher in Independence Day. Watch Terminator 2: Judgment Day Online Fandango there. With a rising star at its center, Fresh Prince did well in the ratings, but the show has maintained a place in pop culture that is disproportionate to the size of its initial audience because of an especially wide and successful syndication schedule that began in 1. The shows success wasnt limited to the United States it benefited from heavy rotation internationally as well. In Hungarian, it was called Kaliforni. In Brazil, it became Um Maluco No Peda. In Italy, it was Willy, Il Principe Di Bel Air. Along with other family values sitcoms like Full House and Family Matters, Fresh Prince aired in afternoons on network television across the world during and after its initial run. It was the perfect after school show, with a cast of young actors and slapstick humor. It remained cool even after it aired because Smith was a popular actor and rapper, but it was as clean as the squeaky sneakers Will favored on the show. The Hollywood Reporter acknowledged NBCs grand plans for Fresh Prince shortly after it aired, admitting it was the networks great primetime hope. The same review could only muster faint praise, calling it tolerable television, far from a revelatory experience. That assessment isnt inaccurate. Fresh Prince is formulaic to a fault, a boilerplate comedy on which most episodes wrap up neatly with a moral lesson bestowed upon one of the characters after a misadventure. Fresh Prince is also intensely, unabashedly cornythe kind of thing Carlton wouldve watched, not Will. The setup is a contrived fish out of water scenario. Though based on Medinas experiences, the network selected a 3. Harvard grad from suburban Ohio named Andy Borowitz as showrunner, along with his then wife Susan. Fresh Prince succeeds because it imbues this tough talking charity case with humanity and positions him as an audience surrogate instead of a figure to be laughed at. Which is where that second improbable sentence comes in Despite the hacky premise, Fresh Prince snuck in a firm, persistent commitment to addressing experiences specific to black people in Americaincluding institutionalized racism and identity politicsto a degree that isnt present in contemporary sitcoms. The show, for all its rounded edges and pat wrap ups, directly addresses race and to a lesser extent class issues. The willingness of Fresh Princes writers to explore how its characters understand their blackness is one of the shows strengths, and it was able to do this within the network system because Smith was such an affable figure, something the producers were aware of from the beginning. Smiths crossover likeability and the shows inherent hokiness served as a kind of Trojan horse to broadcast material that explicitly deals with charged issues like racial profiling and tokenism. Will is not threatening, Benny Medina told. The New York Times in 1. But well do it Wills way, rather than in their language. Wills way was one of reconciliation rather than confrontation. By placing the Banks family in an upper class social milieu, The Fresh Prince portrays a black American experience that hadnt been represented on television yet the closest thing were the upper middle class Huxtables of The Cosby Show, but the Banks situation was one of over the top wealth. The Banks were cufflink Republicans with hired help, and the show milked the tension between Wills hood sensibility and the Banks luxurious lifestyle. See The Cast of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air Then and Now. NBCNow this is the story all about how my life got flipped, turned upside down. Prior to the show, Will Smith had already tasted much success as one half of the hip hop duo of DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince. But Smith also had a tax paying problem, and by the time NBC approached him about doing a sitcom, he owed the IRS 2. In debt and with no choice, Smith accepted the offer. This ended up being quite the fortuitous turn of events for Smith, as. Because of this sitcom, Smith went on to enjoy more success as an actor than he ever would have as a rapper. We all know what Smith is up to these days. But what about the rest of the cast of Find out below. Watch Joy Online Free HD. NBCFrederick M. Brown, Getty Images. Then Will Smith was already a music industry superstar when he signed up for. In 1. 99. 3, he displayed his dramatic acting chops in the film. He also had a role in. Hes currently slated to reprise his role as the titular character in The actordancer already had a good deal of experience portraying a wealthy character due to his first TV role as series regular Alfonso Spears on. He also made a memorable appearance in a Pepsi commercial opposite Michael Jackson. Now These days Ribeiro is primarily a director, having most recently been behind the camera for 1. He also still has fun with his famous. During that time period, he also performed the voice of the villain Shredder on the. Avery followed. Crippin on. Karyn Parsons, Hilary Banks. NBCTwitter. Then Parsons played Hilary, the fashion obsessed and aggressively dim witted eldest Banks child. She also keeps an active Twitter presence and likes to post photos of herself posing with her former. Brown, Getty Images. Then Ashley, the youngest Banks daughter, was played by Tatyana Ali. The role was a big break for Ali, who had made her screen debut on. Also a singer, her 1. In 2. 01. 3, she made the move back to prime time with a starring role in the sitcom. The famous, sarcastic drawl was the St. Lucia born, British raised actors real accent. Were sure many of us would love to pal around with a butler as snarky as Geoffrey. Since then he has been working predominantly in England on several BBC series. In 2. 01. 3, he played the part of Fast Eddie in a thriller called. She also made waves recently by declaring there will never be a. Most recently, she voiced Aunt Denise in Grand Theft Auto 5. Daphne Reid, Vivian Banks. NBCFrazer Harrison, Getty Images. Then Instead of finding a new Aunt Viv who resembled the old one, Daphne Reid who looked nothing like Janet Hubert was given the part. The character also changed personalities, becoming far less fiery. The former models biggest role before. She played Principal Brown in 2. Goodman in. Doula in 2. Jeffrey Townes DJ Jazzy Jeff, Jazz. NBCLeigh Vogal, Getty Images. Then After a chance meeting with Will Smith in 1. Jeffrey Townes famously became the DJ to Will Smiths rapper persona in the hip hop duo, DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince.