When you hear the words “Steve Urkel,” what do you think of? It could be a flash of ’90s nostalgia—Hammer pants, TGIF, Ninja Turtles, paint splashes—or maybe just a looped recording of Urkel whining, “Did I do that?” over and over again. Perhaps it is the expanded career of portrayer Jaleel White, who has gone on to spotty success in a number of prime-time dramas, as well as issuing an impressively gloves-off interview to Vanity Fair one time.
Still, to rewatch clips of Urkel in his Family Matters prime is a weird experience, several decades after the fact, as the below video implores us to do. It is impressive what a weird character this was to become a global phenomenon, with all credit due to White, who wrenched a lot of physical comedy out of his various pratfalls and overexertions. But also: Urkel was a bit of a creep, a lecherous, overconfident dude who, if he were alive today, would probably be an icon of pick-up artists and men’s rights activists everywhere. (Those suspenders would be called “peacocking,” in PUA lingo.) The show also managed to keep him a weird man-child throughout his entire adolescence—he was in his 20s when the show finally ended.
Also of note is, of course, the song itself in the video above, which Melodysheep constructed from the raw materials of Urkel’s various snorts, catchphrases, and exhortations, all of which are very intense. You know who else was intense, though? Steve Urkel.
[via Laughing Squid]