Another Teary Farewell

By Richard Zoglin

Television can be a cruel business. While Seinfeld, the show about nothing, is enjoying the most extravagant farewell celebration in the medium's history, Family Matters, the show about Urkel, has found that its goodbye is stirring up, well, nothing.

Worse than nothing, actually. After nine years on the air--eight seasons on ABC, where the show earned solid ratings and anchored the kid-friendly "TGIF" lineup; and a final season on CBS, where viewership dropped sharply--Family Matters hasn't just been canceled. CBS pulled the show off the air in January, and is holding the final seven episodes until June and July, when most of its fans will be at summer camp. Don't expect much hoopla for the two-part finale, in which the newly engaged Steve Urkel, once TV's favorite nerd, is chosen to fly on the space shuttle, does a gravitational experiment that fouls up the mission and gets stranded in space--a crisis dubbed by TV news "Nerd Watch '98."

The nerd watch on Family Matters began a few weeks after its debut in September 1989, when the show's ostensible stars, the Winslow family, were visited by the kid next door, a nasal-voiced geek with huge glasses, pants hiked to his armpits and unflagging enthusiasm. Played with Jerry Lewis abandon by Jaleel White, the character caught on with audiences and quickly pulled a Fonzie, taking over the series. As years went on, the show grew increasingly outlandish. White--now well into adolescence and towering over actors he once looked up to, his high-pitched whine making him sound less like a nerd than a demented castrato--played a host of other characters: in drag, as Urkel's Mississippi cousin Myrtle; as rap-singing cousin Original Gangsta Dawg; and as a suave, Buddy Love-style alter ego named Stefan Urquelle.

Though it got little respect from the critics, Family Matters was in fact the most delightfully outre comedy on TV, an anything-goes farce with good lowbrow gag writing and snatches of smart parody. But just try to say goodbye. The show's producers, reportedly miffed at CBS, aren't talking to the press. White, 21, who is finishing classes at UCLA and said to be writing screenplays, is incommunicado as well. All are getting ready, no doubt, for the last episode of Seinfeld.

--By Richard Zoglin