Aug 22, 1999
Jaleel White is uneasy talking about the character he played for nearly 10 years on network television. In fact, he'd rather not talk at all about Urkel, the little polka-loving dweeb from ABC's "Family Matters." The character's name alone -- goofy and guttural, an instant buzzword for all things nerdy -- makes him wince visibly.
''I let him die,'' Mr. White, 22, said one recent morning on the patio of a Beverly Hills hotel. ''I've got a mental tombstone for that character. I've got lots of flowers around it, but that boy is dead.''
Still, it won't be easy to erase the memory of the character, who surely ranks as one of television's more vivid sitcom creations.
Jaleel White had made appearances on ''The Jeffersons'' and the pilot of ''Saved by the Bell'' before auditioning at age 12 for a guest spot on the ABC program, appearing before producers in tight suspenders, trousers cut off at mid-shin and an enormous pair of plastic eyeglasses that framed his darting, googly eyes. He moved around the sound stage in jerks and jolts and spoke in a voice so high-pitched and nasal that it hovered several registers above that of anyone else who dared inhabit the same scene. Urkel was born.
The guest spot grew into a starring role, leading the Friday night sitcom to an astonishing nine seasons on ABC and CBS, ranking alongside ''Seinfeld'' for longevity. At the peak of the program's popularity, this Cosmo Kramer for the schoolyard set had a breakfast cereal, an ABC special and legions of fans. When the end finally came in 1997, long after Mr. White had grown out of the twiggy five-foot frame in which he began, ''Family Matters'' vanished with hardly a peep, its final episodes broadcast in the Nielsen dead zone of July.
Two years later Mr. White is returning to prime-time television in a most unlikely package. Few will recognize him in the opening scene of his new UPN sitcom, the cannily titled ''Grown-Ups.'' The getup is gone, as is the voice. Instead we meet a bulked-up fellow in a tank top and Air Jordans who shoots hoops and makes quirky asides to a pudgy sidekick. As J. Calvin Frasier, a frustrated junior manager in a corrugated-box company, Mr. White is playing the sort of young man who, if faced with the Uber-nerd Urkel, would be likely to administer a quick and expert wedgie.
But even with the gym-enhanced physique, Mr. White knows he will have to work hard to make audiences forget about the part that made him famous. ''Until you break your Vinnie Barbarino, Mork mode that's what you are,'' he says of the television roles at the beginnings of the careers of John Travolta and Robin Williams. ''The bottom line is that the studio machine had a lot invested in Urkel,'' he says. ''They sold that character for a decade. You think you can go out and break that in a year? No way.''
Studio executives at UPN don't mind one bit if the scent of Urkel clings to the buffed-up White. Peter Noonan, president of entertainment at UPN, says that while the association may not do much for the struggling network's ''cool factor,'' Mr. White had nothing to be embarrassed about.
'Watching him play that part over the years was like watching Jerry Lewis or Groucho Marx, or dare I say Charlie Chaplin at times: it was perfectly realized,'' Mr. Noonan said. ''Urkel was a very successfully rendered character and a lot of people have a lot of affection for him.''
Mr. White is not one of those people. Shortly after ''Family Matters'' was canceled, Mr. White told a reporter, ''If you ever see me do that character again, take me out and put a bullet in my head and put me out of my misery.''
That bitterness grew from his feeling, long before the show ended, that he had wholly outgrown his inner Urkel, Mr. White said. In his senior year at the University of California at Los Angeles, he is a film student and avid jock, closely following pro and college basketball and hanging out with Anfernee Hardaway, backcourt for the Phoenix Suns. His speech is fast and colorful -- ''Some mango would be the bomb,'' he tells a waitress at the Four Seasons Hotel -- and his abilities as a performer, he says, extend far beyond geekdom.
And while he enjoyed the perks of starring in a long-running network show, Mr. White said he was more than happy to leave behind the life of the child star. ''You never get credit for what you do: you get chalked up to being cute or cuddly,'' he says. ''And you're never treated like your adult counterparts. They come along and get production deals and do other shows. And with a child, it's like, 'Send him a bike.' ''
Is it any surprise that the man behind Urkel just wants a little respect? To make sure he gets it, Mr. White said, he told UPN that he would appear in ''Grown-Ups'' only if he could also produce, working alongside the series creator, Matthew Miller. At first the involvement of the former child star was not exactly greeted with enthusiasm by Mr. Miller, a 27-year-old screenwriter who had sold ''Grown-Ups'' as an hourlong dramedy, a sort of ''Ally McBeal' for guys.
''I got a phone call telling me that 'Grown-Ups' was getting picked up, but as a half-hour, multi-camera show starring Urkel,'' said Mr. Miller. ''I immediately hung up the phone. That was my big artistic stance. It lasted about 15 minutes.''
Mr. Miller said his doubts eased when Mr. White came in for a reading. ''He's totally charming,'' Mr. Miller said. ''His timing makes it so easy to write for him. You just give him the suggestion of a joke, and he nails it.''
Mr. White hopes that audiences will feel the same way once they see him performing a regular guy role, in pants that fit. He's counting on many viewers' not making the Urkel association at all.
''A lot of times parents will see me on the street, grab their kids, pull them over and say: 'Look, look! Urkel!' he says. ''And the kids just look at me, like, 'Huh?' I can't tell you how happy that makes me. At this point, it's very rewarding not to be recognized.''
