She was offered a contract for the fourth season but she wouldn't sign. Apparently Janet, Will Smith, and the producers were not getting along well. Daphne Maxwell Reid took over her role as Vivian Banks for the final three seasons. Janet Hubert-Whitten left the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air after finishing the third season. It's Fresh Prince of Bel-Air's executive producer, "Quincy Jones".
In the opening sequence of the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air there's a cab driver that you might recognize if you look closely. Most of the station managers were worried that with only 99 episodes, audiences would soon tire of the same old episodes over and over again so many of them offered to pay a much higher fee than usual for the rights to run the repeats if NBC would produce 50 more episodes! Secondly, the NBC affiliates were repeating the old episodes and those repeats were getting pretty terrific ratings (for repeats, that is). First, both Will Smith and NBC received tons of mail begging them to keep producing the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. The fourth and fifth seasons happened for a couple of reasons. Ratings had become not horrible but not very good either. The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air was canceled at the end of the fourth season when Will returned to Philadelphia. His real first name is "Willard" and on the show it's "William". It may appear that Will Smith's character on the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air has the same name as he does in real life but that's not exactly true.
The crazy "Carlton Dance" that you saw on the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air TV show was a parody of a dance that Courteney Cox (" Misfits of Science" and " Friends") performed on the 1984 music video by Bruce Springsteen titled, "Dancing in the Dark".
To sit on my throne as the Prince of Bel-Air.įresh Prince was incorporated into the title of the series because that's what Will Smith used as his stage name when he was performing in the 1980s as a rap artist. Looked at my kingdom, I was finally there, I pulled up to the house about seven or eight,Īnd I yelled to the cabby "Yo homes, smell ya later." If anything I could say that this cat was rare,īut I thought "Nah forget it, Yo home to Bel-Air."
The license plate said "fresh" and it had dice in the mirror. I whistled for a cab, and when it came near, I got in one little fight and my mom got scared,Īnd said "You're movin' with your auntie and uncle in Bel-Air."
Started makin' trouble in my neighborhood. When a couple of guys who were up to no good, On the playground is where I spent most of my days.Īnd all shootin' some b-ball outside of the school. I'll tell you how I became the prince of a town called Bel-Air. Vivian Banks (1993-1996)Īnd I'd like to take a minute, just sit right there, Vivian Banks (1990-1993)ĭaphne Maxwell Reid. Will's wealthy family members, however, found that there were things that Will could teach them too!
The purpose of the move was for Will to learn how to be more decent, responsible, and less childish. The show ended in 1996, and while Smith and Alfonso Ribeiro, who played Carlton, maintained a publicly close friendship, it would not be until 2020 that fans would see the entire cast reunite.The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air TV show was a 30 minute comedy series on NBC about a street-wise teenager named "Will" from the 'hood in Philadelphia who got sent by his parents to live with their wealthy relatives in Bel-Air, California. I promised them that we would go out with style and grace.” “I told everyone that season six would be our final season and that they should take the year to make whatever plans or preparations they felt necessary.
So he made the decision to pull the cast aside. “I had successfully fulfilled a promise to myself that I would never get caught in a cycle of deterioration without having the next thing on tap,” wrote the first-time author. Smith recalled Amos telling him to take care of his family of co-stars, and most importantly to allow them and himself to walk away with dignity. Years earlier, Amos found himself written out of the popular ’80s sitcom when he disagreed with the direction of the show. It was then that Smith found the sage advice on moving forward he needed from “Good Times” family patriarch James Evans, played by actor John Amos. He goes on to explain at that point, he found himself at a career crossroads where he could finish the sixth and final contracted season of the show, or he could go on to make blockbuster movies, leaving the sitcom in his past. Ours was season 5, episode 15, ‘Bullets Over Bel-Air,’ the one in which I got shot and Carlton started carrying a gun,” said the actor-rapper. “Anyone who has ever been on a sitcom can tell you the episode in which their show jumped the shark.