Today, we look at the time that James Avery surprised Reginald VelJohnson on the set of Family Matters.
This is “Took Me By Surprise,” about surprising cameos in TV shows, movies and songs. I’m talking both literal surprises (like pranks and spur of the moment stuff) as well as official cameos where we try to figure out why the famous people made the cameos in question (so not stuff like appearing on The Simpsons or on Sesame Street, where celebrities regularly make appearances, but cameos that are, well, surprising).
I’m certainly not sitting here and telling you that it makes any reasonable amount of sense (and racism certainly quite likely played a non-negligible role in it), but it is true that during the early 1990s, there were definitely a lot of people who confused James Avery, who played Uncle Phillip Banks on Will Smith’s Fresh Prince of Bel-Air…
with Reginald VelJohnson, who played Carl Winslow on Family Matters with Jaleel White’s Steve Urkel…
The actors had a fun bit where they played with that confusion in a Season 5 episode of Family Matters called “Scenes in a Mall.” At the end of the episode, Carl’s young nephew, Richie, brings in a young friend who he had bet $1 that his uncle looked just like the uncle on Fresh Prince and the little kid pays up. Then James Avery enters the scene to uproarious laughter from the audience and a shocked reaction from VelJohnson…
Hilariously, Avery didn’t even get a chance to deliver his line.
If anyone has any suggestions for cool cameos, drop me a line at brian@popculturereferences.com
I wonder if something like this happened, to a lessor degree, between Avery and Dorian Harewood in terms of voice acting in cartoons, because sometimes directors would cast them in the same role interchangeably. It started during 1987’s TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES, when Harewood filled in for Avery as the voice of the Shredder for 4 episodes during the show’s third season in 1989 (which was the longest at some 40+ episodes). Avery, of course, served as the original and primary voice of the Shredder until midway through its seventh season.
Then in 1994’s syndicated IRON MAN cartoon, Avery was cast as James Rhodes/War Machine for the first 6-7 episodes, before Harewood took over the role after that and continued as the character for the rest of the show’s two season run. Harewood even reprised the role when War Machine guest starred in an episode of 1996’s INCREDIBLE HULK cartoon on UPN. Yet when it came time for War Machine the guest star in two episodes of the third season of FoxKids’ SPIDER-MAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES that same year, they cast James Avery to reprise the role (for the first time in almost 2 years). Harewood was already voicing the reoccurring villain Tombstone, but he easily could have played another character (as he usually did for THE TICK). I…guess they sort of have similar voices, even if I could always tell the difference.
Fascinating, Alex, I think you’re probably right and they DID get confused for each other at points.
What was James Avery’s line supposed to be?
I dunno, but I bet it was something like “No, he doesn’t” or something along those lines.