The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air/YMMV
- The Ace: Will.
- Crosses the Line Twice: Hilary's long-time boyfriend Trevor dying unexpectedly? Tragic and unsettling. Hilary's long-time boyfriend Trevor dying by hitting the ground while bungee jumping as he was proposing to Hilary live on the news channel he worked for with her entire family and presumably hundreds of others watching? One of the most hilarious moments in the show's tenure.
- It's even funnier and possibly crosses the line four or five times, considering she didn't even realise that something had gone wrong when he died, and to quote The Other Wiki:
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He eventually proposes to Hilary, but she insists that he officially proposes on live television later that day. Trevor then proposes to her on television while bungee jumping, and dies during the stunt when something goes wrong with the jump and he hits the ground. Hilary mourns his death by bringing back what she presumes to be Trevor's ashes in an urn, but later learns that Trevor was not cremated, and that she grabbed a stranger's urn. |
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- Not so funny if it almost happens in real life. This incident makes the storyline Funny Aneurysm Moment.
- The time Phil killed Nicky's bunny rabbit... by sitting on it.
- Even funnier is that when Phil tries to explain death to Nicky by talking about The Lion King, Nicky just looks at his dad and asks if he sat on the rabbit.
- And who could forget "Asses to Ashes", in which at Judge Robertson's funeral not a single person has anything nice to say about him. One guy even says "The only reason I'm here is to make sure he's really dead!" Then, when Will (who felt responsible for his death, as he had been yelling at Robertson for playing dirty in the Superior Court election seconds before he died) said to the people in attendance "I'm the one who killed him," everyone applauds him.
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Will: Tough crowd. |
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- Dude, Not Funny: In this case, Played for Laughs when Geoffrey unveiled his hidden shame of leaving England because years ago he was caught taking a taxi in order to win a marathon (he thought the information might ruin Philip's political campaign, and yes, that marathon thing has happened in real life, albeit accidentally). After showing them the video, everyone sat in silence for a good ten seconds before bursting into laughter. Geoffrey was not amused.
- Ear Worm: Iiiiin West Philadelphia, born and raised...
- Harsher in Hindsight: In a season 2 episode, Jazz shows up with a life-size cardboard cutout of Bill Cosby, prompting Will to ask what happened to his Whitney Houston cutout. Jazz's response is that she fell apart in the shower. Twenty years later...
- The episode where Uncle Phil has a near-fatal heart attack can be really hard to watch since his actor James Avery passed away due to complications during open heart surgery.
- He Really Can Act: Will Smith, in "Papa's Got A Brand New Excuse". While he'd arguably proved it in other dramatic moments of the series before then, the absolute gut punch of this episode's subject matter drove home the impact his acting could have like a sledgehammer.
- Hilarious in Hindsight: Jada Pinkett was once turned down for a part as one of Will's girlfriends. These days she goes by Jada Pinkett Smith, cause she, y'know, married Will.
- Ashley, backed by Will Smith, has a music career that consists of a hit single then a fall into obscurity. This is more or less what happened with Tatyana Ali's own music career later.
- In another episode, Will kept accusing Hilary of "going Hollywood" for being Queen Latifah's assistant. Let's repeat that; Will Smith Accused Someone Of Going Hollywood.
- Another episode had Queen Latifah (again) as a Girl of the Week who pretended to be a Wooly Mammoth. Enter Ice Age.
- A character played by Will Smith impresses an important person by solving a Rubik's Cube really fast.
- In one episode, Will does a quite-good impression of Muhammad Ali ("I'm the greatest! I'm a baaaaad man!"). That skill would eventually lead to an Oscar-nominated portrayal of Ali.
- In one episode, Will claims that he didn't find Kool Moe Dee convincing as a cowboy in the song "Wild Wild West". Six years later, Will Smith has his own version of that song, for the movie Wild Wild West, featuring Kool Moe Dee.
- As an added bonus, Carlton attempts to join in with an enthusiastic "I used to live downtown...!" Alfonso Ribeiro went on to make an appearance in Will Smith's "Wild Wild West" music video.
- In an early episode, one-shot character "Dr. No" was played by Richard Roundtree. You know, the lead actor in Shaft. The character who Will later idolizes.
- In an early Very Special Episode, Will and Carlton are pulled over and arrested by some racist cops because they're two young black men who happen to driving a Mercedes, which therefore must be stolen. Fast forward to 2012, and Men In Black 3 features Agent J (Also played by Will Smith) travelling back to 1969 and being pulled over because he's a black man driving a car, only he calls the cops out on pulling him over for assuming he stole the car because he's black, before admitting that he did in fact steal the car.
- Irony as She Is Cast: Carlton's actor was and is an accomplished dancer. The character, largely, can't dance to save his life.
- Memetic Mutation: It is now popular on the internet to randomly mention how my life got flipped, turned upside down...
- Or frequently, telling an unrelated story and suddenly end it with "and then my mom got scared and said..."
- Fresh Prince of X.
- A couple of dances including the "Carlton Dance" to Tom Jones and the dance Carlton and Will perform together to win a contest.
- And Phil's love for "turkey, with pillowy mounds of mashed potatoes."
- Momma No!!!!!!!!
- And if a video game company doesn't have a lot of games out, somebody's gotta ask themselves, "Where the video games?"
- Nightmare Fuel:
- In one episode Uncle Phil accidentally sits on top of a shoe box containing an adorable white pet bunny. Him killing it, looking inside the box and reacting in horror, and then telling the little boy who owned the bunny is all played for laughs... it... really shouldn't be though.
- Also the bit later where Nikki finds out is meant to be charming, but seeing how disturbingly nonchalant he is about his pet dying and even saying "Death is just a natural part of life" is definitely jarring coming from a 6 year old.
- Non Sequitur Episode: This show had a weird episode, that is all about Will and Carlton making up a story, where Will testifies against a murderer, which forces him and the Banks family to go into hiding in a hillbilly community in the middle of nowhere. Just so Jazz will finally lose to them in Poker.
- Tear Jerker: There are a few peppered in the series, but none of them comes close to the episode "Papa's Got a Brand New Excuse", where Will's natural father comes to Bel-Air to see him ...and leaves him again. The last five minutes will have you bawling your eyes out pretty much without warning; when the credits roll and the camera zooms in on the gift Will bought for his dad—a statue of a father and child—you can hear a pin drop.
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- Tom Hanks Syndrome: Will Smith ran into a career block when trying to keep up the hip, street-savvy black guy he started portraying with this show. Ironically, no one remembered him as "The Fresh Prince" after Independence Day; see the following entry.
- Weird Al Effect: Will Smith manages to do this to himself; the name "Fresh Prince" originally served as his stage name as part of DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, but any and all uses of the term as a nickname for him evaporated after Independence Day and his transition as a solo rap artist in the mid-1990s. Nowadays "Fresh Prince" is universally shorthand for the series, to the point that younger viewers are unaware that it ever meant anything else.
- Likewise, the Theme Tune contains several visual Shout-Outs to the music video "Parents Just Don't Understand", which much of the modern audience has never seen.
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