7 things we learned on the ‘The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’ reunion

7 things we learned on the ‘The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’ reunion

Almost 25 years after “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” signed off of NBC, the sitcom’s stars sat down on a meticulously recreated Banks family living room set to film a reunion special for HBO Max.

Much of the special was devoted to walking the fans of the show through the process of making the show (from Tuesday and Wednesday rehearsals, to tape nights on Fridays), as well as sharing fond memories from their time working together (and featuring a surprise appearance by Ross Bagley, who played Nicky). In doing so, both in the roundtable setting and individual interview-style talking heads, the group was able to reflect on their experience, as well as the legacy of the show overall.

“The idea that we, as a Black show on TV — one of three at the time — there weren’t really us in the writers’ room,” said Alfonso Ribeiro. “As an actor, you never had a voice — you never had a voice in the room. You were a puppet who was told what to do, ‘Say this line, move over here.’”

But by having a Black family on-screen, millions of audience members around the world tuned in and saw themselves reflected — or tuned in and saw a Black family that was just like their own family.

“Yes it’s fun to watch, but the idea of it translates to so many different places,” said Will Smith.

Here are the top 7 things learned from HBO Max’s “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” reunion:

Smith admits to being a line-mimicker

A few years ago a popular thread on Reddit discussed Smith’s apparent mouthing of other performers’ dialogue in scenes in the hit 1990s sitcom. When asked for early memories of the show, it was the first thing Karyn Parsons, who played Will’s cousin Hilary Banks, called out. Saying she was so nervous during preparation and production for the pilot that she was “praying for an earthquake,” she added that what ended up making her more nervous on the show’s tape night was Smith silently repeating her lines back to her on-set, something he had been doing during rehearsals.

To explain, Smith said, “When we were on the set of the pilot that was my first time really doing dialogue.” “So you did everybody’s dialogue?” Parsons interjected. The answer was yes, he learned everybody’s dialogue and his strong memorization skills are visible if you go back and look at those early episodes, now in streaming.

Janet Hubert left over a ‘bad deal’ but felt ‘banished’ by Smith

The first actor to play Aunt Vivian sat down with Smith to discuss why she left the show, sharing that during the third season (her last), she was pregnant but her home life was “not good at all” and she was “no longer laughing, smiling, joking” because of it.

She took umbrage with the fact that her exit from the show was reported on as her being fired, saying she was offered and rejected a “bad deal”: She wasn’t allowed to work anywhere else when working on the show. “So that meant my salary was cut, I had a new baby and a husband who was out of work. So I said no, I would not accept their offer.”

Although she was “hurt deeply” that they said they were going to recast rather than renegotiate, she felt trapped and like she couldn’t say anything.

“I wasn’t unprofessional on the set, I just stopped talking to everybody because I didn’t know who to trust,” she said, adding that she was told it was Smith who “banished” her. After leaving the show, Hubert said both her family and Hollywood “disowned” her.

“I lost everything — reputation, everything,” she continued. “Those words, calling a Black woman ‘difficult’ in Hollywood is the kiss of death. It’s hard enough being a dark-skinned Black woman in this business.”

Ribeiro auditioned in a track suit

Carlton Banks was a notoriously preppy character. An affluent teenager attending private school in the ritzy Bel-Air sub-section of Los Angeles, he was known for button-down collared shirts and sweaters (often knotted around his neck). But Ribeiro auditioned for the role wearing an Adidas track suit, a fact by which, when faced with the old footage during the reunion, he seemed baffled.

“I know I didn’t go there wearing a sweatsuit believing I was going to get that character,” he said. Maybe in his callback he spruced things up because of course he was hired and the rest, as they say, was history.

Daphne Maxwell Reid turned down the role of Aunt Viv at first. Reid, who joined the series in 1993 after Hubert departed, shared that when her team first called her to tell her about “this new sitcom with a rapper” she said, “Pass.”

She didn’t audition in 1990, but when the show premiered, she said, “Oh damn, that’s cute.” Three seasons later when the show was looking for a new Aunt Viv, this time she said yes.

Show night rituals featured a lot of music

The reunion featured some behind-the-scenes footage inside Smith’s dressing room where the cast said music would be “booming” on tape nights.

“You’d just start following like the Piped Piper,” said Parsons. The party vibe was something that brought everyone together and got them pumped to perform, but they also brought it down with inspiration speeches at times, too. The vibe extended to the live studio audience, too, who “would come to the taping like they were going to a club,” Smith recalled.

To keep the energy up for all involved, there was a basket on set full of tambourines, sticks and other items that could be used to hype up the crowd. Smith himself would grab a microphone and get everyone’s hands in the air, as well.

“It felt like it was a show — it wasn’t a TV show, it was a show,” Ribeiro said.

Black culture was not depicted as a monolith — nor a stereotype

The show started when Smith’s self-titled character went to live with his well-off aunt and uncle in California, which already showcased a Black family in a unique way. But within that family, no two characters were entirely alike, even if many of their circumstances were similar (and privileged).

Parsons recalled a particularly poignant moment for her when the writers and producers wanted to “see a switch” in Hilary to become a “strong Black woman,” and she realized she didn’t want that. “I felt there are some people who are just flawed and see things a different way, and you can [get] a lot from them too,” she explained.

Jeffrey Allen Townes aka DJ Jazzy Jeff looked back on the scene in which his character was testifying in court and at-first didn’t want to put his hands down because the white bailiff had a gun, noting that they focused on stories “that had a truth” to them.

Similarly, they looked back on the time Will and Carlton were pulled over, which gave Carlton a glimpse into how some police see Black men. “What we’d always do with ‘The Fresh Prince,’ there would be very powerful ideas under the jokes, under the comedy,” Smith said.

Sometimes the actors were able to influence these elements of the show — or at least specific lines of dialogue, as Reid recalled telling the writers at a table read that Tatyana Ali had a line that would make “her lose her teeth” if she actually said it to her father in a Black family.

James Avery taught a masterclass in acting, and in life

“I learned that what we do is not for us, it’s not about us; we are here to bring dignity, to represent, to expand, to push forward, and I learned that here, at his feet,” Ali said of working with Avery, the patriarch of the Banks family and “heart of the show,” per the cast.

Avery passed away in 2013, but because his influence and importance was so big, the cast devoted a special section of the reunion to remembering him — and his love of jazz.

“He introduced me to Black art in ways that I wouldn’t have gotten that education anywhere else,” Ali said. Smith added that Avery “pushed me so hard. His thing was, ‘I am in such a unique position, and that responsibility, you must elevate your craft. You have to represent and you are paving a way.’”

During the scene in which Will goes off on not needing his father but then ends up breaking down and asking his uncle why the man doesn’t want him, Smith also shared that he flubbed the line at first, Avery reset him by telling him to “use me,” and then at the end of the take when they were embracing, Avery whispered in his ear, “Now that’s acting.”

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HBO Max’s ‘Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’ reunion special gets it right

Today, “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” is considered one of the best sitcoms of all time. Its success is so blinding that a recent New York Times piece asserts that when the show got its start in 1990, “networks, encouraged by the success of ‘The Cosby Show’ and the rise of hip-hop, were investing in sitcoms featuring Black actors.”

Such praise, while well-intentioned, inadvertently glosses over just how trailblazing “The Fresh Prince” really was, a reality emphasized in HBO Max’s highly enjoyable reunion special this week.

But in fact, when “The Fresh Prince” first aired, there was no “Living Single” starring Queen Latifah or “In The House” starring LL Cool J. “Martin” didn’t premiere until 1992. The shows that did exist, like “Family Matters,” which got its start on ABC in 1989, were more wrapped up in the standard sitcom tropes, only with Black casts. So such praise, while well-intentioned, inadvertently glosses over just how trailblazing “The Fresh Prince” really was, a reality emphasized in HBO Max’s highly enjoyable reunion special this week.

While we now look back and can’t imagine a world without “The Fresh Prince,” the truth is it’s kind of surprising the show was made at all. TV at the time was dominated by the three big networks — CBS, ABC and NBC. The 1990s have since become known as a high point for Black sitcoms, but when “The Fresh Prince” premiered, there were few if any comparable shows on CBS or ABC; the Peacock stood alone. In fact, NBC had something of a monopoly on premier Black sitcoms, with “The Cosby Show,” “A Different World” and “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” all on its roster at the same time.

In the preceding decades, Black-cast classics like “Good Times,” “Sanford and Son” and “The Jeffersons” existed, but TV was still largely for white people. Hip-hop was also far from the mainstream pop culture force it would eventually become.

The show’s fish-out-of-water concept, as several critics of the time noted, wasn’t new. But marrying hip-hop culture, fashion, humor, attitude and even rhymes was. And thus, a story about a Black kid from West Philadelphia sent to live with his wealthy uncle and aunt in Bel-Air became more than just another TV comedy. Instead, it became a vehicle to explore important issues facing the Black community that resonated within and outside the group. “The Fresh Prince” made it cool to be fly, normalizing a celebration of Black wealth — from head to toe — embraced with materialistic glee in rap songs but rarely in mainstream culture.

In the reunion, a win for fledgling HBO Max, Will Smith and his cast — DJ Jazzy Jeff, Alfonso Ribeiro (known in 1990 for his Michael Jackson Pepsi commercial and the hit sitcom “Silver Spoons”), Tatyana Ali, Karyn Parsons, Joseph Marcell and Daphne Maxwell Reid come together for an hour of memories and commentary that swing from humorous to poignant to powerful. The cast, better known as Jazz, Carlton, Ashley, Hillary, Geoffrey and the second Aunt Viv, look as personally connected today as they ever have. And though James Avery, who played beloved Uncle Phil, is no longer with us, his presence is strongly felt.

The way the show tackled race over its six seasons was subtle but still groundbreaking.

The way the show tackled race over its six seasons was subtle but still groundbreaking. In the reunion, cast members note how hard they worked to ensure that the show, despite being staffed with white writers, reflected a strong Black culture base. This is a burden recognizable to many Black Americans — the extra effort required just to be seen. Yet the “Fresh Prince” cast relays it with little acrimony. “Whenever we would come across moments that they wrote that [read] like ’this wouldn’t happen — Black people don’t do this,’” the cast, Ribeiro says, “made sure that we were authentic every episode.”

Part of that authenticity included shedding light on police bias and systemic racism. “Part of the power of what we would always do with ‘The Fresh Prince,’” says Smith, is “there would be very powerful ideas under the jokes and under the comedy.”

James Avery, Ali notes, never failed to communicate their collective responsibility to present Black people on TV with dignity. Smith also credits Avery with pushing him to earn his title as an actor. His TV family agrees that he gave the show its Black artistic core, shaped in particular by his love of jazz. It’s yet another reminder of how Black culture has long been suppressed and stereotyped — and one more example of how trailblazing “The Fresh Prince” really was.

Janet Hubert-Whitten’s presence and acknowledgment as the original Aunt Viv is sobering, and it highlights the unique challenges Black women, especially those with darker complexions, face in Hollywood and the workplace at large. That she is there at all, considering her and Smith’s decadeslong feud, is a holiday miracle. But it’s an extremely pleasant one.

Reviewing the show for The Hollywood Reporter when it premiered, Miles Beller concluded that “The Fresh Prince” was “bubble gum rap, a sticky confection that runs out of flavor faster than you can rhyme ‘flat’ with ‘rap.’”

Thirty years later, however, “The Fresh Prince” has done more than maintain its flavor. Perhaps the secret sauce that so many critics missed back then — and maybe even now — was a very rare sort of chemistry. (And Smith notes that recognizing chemistry has long been a superpower of his.) Ultimately, the cast’s “excellence,” Ali says, “was the way we loved each other.” And the show’s very tangible “Black joy” and “Black love” will likely ensure that “The Fresh Prince” remains a classic for generations to come.

‘The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air Reunion’: TV Review

‘The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air Reunion’: TV Review

Will Smith, Alfonso Ribeiro, and Aunt Vivs Janet Hubert and Daphne Maxwell Reid return alongside the rest of the cast for HBO Max’s unscripted reunion.

Few things feel as preordained as HBO Max’s The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air Reunion, especially during a year that saw several iconic TV casts (minus the Friends) come together to remember good times and provide comforting, feel-good entertainment to homebound fans. What does surprise about the special is how moving, even cathartic, it is, reuniting Will Smith with Janet Hubert, who played Aunt Viv until she was replaced by Daphne Maxwell Reid after the third season, for the first time in 27 years.

Much of the special finds the 1990-1996 series’ core cast — Smith, Reid, Tatyana M. Ali (Ashley), Karyn Parsons (Hilary), Alfonso Ribeiro (Carlton) and Joseph Marcell (Geoffrey) — gathered on a recreation of the series’ living-room set. (James Avery, who played Uncle Phil, died in 2013, while Ross Bagley, who played Baby Nicky, makes a late cameo.) The obligatory clips reveal the younger actors to be just as outrageously talented as you remember, and the more seasoned performers making the most of their less-showy roles. Though the actors appear as themselves, rather than their characters, the charisma and chemistry they evinced as the Bankses is in full view, as is their obvious and bone-deep fondness for each other.

The reunion is both strengthened and limited by the focus on the cast. It’s fun to watch them watch Ribeiro and Parsons’ audition tapes, for example, which leads to an observation that however insecure the actress felt during her (admittedly limp) line readings, she’d already nailed her ditzy character’s petulant, over-confident lower-jaw placement. In a later segment dedicated to Avery — whom Smith remembers as a “six-foot-four Shakespearean beast” — the younger cast members recall the education in Black artistic and musical traditions that the stage-trained actor was always eager to impart. The series-making line “how come he don’t want me, man?", uttered by an angry and defeated Will about his estranged father to Uncle Phil, gains even more poignancy when Smith tells of how Avery was a supportive father figure to him both in character and between takes.

The only thing more implausible than the story of a West Philadelphia teen shipped across the country to live with his Beverly Hills relatives is the stratospheric rise of Smith himself, even before he became one of the biggest movie stars on Earth. Smith is easily able to access his dazed 21-year-old self, a rising rapper who got talked into auditioning for NBC execs waiting in the next room over at Quincy Jones’ mansion despite never having acted before — and how it seemed much more surreal to him than thrilling or triumphant. But the special then fast-forwards to six weeks later, to Smith’s first day on set. How Susan and Andy Borowitz came to create the show — and if the cast ever advocated for more Black writers and directors — aren’t to be found in the reunion.

The cast was always aware that most of the show’s writers were white — and it was thus incumbent upon them to contribute to the scripts. (“We made sure we were authentic, every episode,” beams Ribeiro.) It’s genuinely heartwarming to see that the cast felt welcome to provide input, especially when it came to matters of race. But even the most cursory scan of the show’s Wikipedia page reveals the credits for Black writers like John Ridley, Winifred Hervey, Devon Shepard, Maiya Williams and Samm-Art Williams. Which isn’t to say that the Borowitzes couldn’t have done more to bring in more Black voices and POVs behind the scenes — the reunion special’s table-read footage shows the Black cast often surrounded by white writers, producers and crew members. But it would’ve been fascinating to get a more nuanced perspective on the dynamics in the writers room and how they interplayed with the actors’ requests. But that would’ve required bringing in viewpoints beyond the cast’s.

Ali argues lyrically for the important representation that the show offered, but it also might’ve been more interesting to get a sense of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’s role within the flourishing of Black sitcoms during the ‘90s, when the series overlapped with The Cosby Show, A Different World, Living Single, Martin, Family Matters, Sister, Sister and more. It’s particularly here that a scholar or a network exec’s perspective would’ve expanded the special’s examination of the show’s legacy.

But the headlines are destined to seize on the meeting between Smith and Hubert, which, despite aggressive editing, retains a raw and uneasy intensity. The actress alludes to the ways they’ve spoken unkindly toward each other in public, and we finally get an airing-out of what led to Hubert’s departure from the show that feels balanced, if also begging for more details. “I made the set very difficult for Janet,” Smith admits, and Hubert, who appears cautious of appearing unsympathetic next to one of the most famous and beloved A-listers on the planet, strives to hold her former co-star accountable with as much graciousness as possible.

“I lost everything,” she tells Smith, at a time when she had a new baby and was stuck in a “very abusive marriage.” “Calling a Black woman difficult in Hollywood is the kiss of death… and it’s hard enough being a dark-skinned Black woman in this business,” she adds. A quarter-century after it went off the air, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air is still tackling thorny issues.

Premieres Thursday, Nov. 18, on HBO Max