“Growing Up Urkel” by Jaleel White
c.2024, Simon & Schuster $28.99 336 pages
At some point in the next few weeks, somebody’s going to bring up That Story.
You know the one: That Story happened fifteen or twenty years ago, when you were a kid and did something dumb that became a hilarious tale for an elder to pull out every holiday. Har-dee-har-har. As in the new memoir, “Growing Up Urkel” by Jaleel White, being an adult doesn’t give you a pass.
It was only meant to be a single appearance.
Twelve-year-old Jaleel White was a veteran of television, having already appeared in a handful of TV shows and commercials, so he knew what he needed to do to land a bit role on a popular ABC sitcom. He dressed the part, showed up for the audition, and was cast in a one-time role of a neighbor of the Winslows on Family Matters.
That episode was so well-received that White became a permanent member of the cast.
As an only child, White says he was raised with a sort of humbleness: his parents encouraged him to reach for his dreams, but they never told him that he was “famous.” Like all Hollywood stars, he had an agent, a contract, and a salary but when he wanted money, his mother never gave him more than $300 at a time. Wealth, to White’s parents, was never the goal. College was, and they made sure that funding his education was part of the deal.
Years later, by the time the show was canceled, White was ready to move on. He’d gone from a five-foot-tall adolescent into an athletic young man. He’d taken the character as far as he figured he could, while learning to stand up for himself and how to write for TV.
“My life started the day that Family Matters ended,” he says.
Even so, he writes, years would go by before he was able to merge the man he wished to be with the nerd most people remembered him as.
If you were ever a fan of ’90s sitcoms, you might not know it but you’ve been waiting for a book like this. Author Jaleel White is a big boy now and in “Growing Up Urkel,” he shares with readers what it’s like to become an adult in front of millions.
But that’s just part of That Story.
White also gives readers repeated peeks behind many different Hollywood curtains to reveal the warts of stardom: agents who take advantage of naivete, people who talk big but never deliver, actors who turn nasty behind the camera, and an entire you-scratch-my-back-I-scratch-yours industry that’s only survivable with fortitude and perseverance. This book isn’t just about broken dreams, though. White remembers former cast members and other actors with affection, and he shares anecdotes that will make you nostalgic.
As told by a boy-turned-man, a former kid in the limelight looking back, “Growing Up Urkel” is an interesting take on Tinseltown and it may spur you to set up a binge-watch date soon. For anyone who loves a good memoir, you’ll like That Story.
