WHV Announcement: Family Matters: The Complete First Season

Some first season DVD's just look you straight in the eye and say "ONE AND DONE."

If this show was so damn requested, why couldn't there have been a complete set, a la Ally McBeal, Daria, It's Garry Shandling's Show and the Real Ghostbusters? That way Warner's inevitable and obligatory abandonment of this show due to low sales wouldn't sting as much.

Wow, it's about time! I'd given up on this release. Wasn't it announced at one point and then pulled ?  Perhaps for music rights issues. I'm glad it's finally coming out but the front cover art is misleading. Of course they've put Urkel up front as everyone knew they would. However, he was only a guest star in the first season back when the show had much more balance.  The other obvious cover art "problem" is that they aren't using the show's official title graphic. It's just a generic font. I hope that can be changed before the release date. It also seems like that's the first Judy Winslow and not the actress who played her after the pilot. Geez, who put this cover art together ?

Urkel first appears, in glorious nerd form, in episode #12 "Laura's First Date." It's obvious from the jump off that they'd found a great new character.  Supposedly before this episode had even aired the producers had already decided to keep Urkel around. A great idea although they would quickly allow the character to take over the show instead of keeping the focus on the family. The bottom line is that the show needed the ratings and Urkel was their keys to the kingdom. Unfortunately, this meant the almost complete wasting of talented veterans like Jo-Marie Payton (who the show was created for) & Telma Hopkins, both of whom would eventually leave the series.

As insanely enjoyable as the show could be, they should really have taken a page from The Simpsons who chose not to turn into "The Bart Show" even after that character took off like a rocket ship.

So who's wondering whether "What A Wonderful World" will still be included as the theme to the first episode ? I'm guessing not even though it's included in the syndie versions. Why pay for a song that only appeared once ?


Edited by David Rain - 3/3/10 at 2:53am

I agree ... it IS about time!

Every true sitcom is built around a funny guy, or is it every funny guy is built around a show?   Most straight actors take a back seat to their comical lead. It's written above that everybody loves Urkel.  Not around the coffee table where  I sat around they didn't.  Hey, it was said by a foxy, younger chick and who was I to disagree even though I was in  the majority.   So about a half  dozen of us liked (not loved) Urkel.   However, Urkel was on the airways for 9 big ones!  My point!  Is this going to become aother incomplete show as time goes on?   Right now I don't know what to do about Urkel.   I liked J.J Evans but I didn't buy that until Sams Club was almost giving them away.  If everybody ndeed loves Urkel then I guess we'll see if 9 seasons holds up.

The pilot episode of "Family Matters" was available on one of those sampler DVDs that you got inside a WBTV box set since 2005. It was a syndicated print, however.