Wait — ‘Family Matters’ Was a Spin-Off?

There are probably a few people who learned about Family Matters — which anchored ABC’s “TGIF” block of Friday night family sitcoms for nine seasons — from the sketch on Key & Peele that satirized it. You know the one. Jordan Peele, doing an impeccable impression of Reginald VelJohnson, rants about the ridiculous turn the show has taken since the explosion in popularity of the character of Steve Urkel… only to find out that “Steve Urkel” is not a fictional nerd played by Jaleel White, but an actual malevolent super-entity, whose will cannot be disobeyed. The sketch keeps alive the narrative that Family Matters sharply pivoted from grounded family stories to zany sci-fi adventures over the course of its run, which is true, and suggests that this was the work of a demon, which is plausible. But it also implies that the show was originally designed around the character of Carl Winslow, the family patriarch played by VelJohnson. This is false. The show was inspired by the work of Jo Marie Payton, who played Carl’s wife, Harriette Winslow, a character that she originated on ABC’s equally legendary sitcom, Perfect Strangers.

Harriette Winslow Was a Supporting Character On ‘Perfect Strangers’

Perfect Strangers was a two-hander starring Mark Linn-Baker and Bronson Pinchot as Larry and Balki, a pair of cousins and roommates in Chicago. Larry is a scheming and ambitious Midwesterner, Balki is his distant relative from the sheep herding island of Mypos. Larry’s willingness to lie and cut corners clashed with Balki’s virtuous innocence, as the two got into slapstick adventures that were, surprisingly often, life-threatening. In Season 3, Larry gets a job working at a newspaper, and Harriette Winslow, the building’s elevator operator who knows all the hot gossip, is the first character we meet there.
Harriette plays an important role in the Season 3 premiere. When Larry tries to get Balki a job in the office mailroom (the two rarely spend any time apart) the obstacle is the abusive Mr. Gorpley, who hates Balki on sight and refuses to hire him. It’s Harriette who saves the day, blackmailing Gorpley with one of her many unsavory elevator operator’s secrets. This storyline sets the template for how the character would be used in both shows. Hariette begins the episode gliding above the main plot, supportive (she always calls both Larry and Balki “baby”) but detached. Eventually though, she gets dragged into the story, and decides to get her hands dirty.

Payton had done plenty of television before Perfect Strangers, and, gifted with both a commanding voice and a surprisingly shy expressiveness, she knew how to deliver comedically. Harriette never became a big part of the cousins’ exploits; usually she would just float in now and then to land a zinger or two during the show’s many office scenes. But the show’s producers, the hall-of-fame duo Thomas Miller and Robert Boyett, loved her energy and began developing a spinoff for her. During her second season on Perfect Strangers, they cast VelJohnson as her husband, and introduced him to Larry and Balki. When Balki gets a little too nosey into her marriage, she elbows him aside and delivers the line, “This is a family matter.” The rest is history!

‘Family Matters’ Began as a Show About the Winslows

The character of Steve Urkel was not introduced into Family Matters until the middle of the first season, so you do get a glimpse of what the show was originally intended to be. Similarly to another Miller-Boyett family sitcom, Full House, the show features a somewhat eccentrically shaped extended family living under one roof. There’s Carl, Harriette, and their three children, Laura, Eddie, and Judy (Kelly Shanygne Williams, Darius McCrary, and Jaimee Foxworth). Harriette’s sister Rachel (Telma Hopkins) also lives with them, and Carl’s mother, Estelle (Rosetta LeNoire), moves in during the pilot. Carl, a more consistently comic figure, is convinced that living with his mother will be unbearable, but Harriette is certain she’ll be great to have around. Much of the pilot episode’s comedy come from Harriette gradually realizing her husband is right, and coming down to his level.

Although the show was designed around Payton, it didn’t center around her, it featured each member of the family equally. The second episode is a Harriette episode, in which she’s fired from her job as an elevator operator. She takes some knocks in this episode, and fails a lot. There are flashes of the more Mary Tyler Moore or Lucille Ball styled performance of perpetual futility, which Payton probably could have delivered. But the show never really goes there. Harriette herself is a funny person, but the show rarely pokes fun at her, and it’s hard to find a moment where the character truly loses her dignity.