A review by nerdyprettythings
Growing Up Urkel by Jaleel White

3.0

So... hmm. I mostly enjoyed this and I really like listening to celebrity memoirs read by the celebrity, and I learned some wild stuff about the treatment Jaleel White got on set of Family Matters. Did you know he was never listed as the lead actor on the show despite becoming the clear main character? Or that Urkel was originally supposed to be a one-off character mid-season 1 and not there from the beginning? Or that Family Matters was a spin-off for Harriette Winslow (the family's mom)?

Despite them not knowing everything they probably should have given his stardom, it was also great to read about a child star who had really great parents.

Later on, he's telling stories about pitching Bill Cosby and R Kelly and begging readers to understand that these are in the very different context of the 90s, and I was okay with doing that. Butttt then I started getting the distinct impression that a lot of stories about arguments and frustrations with women displayed his pretty poor treatment of them, and we got the old

"I didn't know how to treat women until I had a daughter" line.

Andddd then he closed the book by talking about how he's besties with Dave Chappelle and included, in the year of our lord 2024, Bill Cosby in his book acknowledgements section. So I'm left with a pretty bad taste in my mouth around Jaleel White