Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, August 21, 1993 TAG: 9308210270
SECTION: SPECTATOR PAGE: S-17 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: HARRIET WINSLOW THE WASHINGTON POST
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
With his musical single "Boom!" just released, an album to follow and two feature films out this year, is there room in his schedule for the hit NBC series?
Sure, said the 24-year-old dynamo in the midst of a schedule that would take him to six cities in short order. The show returns for a fourth season Sept. 20, and Smith, who has added television-production worries to his already lengthy agenda, is excited about the changes he's working into the successful sitcom.
"I'm committed for two more (seasons)," he said. "Television is the easiest job for any entertainer: The actors are the highest-paid people and do the least amount of work. The reason that the show is so successful is largely because of the people behind the scenes, the ones you never see. It's not like we (actors) really have to work."
They just try to have a good time, he said.
It was a remarkably candid comment from a young man whose series has top-20 ratings. "Fresh Prince" tied for 16th during the 1992-93 season, up from 19th the season before, in addition to winning the NAACP's "Best Comedy Series" award in 1992. That same year Smith also won a Golden Globe nomination for best performance by an actor in a television series.
Jeff Townes is the other half of D.J. Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince, who together won a Grammy Award in 1988 for their rap performance from their second album, "He's the DJ, I'm the Rapper." They were nominated for another in 1989 for "I Think I Can Beat Mike Tyson" from their third album, "In This Corner."
A track from their fourth album, "Homebase," garnered another Grammy in 1991.
And the 6-foot-2 actor-singer took home his best award when he and wife Sheree Zampino had a son, Will Smith III, about nine months ago. The family lives in Los Angeles, where Sheree has help raising the tot. "My son has two grandmothers, two great-grandmothers and one great-great grandmother," he said.
The clean-cut "Fresh Prince" sitcom centers around Judge Philip Banks (James Avery) and his family, who live in the wealthy Los Angeles suburb of Bel-Air. This season Daphne Maxwell Reid replaces Janet Hubert-Whitten as Will's Aunt Vivian. Karyn Parsons and Tatyana M. Ali play his cousins Hilary and Ashley; Alfonso Ribeiro is his cousin Carlton; and Joseph Marcell is Geoffrey the butler. Since Aunt Viv gave birth to a baby last spring, the cast will also have a toddler to play with.
During the first season, the Bankses rescued street-smart Will from the rougher elements of west Philadelphia. As the series continued, Will coped with the culture shock of living in posh digs with a butler and attending a tony high school from which he graduated (just barely) at the end of last season.
This fall Will and Carlton begin college together. "It's sort of UCLA-ish," said Smith. "ULA - University of Los Angeles - is what it will be called."
The fictional university will have "fighting peacocks" for mascots, a reference to the oft-beleaguered NBC network. And the terrible two will live in the Bankses' pool house until mid-season, when they'll move into a college dorm.
But the Banks home will remain the center of the action, which is important to Smith.
"It's a family show, and the family is the most important thing to the show. So we'll be in the house every show," said Smith, who also serves as a series producer.
He has a lofty goal: "I would like to have an episode that's as popular as `Roseanne.' " And he believes that will depend largely on the writers' talents. "The show has done nowhere near what the cast is up to," he said.
"Fresh Prince" is among the few series that appeal to both black and white fans, according to an annual study titled "Report on Black Television Viewing" by the advertising agency BBDO Worldwide. (Two others are "Roseanne" and "Hangin' with Mr. Cooper.")
"The past few years it was pretty difficult to have my vision realized," Smith said. "This year Gary Miller is the executive producer, and we absolutely, 100 percent, agree about everything . . . down to what people should be wearing and what the show is really about and who the characters are."
by CNB