Jaleel White Says His Family Matters Reboot Isn’t Dead, Reveals He Has Something ‘Cooking’

Jaleel White’s out-of-the-box idea for a Family Matters “reboot” might still have a future.

The actor, 48, has downplayed the possibility of a revival of the beloved TGIF series, in which he starred as lovable nerd Steve Urkel. But on the most recent episode of David Duchovny’s Fail Better podcast, White described his vision for a series that would incorporate elements of his own experience joining Family Matters midway through its first season.

“I always saw the reboot, as involving another kid that didn’t necessarily play Urkel Junior,” he said. “I thought the show should be about a kid, period, who goes on to a failing sitcom in the ’90s and upsets the apple cart but ends up saving the day.”

“The show should really be about this kid’s normal life behind-the-scenes, going to public school, because I went to public school the entire time I was on that show, and his parents who know nothing about the business at all,” White continued.

White said he sees the series as a half-hour streaming show similar to the original Wonder Years. The show, he said, would “use this this nucleus of three, this mom, dad and this kid as a journey back into the ’90s … to explore a completely different time. That, I thought, would have been a compelling show that you could get a lot of different generations to appreciate.”

Duchovny agreed that the idea sounded compelling. “I don’t think that’s dead in my mind,” the host said.

“It’s not,” White responded. “I’m cooking out here. I’m actually cooking.”

Asked whether he would be in a potential reboot, White admitted he wasn’t sure.

“I think that would take some, you know, development,” he said. “There’s a version of it where I could participate, and then there’s a version of it where I’m maybe just voiceover, and there’s a version of it also that could be more like Survivor’s Remorse, you know, which is LeBron James’ story on Starz where it’s all new characters and you know what it’s inspired by, but it’s not necessarily me at all.”

“It was never about me. It was about telling the best story for the times,” he added.

While talk of a Family Matters reboot has circulated in recent years in the wake of successful revivals of other ’90s sitcoms like The Conners and Fuller House, White has suggested that he’s not particularly interested in just getting his original cast back together to find out where their characters are now.

“I really study why our shows work. And it has nothing to do with me not loving our old property,” he said during his September 2024 90s Con panel in Daytona Beach, Fla. “I also know our strengths and weaknesses the way a coach wound know his lineup. I’m not going to try us out on the field for anything less than absolute victory.”

The original show’s “magic,” he added, “belongs only in the ’90s.”

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“Just doing a reboot of Family Matters where Steve is married to Laura, there’s no tension there,” he added, referring to former costar Kellie Shanygne Williams’ character Laura Winslow. “You’d watch for one episode and discover my voice is a little deeper and get mad at that.”