If the pandemic has given us anything to be thankful for, it’s the nearly endless cast reunions.
Dozens of TV shows and movies have brought their casts together for events ranging from informal virtual hang outs to fully scripted virtual episodes to professionally produced in-person productions. They’ve all been fun—remember when we were losing our minds over that Parks and Recreation episode?—but none have been quite as emotional or as healing or as necessary as the reunion of the cast of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
The show turned 30 this year and celebrated by having the cast—Will Smith, Alfonso Ribeiro, Tatyana Ali, Karyn Parsons, Daphne Maxwell Reid and Joseph Marcell—meet up on the recreated set to share memories, watch old audition tapes and do an awful lot of cathartic crying. We cried, and not just during the segment dedicated to the late James Avery, who played Uncle Phil.
The special was a celebration that somehow also felt like an hour and 15 minutes of therapy, both for the cast and for those of us who spent much of our childhoods (and much of our adulthoods, if we’re honest) rapping that theme song.