Ok, so let me just come out and admit it before you read anything else. I actually caught Alfonso Ribeiro on Dancing With The Stars dancing to Will Smith’s “Getting Jiggy With It.” Fuck it, it’s Carlton Banks. Plus, his partner Witney is real cute and they both killed it, so there’s nothing to be embarrassed about. The only thing left was for Will Smith and his family to show up clapping in the audience. Alfonso’s a clear front-runner for the title this season.
If you’re anything like me, though, you probably grew up watching Carlton pull off mad stunts and dances to Tom Jones every other episode on Fresh Prince of Bel-Air anyway, so this is nothing new. The “Carlton dance” became a thing, and something people still talk about to this day.
Considering Fresh Prince is no more and it’s getting harder to catch an episode on syndication anywhere on cable (thanks to the un-funny Big Bang Theory takeover on TBS), I went back and tried to find a bunch of classic Carlton Banks dances from one of my all-time favorite ’90s shows. I found a few on Youtube and watching the clips makes me want to fire up my modded first generation XBOX and watch every episode starting from Season 1 like if it was on NetFlix. I don’t know how I managed to collect every episode from that show and put it on there (unfortunately not in HD).
For those missing the Banks family, I dedicate this post to you.
Catch Alfonso Ribeiro pulling off more hip action every Monday on this season’s Dancing With The Stars, which airs at 8pm on ABC.
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