Page 60 - Will Smith: A Biography of a Rapper Turned Movie Star

Will Smith
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revenge. She said she sometimes reprimanded him for being
rude, and this was his way of getting back at her. Their
disagreements did not make either Hubert-Whitten or Smith
look good in the public eye.16
When new episodes of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
resumed on television in fall 1993, the character of Aunt Viv
was played by a different actress: Daphne Maxwell Reid, who
had appeared as a lead in a number of other TV series. This
change in casting was barely addressed in the show. The only
reference to it was a comment by Jeff Townes, playing Jazz.
At one point, Jazz tells Aunt Viv that she sure has changed
since she had the baby.
Philip and Viv’s son Nicky made his first appearance at
the beginning of the fourth season. In the world of television
sitcoms, time does not move as it does in real life. Even
though Nicky had been born in the spring of 1993, when the
show started up again less than a year later, he was already
five years old.
Audiences did not care that the baby seemed to have
gone through a time machine. The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
finished the 1993–1994 season ranked as the twenty-first
most watched program.17 Even so, Smith knew that the
show would not go on forever. He wanted something even
bigger—a blockbuster movie hit.