I think today's fact ably demonstrates how my lust for trivia can kick in even during the most depressing, heart-wrenching pieces of literature. I was reading an article, admittedly in crap free paper Shortlist - by the way guys, you don't have to put a caption on EVERY SINGLE PICTURE - about the fateful epidemic of gun crime amongst African-Americans in Philadelphia, but to be honest, all I can remember is this:
Will Smith really was born and raised in Philadelphia.
Specifically, he was in fact actually brought up in West Philadelphia, just as the funky theme tune to the Fresh Prince testifies. This is on a couple of different sites, although someone's pushed it too far on Wikipedia by claiming that 'he would spend most of his time in the playground, playing basketball, outside of the school', to which the moderators have attached a snippy 'citation needed' footnote. Uh, it's in the song? Freaking idiots. It seems that The Fresh Prince was pretty much autobiographical for ol' Big Willy - he did indeed move to Beverley Hills and live the high life, riding a wave of success as part of immortal U.S. duo Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince.
Admittedly, they did decide to omit this part of his life story from the song - as far as I recall, he is transported from playground to mansion because his mum was worried about him getting beaten up, and then apparently gets a cab all the way to California (or they just cut half the credits out after the pilot overran by 2 minutes). You can check out the full, only-ever-seen-once (well, probably about four times with all the repeats) pilot credits here, but I still don't think it mentions a rap group, a car in a swimming pool and a slow embarrassing fall from limelight, to the point where he was prepared to do some stupid show called 'The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air'.
I've got a lot of time for The Fresh Prince though. There's always one funny bit (Carlton does a dance, Will gives Phil some sass, G delivers a put-down that varies from dry wit to all-out slander) and always a serious, moral bit at the end. It's like The Simpsons that knew when to quit. And I mean, just look at the DVD cover. How could it fail? That's all for today - I've got to do the other half of that application, and I think I'd better remove my desperate mention of this very blog, which I described as a commentary on current affairs, when it is in fact quite clearly a jibbering diatribe on 20-year-old TV shows...
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