Family Matters' iconic nerd Steve Urkel will return in a brand new animated special.
WarnerMedia Kids & Family has announced the return of TGIF's favorite nerd in a new, Christmas-themed TV special which will debut on Cartoon Network later this year. The special, entitled Did I Do That to The Holidays: A Steve Urkel Story, will be an animated musical starring the bane of Carl Winslow's existence. Jaleel White will reprise the role that put his face on action figures, board games, and breakfast cereals throughout the 90's. Warner has not revealed if any of the other cast members from the classic sitcom will also return for the special.
Did I Do That to The Holidays sees Steve accidentally humiliate his local shopping mall's Santa Claus, causing the entire city to lose its holiday spirit. In true Urkel fashion, Steve then sets out to build a new invention that will revitalize everyone's Christmas cheer, and he may just run into the real Santa Claus while he's at it.
Urkel's return to television will help kick off Cartoon Network's new "ACME Night" block, which will dedicate Sunday nights to family friendly programming. Warner is also preparing a brand new animated Batman special, entitled Merry Little Batman, as well as a brand new Looney Tunes TV movie, which will both also premiere on ACME Night. Warner's new TV specials will also make their way to the HBO Max streaming service at a later point. The block is also scheduled to air live-action movies, including Shazam and Detective Pikachu.
Family Matters originally aired on ABC from 1989-1997, and moved to CBS for its final season in 1998. A spinoff of the popular Perfect Strangers TV series, Family Matters was originally envisioned as a grounded sitcom about the day-to-day lives of a working class Black family living in the suburbs of Chicago. That vision for the series changed, however, with the introduction of Steve Urkel, an awkward, strange nerd who was a neighbor of the series' central characters, the Winslow family. Initially intended to be a one-off character, Urkel became the breakout star of the show, and the series eventually pivoted to more over-the-top storylines involving robotic doubles, clones, out of control jetpacks and trips to outer space.
This is not the first time Urkel has made the jump from live-action to animation: the character previously appeared in 2020 series Scooby-Doo and Guess Who?. The story featured Urkel losing control of his robotic doubles, the Urkelbots, and enlisting the aid of Shaggy and Scooby-Doo in order to stop their rampage.
A premiere date for Did I Do That to The Holidays: A Steve Urkel Story has not been announced at this time.
Source: WarnerMedia