The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air left us with plenty of iconic moments, but Carlton’s dance is in a league of its own.
For six seasons, The prince of Bel Air was one of the seriesmost successful on American television and replicated that success around the world. It was the series that catapulted Will Smith to fame before becoming a film idol, the series of the two aunts Viv… the series of Carlton dance.
Although Will Smith was the undisputed star of The prince of Bel Air, each member of the Banks family had their time to shine. Some did not take advantage of the opportunity and offered sincere but typical performances. Then we had Alfonso Ribeiroclear.
The actor who played Carlton Banks even eclipsed Will Smith in some moments of the series. His role as a posh kid wouldn’t have been the same without his iconic dance, often to the tune of Tom Jones: the Carlton.
Ribeiro had plenty of chances to perform the dance throughout the six seasons of The prince of Bel Air and, in fact, even Will Smith tried to imitate him, without much success, in the final episode of the series.
Alfonso Ribeiro’s big secret in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
In 2021, when the iconic sitcom celebrated 25 years since the final episode aired, Ribeiro admitted that he deliberately avoided teaching Will Smith the steps of his hypnotic wobble. He related it this way in a talk with Yahoo!.
“My goal was to make him look bad. If she had perfected it, it could have been Will’s dance, and she couldn’t allow that!“
The actor’s moments dancing in the series are one of the things that are most remembered when talking about The prince of Bel Airalong with Will’s jokes about his Uncle Phil (James Avery) or the many forced departures of Jazzof the Banks mansion.
