In the House (TV)

In the House was a situation comedy starring LL Cool J. It was a spinoff of Will Smith's hit show, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. The show ran from 1995 to 1999. It originated on NBC before moving to the upstart UPN for its second season.

LL Cool J played Marion Hill, a former star football player with the NFL's Los Angeles Raiders who was a guardian for Tiffany Warren (Maia Campbell). In the show's first season, Marion was also the guardian for Tiffany's annoying little brother Austin (Jeffrey Wood). Debbie Allen, whose greatest claim to fame was, obviously, starring in the movie Fame and the TV show of the same name, played Jackie Warren, Tiffany and Austin's mother, during the first season of the show.

Marion was also an employee at a Los Angeles sports clinic. One of his coworkers was the flirtatious Tonia Harris (Kim Wayans), and two later additions to the show were Dr. Maxwell "Max" Stanton (Alfonso Ribeiro) and his fiancee, Mercedes Langford (Lark Voorhies).

The show had a heavy Fresh Prince influence on it. During the first season, Alfonso Ribeiro reprised his Fresh Prince role of Carlton Banks, and Tatyana Ali played his sister Ashley Banks. When Max and Mercedes got married, James Avery and Daphne Maxwell Reid played Max's parents. (Avery and Reid are best known for portraying Fresh Prince characters Philip Banks and Vivian Banks, respectively.) In addition, Joseph Marcell, who had played the wisecracking Geoffrey Butler on Fresh Prince, was the officiating minister at the wedding. A memorable moment in the wedding episode occurs when, at the reception, Avery's character asks the minister to fill his drink, to which the minister answers:

"I'm God's servant, not yours."

It is at that moment that Avery tells Reid that the minister looks like someone they once knew (although Max's parents are neither from Los Angeles nor Philadelphia, but rather from Boston).

Will Smith himself never appeared on the show.