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• Crazy Awesome: Carlton Dance.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Hilary's long-time boyfriend Trevor dying unexpectedly? Tragic and unsettling. Hilary's long-time boyfriend Trevor dying by hitting the ground while bungee jumping as he was proposing to Hilary live on the news channel he worked for with her entire family and presumably hundreds of others watching? One of the most hilarious moments in the show's tenure.
  Will: I ain't no bungee expert or nothin', but I don't think he's suppose to be slammin' into the ground like that.
  • It's even funnier and possibly crosses the line four or five times, considering she didn't even realize that something had gone wrong when he died, and to quote The Other Wiki
    He eventually proposes to Hilary, but she insists that he officially proposes on live television later that day. Trevor then proposes to her on television while bungee jumping, and dies during the stunt when something goes wrong with the jump and he hits the ground. Hilary mourns his death by bringing back what she presumes to be Trevor's ashes in an urn, but later learns that Trevor was not cremated, and that she grabbed a stranger's urn.
    Hillary: "EEW! Then who is this!?"
    Geoffery: *grabs the urn* "I'll show him to the door, sir."
  • The time Phil killed Nicky's bunny rabbit...by sitting on it.
    • Even funnier is that when Phil tries to explain death to Nicky by talking about The Lion King, Nicky just looks at his dad & asks if he sat on the rabbit.
  • "Asses to Ashes", in which at Judge Robertson's funeral not a single person has anything nice to say about him. One guy even says "The only reason I'm here is to make sure he's really dead!" Then, when Will (who felt responsible for his death, as he had been yelling at Robertson for playing dirty in the Superior Court election seconds before he died) said to the people in attendance "I'm the one who killed him," everyone applauds him.
    Will: Tough crowd.
• Dude, Not Funny!: In this case, Played for Laughs when Geoffrey unveiled his hidden shame of leaving England because years ago he was caught taking a taxi in order to win a marathon (he thought the information might ruin Philip's political campaign, and yes, that marathon thing has happened in real life, albeit accidentally). After showing them the video, everyone sat in silence for a good ten seconds before bursting into laughter. Geoffrey was not amused.
  • A lot of Will's insults towards Carlton, particularly those about his height, can come off as incredibly mean-spirited.
• Ear Worm: Iiiiin West Philadelphia, born and raised...
  • "It's not unusual to be loved by anyone..."
• Ensemble Darkhorse: Carlton and Geoffrey.
  • Jazz can qualify too.
• "Funny Aneurysm" Moment: Ashley, backed by Will Smith, has a music career that consists of a hit single then a fall into obscurity. This is more or less what happened with Tatyana Ali's own music career later.
  • In a season 2 episode, Jazz shows up with a life-size cardboard cutout of Bill Cosby, prompting Will to ask what happened to his Whitney Houston cutout. Jazz's response is that she fell apart in the shower. Twenty years later...
  • In one episode, Will tells Judge Robertson (played by Sherman Helmsley) to "drop dead", and he promptly does. The scene can be a bit painful to watch considering 20 years later...
• Genius Bonus: From "The Aunt Who Came to Dinner" (Season 2, Episode 22): Carlton describes a woman as "Beautiful, sexy, and she measures everything in centimeters."^note It makes everything seem bigger.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: The series is very popular in Brazil and it still gets reruns in public television in the 2010s.
• Harsher in Hindsight: It can be a bit difficult to watch scenes with Aunt Vivian and Will(especially heartwarming moments), due to Real Life animosity Janet Hubert harbored towards Will Smith.
  • In the early seasons, several jokes were made at the expense of Penn State. They can be hard to listen to in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky scandal.
• He Really Can Act: Will Smith in several episodes, most notably "Papa's Got A Brand New Excuse".
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Jada Pinkett was once turned down for a part as one of Will's girlfriends. These days she goes by Jada Pinkett Smith, cause she, y'know, married Will.
  • In another episode, Will kept accusing Hilary of "going Hollywood" for being Queen Latifah's assisstant. Let's repeat that; Will Smith Accused Someone Of Going Hollywood.
    • Relatedly, in the graduation episode, Will is in danger of failing music class. He makes the remark to Geoffrey, "It ain't like I got a career in music!" Over a decade later, Will left the music industry to work full-time in the film industry.
  • Another episode had Queen Latifah (again) as a Girl of the Week who pretended to be a Wooly Mammoth. Enter Ice Age.
  • A character played by Will Smith impresses an important person by solving a Rubik's Cube really fast.
  • In one episode, Will does a quite-good impression of Muhammad Ali ("I'm the greatest! I'm a baaaaad man!"). That skill would eventually lead to an Oscar-nominated portrayal of Ali.
  • In one episode, Will claims that he didn't find Kool Moe Dee convincing as a cowboy in the song "Wild Wild West". Six years later, Will Smith has his own version of that song, for the movie Wild Wild West, featuring Kool Moe Dee.
    • As an added bonus, Carlton attempts to join in with an enthusiastic "I used to live downtown...!" Alfonso Ribeiro went on to make an appearance in Will Smith's "Wild Wild West" music video.
  • In an early episode, one-shot character "Dr. No" was played by Richard Roundtree. You know, the lead actor in Shaft. The character who Will later idolizes.
  • In an early Very Special Episode, Will & Carlton are pulled over & arrested by some racist cops because they're two young black men who happen to driving a Mercedes, which therefore must be stolen. Fast forward to 2012, and Men In Black 3 features Agent J (Also played by Will Smith) travelling back to 1969 & being pulled over because he's a black man driving a car, only he calls the cops out on pulling him over for assuming he stole the car because he's black, before admitting that he did in fact steal the car.
  • Will learns self-defense from Pat Morita (as himself). Later he remade one of his most famous films.
  • Will has his style of beatboxing used throughout the series, which he reused for Men In Black II. One instance where he did it was in front of a hitman played by Brad Garrett, who's dressed as an M.I.B.!
• Jerkass Woobie: Carlton is the stereotypical annoying, arrogant, spoiled rich kid. However, he's constantly upstaged by Will, his cooler cousin who always gets everything he wants (often without even trying) and who spends pretty much all his time insulting him or making fun of his height. Also, in later seasons he becomes a nerdy Butt Monkey being also the Straw Loser to Will and it seems that everyone, even his own family (except Uncle Phil) likes Will more than him.
• Jerk Sue: Lisa, Will's girlfriend in season 5. Of course, Will, being Will, did bring a lot of those moments on himself.
• Memetic Mutation: It is now popular on the internet to randomly mention how my life got flipped, turned upside down...
  • Or frequently, telling an unrelated story and suddenly end it with "and then my mom got scared and said..."
  • Fresh Prince of X.
  • A couple of dances including the "Carlton Dance" to Tom Jones and the dance Carlton and Will perform together to win a contest.
  • And Phil's love for "turkey, with pillowy mounds of mashed potatoes."
  • MOMMA NO!!!!!!!!
  • And if a video game company doesn't have a lot of games out, somebody's gotta ask themselves, "Where the video games?"
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • In one episode Uncle Phil accidentally sits on top of a shoe box containing an adorable white pet bunny. Him killing it, looking inside the box and reacting in horror, and then telling the little boy who owned the bunny is all played for laughs... it... really shouldn't be though.
  • Also the bit later where Nicky finds out is meant to be charming, but seeing how disturbingly nonchalant he is about his pet dying and even saying "Death is just a natural part of life" is definitely jarring coming from a 6 year old.
• One-Scene Wonder: "Bob" from "Mistaken Identity" is one. At one point Will and Carlton are arrested and accused of robbing cars. They then up in jail with a white dude with a doo-rag and a sleeveless denim jacket. Will, trying to cheer Carlton up, gets him to sing "Let My People Go" at which point Bob starts singing it with a voice of an angel, then proceeds to sing show tunes. He does it in such an intimidating manner that it just freaks Will and Carlton out MORE. Played by Raymond McLeod.
• Romantic Plot Tumor: Will and Lisa. Almost the entire fifth season revolves around their relationship. Even episodes in which she doesn't appear, when Will trying to get ready for married life drives the episodes' plots.
• Tear Jerker: There are a few peppered in the series, but none of them comes close to the episode "Papa's Got a Brand New Excuse", where Will's natural father comes to Bel-Air to see him ...and leaves him again. The last five minutes will have you bawling your eyes out pretty much without warning; when the credits roll and the camera zooms in on the gift Will bought for his dad — a statue of a father and child — you can hear a pin drop.
  ...how come he don't want me, man?
  • Why would they have a comedian warm us up for that?!
• Unpopular Popular Character: Jazz and Carlton are both well liked by the fandom. Within the show? Carlton is often the Straw Loser to Will, whose mistreated by his family, while Jazz is constantly kicked out of his house.
• Weird Al Effect: Will Smith manages to do this to himself; the name "Fresh Prince" originally served as his stage name as part of DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, but any and all uses of the term as a nickname for him evaporated after Independence Day and his transition as a solo rap artist in the mid-1990s. Nowadays "Fresh Prince" is universally shorthand for the series, to the point that younger viewers are unaware that it ever meant anything else.
  • Likewise, the Theme Tune contains several visual shout outs to the music video "Parents Just Don't Understand", which much of the modern audience has never seen.
• The Woobie: Will in "Papa's Got a Brand New Excuse".
  • Carlton varies between this and Jerkass Woobie.