Jaleel White joins the webseries world – Webisode Clack

Not much has been heard about actor Jaleel White since his days as the lovable nerd Steven Urkel on Family Matters. Besides a more adult role on UPN’s Grown Ups, the voice of the animated Sonic the Hedgehog, and various roles on episodes of Boston Legal and The Game, Jaleel has kept a low profile. That all changed after Jaleel took on a role in a new comedy series. Except this series isn’t on terrestrial TV. Instead, it’s on the Webernet, which is increasingly becoming the haven of those tired of the corporate dealings of major media.

The show is called Road to the Altar. Produced by MWG Entertainment, the ten-episode series focuses on Jaleel’s character Simon and his fiancee Rochelle (Leyna Juliet Weber) as their wedding plans are filmed by a reality series crew in order to obtain a free honeymoon. Each episode focuses on an aspect of the wedding preparation — selecting a wedding planner, a florist, a band — and what happens when Rochelle’s, um, anal retentiveness gets in the way.

In addition to the regular webisodes, there are also video blogs that feature the secondary characters Simon and Rochelle deal with on a weekly basis. These video blogs present an extra layer to the series as they show the reactions of people like the wedding planner to past events. Needless to say, these folks aren’t very enthralled with the way the happy couple treated them.

For Jaleel, who we interviewed earlier this week, the script for Road to the Altar was one of the better things he has read in several years. Not being familiar with the world of webisodes prior to this show, White was very impressed with the filming and promotional processes MWG used to produce Altar. The smoothness of the operation gave him a sense that the web will be the new source of comedy.

And, as his opinion on the current state of television is less than stellar, this is a positive statement for the Internet. “Comedy is garbage now on mainstream television,” said White, who blames the networks for hampering producers’ abilities to produce quality programming. He stated the example of the Friends cast receiving $1 million dollars an episode as a failure of the networks to develop quality replacements for existing programs. “It’s sad that television continues to work that way,” he added.

In the world of the Interweb, though, things are different. “We have the Internet now and the technology is allowing better production values,” Jaleel stated. He feels that there’s no choice for television and the Internet to eventually combine into one entity.

He’s so involved in the world of web series now that, as soon as production wraps up on the last Road to the Altar episode, he’ll begin work on a new comedy web for MWG entertainment. This doesn’t mean he has forsaken all he has done in the past for television, including his near decade stint as Urkel on Family Matters. In fact, he’s very happy that people remember him as Urkel, and he wouldn’t be talking to interviewers now about Road if he didn’t have that opportunity. Yet, he wants to add more and more characters to his profile so, when he’s 50, different sets of people will have different memories of him.

But, that’s in the future. For now, Simon and Rochelle still have a road to hoe to get to the altar. Over the next episodes Jaleel said we could look for continued heated negotiations between his slightly henpecked but resolute character and Rochelle as well as continued meetings with photographers, caterers and bands. In addition, Rochelle will meet and subsequently get Simon’s father drunk. Ah, good times.

Clacked by Richard Keller
on Jun 25, 2009 @ 12:00 EST5EDT