The 'Fresh Prince' theme song secret that blew my mind after 30 years

I was scrolling through a deep-dive article on TV theme songs last night, and I found out that the iconic opening to The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air is actually a cold open that describes a real fight Will Smith got into back in Philly. Apparently the taxi driver from the song was a real guy who just drove off (typical). The original writers of the theme are Quincy Jones and DJ Jazzy Jeff which blew me away because I thought Will wrote it himself. Has anyone else stumbled across a random fact that totally changed how you see a show you've seen a hundred times?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_thomas8d ago

Turns out I've been confidently telling people for years that I knew Will wrote that whole thing, guess I owe a few friends an apology about that and also maybe some stuff about my general life knowledge.

paulperry8d ago

Used to be in the same boat honestly, was dead certain about the whole thing for ages. Read some new stuff last week though and it totally flipped my view, made me realize I had no clue what I was talking about. Sucks to be wrong but at least now I know better than to act like an expert on stuff I just assume lol.