Chris “Kid” Reid from the legendary rap group Kid and Play revealed how he and his partner turned down an opportunity for a prime time sitcom which was eventually taken by Will Smith who went on to become a Hollywood superstar.
At the time, the duo had a cartoon on NBC that the network wanted to cancel in order to move forward with a sitcom. Being fans of the cartoon genre, Kid and Play decided to stick with the animated series which was eventually canceled. The prime time slot was used to debut the now classic “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” with Will Smith. Reid told the full story to HipHopDX. “What went down at the time was that we got the cartoon series first with NBC—first rappers to ever have a cartoon,” he said. “We also had a sitcom deal with NBC at the same time, and we were developing that. This was before [The Fresh Prince of Bel Air] was on the air. So we were heading down that road, developing it with producers, bout to hire people this, that and the third, and then NBC came at us and said, ‘We still want to do the sitcom, but we want to cancel the cartoon series.’”
Reid and his partner made a decision that might have affected their career forever. “So we told them, and this is probably one of the dumber things we ever did, ‘We don’t want to do no night show with you. We don’t want to do no sitcom. If you cancel that cartoon, then you cancel us, we’ll go elsewhere.’ So that slot for that show ended being the same slot for The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. That’s how that goes. They moved on, and they put Will in that spot. We made a mistake and took it too personal.”
Source: hiphopdx.com
