George Clooney stares at the asphalt, rhythmically bouncing a basketball and contemplating his next move.

It's a balmy afternoon outside the ER soundstage on the Warner Bros. lot, and Clooney, passing time with a pickup game, begins a furious drive, dribbling and turning and jumping on the bumper of a van parked nearby. He misses.

The ball bounces to his opponent, a young man who, unprepared for the game, is dressed in neat pressed khakis and brown street shoes. He tries a simple, less flashy move, a strategy that has placed him ahead of Clooney.

He moves to the right of the basket and fires. Swish. Clooney loses. To Jaleel White. To Urkel.

The game - a chance occurrence between stars of shows filmed in neighboring soundstages - points up two interesting truths about 20- year-old Jaleel White.

One, he is not the pratfalling geek Steve Urkel he has played so adeptly for eight successful seasons of Family Matters. In fact, he is a basketball fanatic capable of beating Batman, even in "ol' fuddy duddy" shoes.

Two, like his basketball style, White is deliberate and steady and cool, traits that have helped him keep a level head in the heady world of Hollywood while alter-ego Urkel has slowly climbed into our collective psyche.

"I feel like nobody knows Jaleel White," he says, without a trace of disappointment.

Indeed, he's happy to take a back seat to Urkel, a pop-culture icon so well known that the World Wide Web sports 572 sites that mention him.

The Urkel wave began to crest eight years ago, when Steve Urkel, suspenders-wearing nerd and neighbor of the Winslow family, made a guest appearance on a midseason episode and captured the show. He quickly became part of the cast.

Two-hundred-plus episodes later, Family Matters, and Urkel, are still going strong. The sitcom currently ranks as the second-longest- running show on in prime time, behind Murphy Brown. It is one of only 20 comedies to last past 200 episodes.

Family Matters has not only outlasted other shows, but it also became the focus of an intense bidding war this spring between ABC, where it previously aired, and CBS, its new home.

"We feel Family Matters is one of the great television shows in history," says CBS Entertainment president Leslie Moonves. "One of our priorities is to get a younger audience and no better show represents that demographic."

Yet despite its longevity and its popularity among kids and young adults, Family Matters has never quite earned the respect of other sitcoms that have also hit the 200th episode mark - shows like M*A*S*H* or Cheers. It has never been nominated for an Emmy, and few would argue that the television academy has overlooked it.

But without critical acclaim and a closetful of trophies, the show has chugged along, winning its time period eight years in a row. Weekly, it is watched by 20 million viewers. Most importantly, it is watched by the young, which makes the show a hit with advertisers.

"It may not have snob appeal, but it's a show you can watch with your family," says Moonves, who nurtured the show in its early days when he was president of Warner Bros. television. "And it's just plain funny."

Family Matters is such a favorite of Moonves that he was moved to take a good-natured potshot at rival ABC during the recent celebration of the 200-episode landmark.

"When ABC was stupid enough to not jump when they had the opportunity, and we grabbed the show, it turned out out to the single best thing I've done at CBS."

Family Matters premiered in 1989 as a sort of alternative to the hit sitcom The Cosby Show, which focused on an affluent upper- class clan of urban professionals.

The Winslow family - father Carl (Reginald VelJohnson), wife Harriette (JoMarie Payton-Noble), son Eddie (Darius McCrary) and daughter Laura (Kellie Shanygne Williams) - are decidedly middle-class, which is more reflective of TV's audience.

"We believed there was a great opportunity to do a black show that was blue-collar," says executive producer Bob Boyett of the show's impetus. "But we had no idea we would have such a following this many years later."

I'd like to thank Dirk Oltmanns for sending me this article.