It is with heavy hearts and profound appreciation of a guy who gamely tried to make his voice squeak even after the ravages of puberty, we thusly note: Tonight is the last-ever new episode of Family Matters.

Goodnight, sweet Urkel.

We'd like to say we hardly knew ye, but we'd be lying.

Actor Jaleel White's nerd icon Steve Urkel was a TV oddity not to be ignored. For almost a decade, Urkel squeaked, squawked and polkaed his way into living rooms. His show might never have approached the far side of hip, but Urkel did.

He even had his own breakfast cereal.

And now it's over.

The Family Matters finale, the concluding half of a two-part storyline (something about Urkel in a spaceship), airs at 9 p.m. on CBS (ET/PT). The sitcom closes shop after nine seasons.

For those who keep track of such things, that's exactly how old Seinfeld was when its namesake star pulled the plug. But while NBC hyped that show's finale to infinity and beyond, CBS didn't even bother to air Family Matters during the May sweeps.

Instead, it's dumping the show in the middle of July--the prime-time equivalent of the surface of the moon. Barren, quiet and devoid of Nielsen families.

"I thought we should have had [a big final episode]," says costar Reginald VelJohnson in the Los Angeles Times. "The fans thought we should have had one, but the powers that be didn't."

VelJohnson--who played Urkel foil, good-guy cop Carl Winslow on the series--is taking the dis with grace.

"I hold no bitterness against anybody," VelJohnson tells the Times. "I sincerely want to take away the good memories. I don't have a bad word to say about anybody."

The reasons Family Matters isn't being treated with Seinfeld-like respect are obvious. Never a presence on Emmy night, never a factor in critics' top-10 lists, rarely a ratings powerhouse, the conventional family sitcom puttered on the edges of prime time, marginalized as a "kids" show. (For eight seasons on ABC, it was a mainstay of the network's "T.G.I.F." lineup.)

It did, however, have a secret weapon--every bit as magical as Cosmo Kramer: Urkel.

The role of the Family Winslow's fashion-challenged neighbor wasn't supposed to be more than a one-shot guest bid. But something about White's nasally performance worked. By the end of the first season, Urkel owned the show.

But not even the Nerd One was invulnerable. Stolen away by CBS to help launch its own Friday night family lineup, Family Matters floundered this past season. The show couldn't even break the top 100.

Not mourning the demise: Jaleel White. The 21-year-old UCLA student sounds like he's more than ready to exert his own, non-Urkel voice.

As he told Associated Press: "If you ever see me doing that character again, put a bullet in my head and take me out of my misery."

Click here for the Original Copy of This Article