You'll never guess who sang the theme song for Don Cheadle's scrapped Fresh Prince spin-off
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Now this is a story all about how… Don Cheadle sang the theme song for his ill-fated Fresh Prince of Bel-Air spin-off project.
During a recent Vanity Fair video interview, the veteran actor looked back on the scrapped show, which was titled In the House, and revealed that he actually performed the theme song in addition to starring. Cheadle, who grew up playing jazz music and initially envisioned a career as a musician, confirmed that he wrote the song's intro as well.
"At that point I was doing a lot in studios. Again, I never completely dropped the idea of music," he said. "It was always in the sidecar. I wanted to take a crack at the theme song. They're like, 'Go ahead.' So I set off and my producing friend Kenny Finch wrote the theme song. I don't know that ultimately we would've used it, but I'm singing and you hear it."
Cheadle, who only shot a pilot episode for the spin-off that never was, added, "I think you can actually find it online." (Yes, you can!)
In the House would have followed Cheadle's memorable one-episode guest role on Fresh Prince as Ice Tray, an old pal of Will Smith's from Philadelphia who paid a visit to his bud in California. The season 1 episode, "Homeboy, Sweet Homeboy," saw Tray begin an unlikely relationship with Will's cousin Hilary (Karyn Parsons, whom Cheadle was dating at the time), much to the horror of Aunt Viv (Janet Hubert) and Uncle Phil (James Avery).
"They wanted to, by the middle of our shooting, because it's shot in front of a live studio audience, so you come to table read Monday, Tuesday rehearse, Wednesday rehearse, Thursday do it in front of a life audience," Cheadle recalled to Uproxx in 2019 about how the spin-off (almost) came to be. "So by that Thursday, the producers said, 'We actually want to do a spin-off around your character.' We shot a whole pilot. Didn't get picked up."
Chris Haston/NBCU Photo Bank Don Cheadle and Will Smith on 'The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air'
The title In the House would later be used for a 1995 sitcom starring LL Cool J, which ran for five seasons and also starred Fresh Prince alum Alfonso Ribeiro.
Watch Cheadle's Vanity Fair interview in full above, with his recollections about the spin-off (and even a snippet of the theme song) beginning about eight minutes in.
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