I always thought that everyone always said that his first appearance was in the "Laura's First Date" episode, so I was really surprised when I recently watched the "Rachel's First Date" episode and he appeared in the opening scene. According to this https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0924918/ he was in a total of 4 episodes before the "Laura's First Date" episode.

Episode #12 "Laura's First Date" is the real first appearance of Steve Urkel. After he became a popular character, they shot a few cold opens for syndication to appear in some of the pre-Urkel episodes. There were four total. The DVD - for some reason - has the Urkel cold open instead of the original one for "Rachel's First Date." Luckily, the other three episodes that used those cold opens, have their original Urkel-free openings on the DVD. I haven't checked with Hulu yet, but on Amazon Video, all four Urkel cold opens are used. I HATE that they did this! I would love for Warner Bros. to release a corrected season one, but I highly doubt they will.

I always wished they would've had the original episodes on the DVD set and the "new" Urkel cold opens as special features.

Episode #12 "Laura's First Date" is the real first appearance of Steve Urkel. After he became a popular character, they shot a few cold opens for syndication to appear in some of the pre-Urkel episodes. There were four total. The DVD - for some reason - has the Urkel cold open instead of the original one for "Rachel's First Date." Luckily, the other three episodes that used those cold opens, have their original Urkel-free openings on the DVD. I haven't checked with Hulu yet, but on Amazon Video, all four Urkel cold opens are used. I HATE that they did this! I would love for Warner Bros. to release a corrected season one, but I highly doubt they will.

Thank you for the explanation. It was Hulu that I was watching "Rachel's First Date" on. I don't know if he appears in the other 3 episodes or not because I haven't got to them yet.

Yeah, I hated how they did that. We get it. Urkel became a huge hit. But shoving him into episodes after they already aired before his proper introduction (Carl didn't know who he was before that episode) just makes it look confusing.

This doesn't surprise me. It seems like TV writers never know how to stick to show history. In at least two episodes, Steve tells about knowing Laura as early as their days in kindergarten and first grade but in another episode, she says that a blind date is how she met him.

God bless you always!!!

Holly