Did Bruce Springsteen Inspire “The Carlton” Dance?

Bruce Springsteen appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, where the host played a clip of Springsteen and Courteney Cox dancing in the iconic 1984 video for “Dancing in the Dark.” Fallon noted that Alfonso Ribeiro once cited this moment as an inspiration for the now-legendary “Carlton” dance from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

Springsteen reacted candidly: “Well, my dancing is pretty embarrassing. And my kids kill me on that. ‘Dad, you look ridiculous.’” He also called his style the “New Jersey Shuffle.” But he acknowledged the connection: “That was all I knew. But it definitely does look like it had some influence on the Carlton dance.”

As for the origin of “The Carlton,” Alfonso Ribeiro shared in a 2015 Variety interview that the script simply said, “Carlton dances,” prompting him to improvise. He drew from two sources: Courteney Cox’s awkwardly charming stage dance in the Springsteen video and Eddie Murphy’s “White Man Dance” from his Delirious comedy special. Ribeiro recalled, “That is the corniest dance on the planet that I know of, so why don’t I do that?”

Together, we got a moment that can’t be forgotten. A quirky dance became part of pop-culture lore, rooted in a classic music-video moment and carried forward by a sitcom improv, then acknowledged by the rock icon himself.

Doug O’Brien