Which character is famous for the 'Carlton Dance'?

Carlton Banks is the character famous for performing the “Carlton Dance” on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Alfonso Ribeiro played Carlton, Will Smith’s preppy cousin, throughout the original sitcom’s 1990–1996 run.

The dance is built around exaggerated arm swings, side-to-side movement, and an upbeat, deliberately goofy style. Carlton frequently performs it to Tom Jones’s 1965 song “It’s Not Unusual,” turning the routine into one of the show’s most recognizable visual jokes. It contrasts sharply with Will’s cooler, more streetwise persona and reinforces Carlton’s role as the series’ comic foil.

Ribeiro has said the routine drew inspiration from Courteney Cox’s dancing in Bruce Springsteen’s “Dancing in the Dark” video and Eddie Murphy’s parody of white dancing in Eddie Murphy Raw. The routine later became known simply as “The Carlton.”

Ribeiro performed the dance during his 2014 Dancing with the Stars run and won that season. The U.S. Copyright Office rejected an attempt to register the choreography in 2019, describing it as a simple sequence of three dance steps.