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Celebrity Sightings In Miami – August 11, 2012

Will Smith’s old TV series – The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air – remains a beloved piece of culture for many of Americans. Now, it’s becoming a fan favorite among the prisoners at Guantánamo Bay. Yes, for real.

It seems detainees can’t get enough of Willie from Philly – so much so that he’s now outranking Harry Potter in popularity among prisoners.

The Miami Herald reports:

Harry Potter books are passé among the prisoners. The adventures of the boy wizard have been supplanted by early episodes of Will Smith’s 1990s TV comedy, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, as a popular way to pass time among the 168 captives now in their second decade of U.S. detention.

“I just ordered all six seasons,” says librarian Milton, a Defense Department contractor who gives only his first name to visiting journalists.

He offered no explanation for the sudden popularity of the half-hour sit-com about an inner-city Philadelphia kid who moves in with his affluent cousins in California beyond the observation that comedy is widely popular among requested items from the detention center’s 28,000 book and video library.