‘Go Home, Roger!’ Marques Houston Says ‘Sister, Sister’ Catchphrase Hurt His ‘Mystique’ as a Singer

Some TV lines are funny in the moment. Others stick around forever. For Marques Houston, one short phrase followed him long after the cameras stopped rolling.

Houston played Roger, the annoying neighbor on Sister, Sister. Fans loved when the twins would shout, "Go home, Roger!" every time he showed up uninvited. It became one of the most memorable parts of the show.

At first, Houston thought that was a great thing.

"It just took off. So I was like, 'Yes, Urkel time,' " Houston told Shawn Stockman on an episode of On That Note, referring to how Jaleel White's Urkel went from a secondary character to a beloved fixture on Family Matters.

While the catchphrase made Roger popular, it also started to box Houston in. Around the same time, his R&B group Immature was beginning to grow.

"My Urkel moment, I didn't really want it as much because I was like, now I'm a teenager. When I was like 14, 15, I was like, 'I don't want to be a nerd no more.' So I talked to the producers, and they were like, 'Okay, maybe we can try to make the character a little cooler,' " he shared.

The show tried to adjust Roger’s image, but it did not really work.

Houston had bigger goals in mind, especially in music. He dreamed of reaching the same level as some of his idols.

"Stuff like that didn't really work, so I ended up leaving the show because I felt like what I wanted was to be Boyz II Men. And in my mind, I'm like, that's what I want. I want that global superstardom, that Michael Jackson, Boyz II Men, that's what I want to be."

He began to feel like the role that made him famous was also holding him back.

"I felt like Roger was kind of holding me back from being that, because like we talk about mystique. I was losing the mystique because people could see me on TV being goofy. So all of the things we were working so hard for with Immature, I felt like I was just kind of throwing it out the window with being on television."

After leaving the show, Houston focused more on music and later built a solo career. He even reunited with Immature for a tour in 2014.

Still, he did not leave acting behind. He appeared on shows like One on One and starred in Cuts. He also acted in movies, including You Got Served, Fat Albert, and the horror films Somebody Help Me and Somebody Help Me 2.

In the end, “Go home, Roger!” may have made him famous, but it also pushed him to figure out who he really wanted to be.