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The Cosby Show

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The Cosby Show

Photo of the entire cast of The Cosby Show in 1989.<small/>

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Genre Sitcom
Running time About 24 minutes (per episode)
Creator(s) Bill Cosby
Ed. Weinberger
Michael J. Leeson
Starring Bill Cosby
Phylicia Rashad
Sabrina Le Beauf
Lisa Bonet
Malcolm-Jamal Warner
Tempestt Bledsoe
Keshia Knight Pulliam
Geoffrey Owens
Joseph C. Phillips
Raven-Symoné
Erika Alexander
Opening theme "Kiss Me" - written by
Stu Gardner & Bill Cosby
performed by:
Bobby McFerrin
(Season 4)
Oregon Symphony
(Season 5)
Craig Handy
(Seasons 6-7)
Lester Bowie
(Season 8)
Country of origin USA
Original channel NBC
Original run September 20, 1984–April 30, 1992
No. of episodes 201
IMDb profile
TV.com summary

The Cosby Show was an American television sitcom that ran from 1984 to 1992. Starring Bill Cosby, the sitcom was first broadcast on September 20, 1984 and ran for eight seasons on the NBC television network, until April 30, 1992.

Bill Cosby had a great deal of creative control over the show, which was unusual for a star at that time but has become commonplace now. Cosby wanted the program to be educational as well as entertaining, reflecting Cosby's own background in education: he was credited as "William H. Cosby, Jr., Ed.D" at the beginning of each program, referencing his doctoral degree in Education from the University of Massachusetts. He also insisted that the program be taped in New York City, where he lived, rather than Los Angeles, where most television programs were taped.

Contents

[edit] Overview

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The show focused on the Huxtable family, an upper-middle class family living in Brooklyn, New York at 10 Stigwood Avenue.<ref>Wilcox's Soaps & More TV Character Address and Trivia Book (2004), (obtained here.)</ref> Patriarch Heathcliff "Cliff" Huxtable (an obstetrician/gynecologist) and his attorney wife Clair Huxtable presided over a raucous yet loving household. In every way, they were an utterly typical traditional American sitcom family, with the notable exception that they were African-American. The topics of the show involved the usual difficulties of children growing up, an example being son Theo experiences of dealing with dyslexia, based on Cosby's real-life child Ennis who was dyslexic. The show was very much centered on Cosby's real life, and portrayed his children's lives as well.

The show was extremely well-regarded, winning six Emmys, as well as three Golden Globes, five NAACP Image Awards, and a Peabody Award. It was also notable as being highly popular with white viewers and around the world, unlike many other television shows featuring mainly African-American characters. The show has been praised for its portrayal of positive child rearing methods.

For instance, in the first episode, Heathcliff confronts his son about his poor grades and Theo responds that he should accept his son's weaknesses and love him unconditionally because they are father and son—a typical sentimental idiom in family sitcoms of that time, and one which generated the typical applause from the studio audience. Heathcliff, however, to the audience's surprise and amused approval, immediately and angrily calls this sentiment "the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my life," completely rejecting the notion that loving his son means he must quietly and willingly accept it when the boy does not give his best effort in school, and famously threatened him with the often quoted line, "I brought you in this world, and I'll take you out!"

At the time of the show's original broadcast, some people criticized the series for presenting an unrealistic portrayal of an African-American family, and for not addressing black-white relations and contemporary issues such as poverty and the AIDS-HIV epidemic. Others felt that the show was simply a portrayal of what African-Americans could potentially become. They also felt that portraying an African-American family as a normal family with normal, and largely wholesome, family issues was generally a positive contribution to issues of race in the United States.

The sitcom had numerous guest star appearances, including Stevie Wonder, Willie Colon, Plácido Domingo, Tony Orlando, Dizzy Gillespie, B.B. King, Danny Kaye and Frank Robinson. Additionally, many actors had the show as their launching pad to success. Examples include Raven Symone, Angela Bassett, and Adam Sandler among others. John Ritter guest starred on an episode with Amy Yasbeck, whom he soon started a relationship with and married eight years later, and Sammy Davis Jr appeared in an episode in 1989 playing a soon to be great-grandfather who does not know how to read. It was one of the last television appearances of Davis (he would die the next year).

The popularity of The Cosby Show was often seen as a symbol of hope and progress for African-Americans in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Ironically, as the final episode was airing on April 30, 1992, a series of race riots was raging throughout the city of Los Angeles, in the aftermath of the previous day's controversial verdict in the Rodney King trial.

The exterior of the Huxtable home was actually the brownstone facade of a private residence at 10 St. Luke's Place near 7th Avenue in Manhattan's Greenwich Village. That home is not a single family home but rather was divided into an owner's duplex and four tiny one-bedroom apartments.

[edit] Cast

Recurring cast members

[edit] Notable guest stars

  • Debbie Allen as Emma ("If the Dress Fits, Wear It", Season 5)
  • Tichina Arnold as Delores ("Theo's Women", Season 5)
  • Senator Bill Bradley as Cliff's teammate #1 ("The Boys of Winter", Season 5)
  • Sônia Braga as Anna Maria Westlake ("Mrs. Westlake" and "An Early Spring", Season 2)
  • Naomi Campbell as Julia ("The Birth" and "Cyranoise de Bergington", Season 5)
  • Betty Carter as Amanda Woods ("How Do You Get to Carnegie Hall", Season 5)
  • Robert Culp as Scott Kelly ("Bald and Beautiful", Season 3)
  • Sammy Davis, Jr. as Ray Palomino ("No Way, Baby", Season 5)
  • Dave DeBusschere as Cliff's teammate #2 ("The Boys of Winter", Season 5)
  • Plácido Domingo as Alberto Santiago ("Bithday Blues", Season 5)
  • Teresa Edwards as Opponent #2 ("The Boys of Winter", Season 5)
  • Al Freeman, Jr. as Ernie Scott ("Back to the Track, Jack", Season 1)
  • Dizzy Gillespie as Mr. Hampton ("Play It Again Vanessa", Season 1)
  • Robin Givens as Susanne ("Theo and the Older Woman", Season 2)
  • Moses Gunn as Joe Kendall ("Grampy and NuNu Visit the Huxtables", Season 6)
  • Walt Hazzard as Cliff's teammate #3 ("The Boys of Winter", Season 5)
  • Iman as Mrs. Montgomery ("Theo and the Joint", Season 1)
  • Danny Kaye as Dr. Burns ("The Dentist", Season 2)
  • Alicia Keys as Maria ("Slumber Party", Season 1)
  • B.B. King as Riley Jackson ("Not Everybody Loves the Blues", Season 6)
  • LaChanze as Sylvia ("The Prom", Season 4)
  • Audrey Landers as Cookie Bennett ("Cliff and Jake", Season 7)
  • Nancy Lieberman as Opponent #1 ("The Boys of Winter", Season 5)
  • Miriam Makeba as herself ("Olivia Comes Out of the Closet", Season 8)
  • Rita Moreno as Mrs. Granger ("You Only Hurt the One You Love", Season 3)
  • Tony Orlando as Tony Castillo ("Mr. Quiet", Season 1)
  • Tito Puente as timbal player ("Play It Again, Russell", Season 2)
  • John Ritter as Ray Evans ("Total Control", Season 7)
  • Frank Robinson as Frank Potter ("There's Still No Joy in Mudville", Season 7)
  • Howard "Sandman" Sims as himself ("Mr. Sandman", Season 6)
  • Bern Nadette Stanis as Carolyn Thompson ("Adventures in Babysitting", Season 7)
  • Leslie Uggams as Kris Temple (The Return of the Clairettes", Season 7)
  • Blair Underwood as Mark ("Theo and the Older Woman", Season 2)
  • Jim Valvano as John Velarde ("The Getaway", Season 8)
  • Dick Vitale as Dan Vicente ("The Getaway", Season 8)
  • Nancy Wilson as Lorraine Kendall ("Grampy and NuNu Visit the Huxtables", Season 6)
  • Stevie Wonder as himself ("A Touch of Wonder", Season 2)

[edit] Criticism

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There has been criticism concerning the portrayal of African Americans in The Cosby Show. Critics argue that the lack of discussion on race issues and lack of racial problems facing the Huxtables is an inaccurate portrayal of the typical African American family. The trouble free success of the Huxtable family has also been noted as a problem because it seems to put the blame on racial problems as coming from within a group instead of racial problems resulting from institutional racism.

Other critics, however, have noted that such objections are inherently racist themselves, including the premise that a prosperous black family is unrealistic or the premise that black families are overly obsessed with racial issues and thus typical household discussions revolve around such issues.[citation needed] Theo's dyslexia is a perfect example, as it shows that the Huxtables were not as trouble-free as the above critics claim. However, the writers did not want the characters obsessing over whether it would have been discovered if they weren't black; instead, they show Theo learning to triumph over it.

A Different World could be considered a more realistic Bill Cosby creation because rather than side-stepping the issues of race and poverty for the black community, the show brings together a variety of students from different backgrounds all hoping to achieve the goal of education; their learning is not only dependent on text books, it also includes the insight they gain into each others' unique perspectives. Therefore, the show does not focus on one wealthy black family, but on the process of self-realization and pride from different perspectives within the black community; all types of students are shown in their progress toward education and affirmation.

[edit] Ratings

The Cosby Show is one of two television shows, All in the Family being the other, that have been number 1 in the Nielsen Ratings for 5 consecutive TV seasons.

The ratings for each season, at the end of the season, were:

Season Ratings Rank
1984-1985 #3
1985-1986 #1
1986-1987 #1
1987-1988 #1
1988-1989 #1
1989-1990 #1 (tied with Roseanne)
1990-1991 #5
1991-1992 #18

[edit] Spinoff

After Lisa Bonet threatened to sue for wrongful termination from the show, Cosby's producters created a spin-off series called A Different World, which initially dealt with the life of Denise, the second eldest Huxtable daughter, at Hillman College, a fictional historically black college. Denise was written out the series after its inaugural season and the following season was revamped with the addition of director Debbie Allen and new characters.Fortunately for Lisa Bonet, she became a recurring Cosby Show character in Seasons 4-5 and a star again in Seasons 6-7.

[edit] Trivia

  • When The Simpsons was briefly airing on Thursday nights in the same timeslot as The Cosby Show, the show's creators introduced the character of Doctor Hibbert, a relentlessly cheerful, African American doctor who was intended as something of a parody of Cliff Huxtable. When off duty Doctor Hibbert often sports loud and rather Huxtable-esque sweaters, and in one early Hibbert episode he is seen at home with a family drawn to resemble the Huxtable clan.
  • The Cosby Show featured several unusual dream episodes. One guest starred The Muppets, with Cliff falling asleep after overeating and finding himself in a nightmare populated with muppets, while another had the men of the cast experiencing pregnancy.
  • In the earlier episodes of the Cosby Show, Dr. Huxtable's name appears as Clifford Huxtable on the sign outside of his office door
  • The final episode broke the fourth wall, with Cosby/Cliff stepping away from the Huxtable home, which was revealed to be a set surrounded by cameras and a studio audience.
  • The real location of the house is #10 Saint Lukes Place, located in Greenwich Village, New York. When looking out of the door of the house into the street, the fence of the park really located across the street from the real house is used as a backdrop.

[edit] Awards & nominations

[edit] Awards Won

Emmy Awards

  • Outstanding Comedy Series (1985)
  • Outstanding Writing in a Comedy Series (1984) Michael J. Leeson and Ed. Weinberger

Golden Globe Awards

  • Best TV Series-Comedy (1985)
  • Best Performance by an Actor in a TV Series-Comedy Bill Cosby (1985-86) 2 wins

[edit] Awards Nominated

Emmy Awards

  • Outstanding Comedy Series (1986-87) 2 nominations
  • Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series Phylicia Rashad (1985-86) 2 nominations
  • Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series Lisa Bonet (1986)
  • Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series Keshia Knight Pulliam (1986)
  • Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series Malcolm-Jamal Warner (1986)

Golden Globe Awards

  • Best TV Series-Comedy (1986-87) 2 nominations
  • Best Performance by an Actor in a TV Series-Comedy Bill Cosby (1987)

[edit] See also

[edit] References

<references />

[edit] External links

fr:Cosby Show nl:The Cosby Show sk:Šou Billa Cosbyho sv:Cosby

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