Cosby show 30 year anniversary

[Mumbles]

Breaking the 'fourth wall'...right, like Jimmy Fallon giggling during his sketches, to let us know how hip his humor is. Whenever they pranced down their staircase doing their idiotic, shame-based show biz number, I felt like breaking the glass wall and puking on them. I grant you the show covered more realities of life than the Bradys, but in the end it was almost as phony. A bunch of Black Americans that Ron & Nancy could love. I love dumping on the Cosby Show, let's continue!

You know what? Go right ahead.

But...

Nah. I'm not discussing The Cosby Show as some sort of light from on high...but more as a show that I'd like to see again. There's room for the Seinfelds and the Homer Simpsons and such, fine, and you could finds somewhat functional families on tv (see: Modern Family) - and I do like other genres (Arrow, Agents of SHIELD). But...is there a show centered on a family?

Okay, there probably is, and I'm just missing it. But I just don't see how Cosby Show was so far-fetched. I knew people like that. Not mine, clearly, but I knew a family that used "Nighttime is the Right Time" on their answering machine before the Cosby show used it, and way back when using music on your answering machine was a thing.

It's fine to revel in absurdity for comedy. The difference is in the way they went about it - again, none of the characters were idiots, but they had personality, they made mistakes, and things usually worked out in the end because of them, rather than despite them.

 

[James Brown]

Agree. It was a nice counterpoint to "realistic" family shows like Roseanne or Married with Children, where the funny parts come from family members screaming at each other.

I tell you what, the Cosby Show came out when I was finishing High School and entering College. Believe me, the black people at my schools LOVED that show.

I remember reading about someone who would advise the show to minimize black stereotypes. Yes, they spent some airtime talking about the condition of Theo's room, but not too much, because that would reinforce the stereotype that young black men are slovenly. Another scene showed Claire struggling to brush Rudy's hair, and that was nixed because it suggested that female black hair is unruly. Make of that what you will.

 

[thebeave]

Thumbs up here for Cosby also. i always loved Bill Cosby ever since my older brother bought Bill's early records back in the late '60's. Even named my pet snake, "Snakey Lick" after a line from a Cosby comedy track.

I was in college during the Cosby Show's debut. Every Thursday night on NBC, my roomies and I would watch Family Ties, then Cosby, then Cheers and finally (IIRC) Night Court. Its safe to say no homework was ever really done on Thursdays.

 

[Mumbles]

Thumbs up here for Cosby also. i always loved Bill Cosby ever since my older brother bought Bill's early records back in the late '60's. Even named my pet snake, "Snakey Lick" after a line from a Cosby comedy track.

I was in college during the Cosby Show's debut. Every Thursday night on NBC, my roomies and I would watch Family Ties, then Cosby, then Cheers and finally (IIRC) Night Court. Its safe to say no homework was ever really done on Thursdays.

Hah! I liked those as well. I don't even know why. I think I was seven when Cosby debuted. Watching it was definitely tradition - I actually remember then the Simpsons went up against them. And I watched Simpsons on a B&W tv, and set a VCR to record Cosby. And yes, that was in the 80s/90s.

But that was a thing for a while. Night Court, Cheers, Different World...

 

[Derec]

Clair was often the same. Rougher with the kids, and a bit shrill (occasionally cussing in Spanish), but what she did usually made sense, given the circumstances.

I was a kid when Cosby Show came on but I remember Claire never letting Cliff do anything - be it something small like sandwiches or big like getting a pilot's licence.

And last person I'll note is Theo, since in an odd way, he's kinda the Uncle Iroh of the show.

Uncle who?
I thought Theo's turnaround with dyslexia was always a bit pat. They could have ended the series with him not being academically inclined but find his way in a trade where he worked with his hands and still be successful.

One last thing...The Cosby Show was black. And I don't mean it like the Jeffersons or anything, but in a very real way. Theo had an anti-apartheid poster in his room, wasn't ever brought up. Cliff once told his kids to wait "under the car" after they lost Rudy. Rudy herself referred to her friend Kenny as "Buuuud!" Cliff once battle-danced against a semi-famous tap dancer. This was really cool to me when it aired, and be black, without being aggressively so, and it'll work. They weren't angry, they weren't going to marches, they weren't calling white people "honky", it's just a black family, the end. I really loved that.

Cosby Show was widely watched outside the US. Personally I never really got the race angle while watching it because all those TV families were equally foreign to me.

 

[spikepipsqueak]

Cosby Show was widely watched outside the US. Personally I never really got the race angle while watching it because all those TV families were equally foreign to me.

I had the same experience in Aus. It wasn't a show about a black family, it was a show about a family.

I get all the discussion about modelling and aspiration and so on, but it will be better when we can aspire to things because they are good things and not because they are portrayed by people who look like us.

 

[Mumbles]

I was a kid when Cosby Show came on but I remember Claire never letting Cliff do anything - be it something small like sandwiches or big like getting a pilot's licence.

Well, not letting him fly a plane would be understandable, since he was a goof-off much of the time. As for not eating what he wanted...I actually thought that was also sincere. He wanted to eat them, despite his doctor's orders, she saw it as a necessity to save his life to enforce them. And really it was almost a game for the two.

Uncle who?
I thought Theo's turnaround with dyslexia was always a bit pat. They could have ended the series with him not being academically inclined but find his way in a trade where he worked with his hands and still be successful.

Uncle Iroh - from Avatar: The Last Airbender. He's clearly a secondary character, but in many ways still a focus of the show, as a major influence to many others.

Also, as an aside, having been diagnosed with a learning disorder shortly after Theo was diagnosed with Dyslexia...well, I did empathize. It was a serious "You're still smart, you can still pull this off" moment.

I had the same experience in Aus. It wasn't a show about a black family, it was a show about a family.

I get all the discussion about modelling and aspiration and so on, but it will be better when we can aspire to things because they are good things and not because they are portrayed by people who look like us.

Maybe I should explain further.

When I say it was a black show, I don't really mean racially. I mean *culturally*, it was a show that represented the same values, the same influences, the same cultural icons, as my house did. And that probably sounds weird. And in a way, it's impossible to explain...but... I mean, the astonishing drive for education (My maternal grandparents worked in a hotel. My mom's a *professor*), the same music, the same political causes lurking in the background. It's not every black person on earth, or even in the US...but it was *us*, in a comedic setting, and that's it, unapologetically.

I loved that. Never seen it before, or since.