The Cosby Show premiered in 1984 on NBC and ran for eight seasons. During five of those eight seasons it was the most watched sitcom on television. The show focused around the Huxtables, an upper-middleclass African-American family living in New York. Bill Cosby, who was a pioneer in African-American mainstreem standup comedy, portraied Heathcliff Huxtable, a local physician. He would come home tired from work, and try to relax while his wife and five children interrupt him. Not that he minds of course, the family interraction in the home was the focus of nearly every episode. So of course Dr. Huxtable put on a smile and entertained the children, from Olivia, Rudy, Theo, Vanessa, and even Sandra. The show was designed to portray what it is like to raise children of all ages, and thus five children ranging in age from five to twenty, and to this end it was very successful. The Huxtables never ostracised or physically punished their children, of course, but there was still their own style of ‘tough’ love: the comedic style.
Not only was the show the top rated sitcom for five consecutive seasons, but the show also won three Emmys and three Golden Globe awards. The success of The Cosby Show in the early eighties made it a household name, and this success has allowed it to remain on cable as an endless cycle of reruns twenty years later. While the show is no longer a staple of network television, it is still on everyone’s list of greatest television shows/moments of all time. It also launched the careers of a few aspiring actors. Raven Symone has her own show today, the Disney channel’s That’s So Raven. Malcolm-Jamal Warner moved on to the silver screen for a handfull of roles, but, ultimately, he found his greatest success on television: starring in the spinoff of The Cosby Show, A Different World, as well as made for TV movies, and making many cameo appearances.
As this icon of television began when I was four years old, and stopped airing on network television when I was twelve
Hamibord's Weblog 
February 27, 2008 at 7:45 pm |
Hamilton, this cut off at the end … can the rest of it be recovered?
February 29, 2008 at 5:11 pm |
I love The Cosby Show. The DVDs that are out now, though, my understanding is that they’re the syndicated versions – each episode has had, like, three minutes cut out of it. That’s not cool.
So, I haven’t seen much of That’s So Raven, but there doesn’t seem to be too much going on in terms of warm morality, like Cosby. Her character seems kinda selfish, and as far as I can tell, that’s fine in terms of the show, like there aren’t really any repercussions. That’s sorta weird for me.
March 4, 2008 at 9:43 pm |
What a television show. I love “The Cosby Show.” I think it is so amazing that in almost every TV show that portrays a family going through things that families go through, that everyone learns from their mistakes so easily in the end. Every problem is solved somehow. “The Brady Bunch” is a perfect example of this I think. I remember one episode where Bobby tells some friends that he know Joe Namoth and he could get him to his birthday party. Well of course he didn’t and couldn’t. Not so fast. Right at the end somehow the Brady parents solved the whole problem by some kind of connection to Joe Namoth that allowed them to actually get him to the party. Bobby and Joe end up playing catch together and all the kids get a big “Now what!”
The Cosby Show is really similar to this. Maybe this is one reason we love them so much. By the end of every episode everything is solved and there are no problems in the world, just how we wish our lives could be. What a cruel world.