The Cosby Show
The Cosby Show is an American television sitcom created by and starring Bill Cosby that originally aired on NBC from September 20, 1984, to April 30, 1992, with a total of 201 half-hour episodes spanning eight seasons, including an outtakes special. The show focuses on the Huxtables, an upper middle-class Black American family living in Brooklyn, New York; the series was based on routines in Cosby's stand-up comedy act, which in turn were based on his family life. The series spawned a spin-off, titled A Different World, which ran from September 24, 1987, to July 9, 1993, with a total of six seasons consisting of 144 episodes.
TV Guide listed the series as "TV's biggest hit in the 1980s", adding it "almost single-handedly revived the sitcom genre and NBC's ratings fortunes", while also ranking it 28th on their list of 50 Greatest Shows; with this list, Cliff Huxtable was named as the "Greatest Television Dad" in 2014. In May 1992, Entertainment Weekly stated that The Cosby Show helped to make possible a larger variety of shows with a predominantly black cast, from In Living Color to The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
The Cosby Show spent five consecutive seasons as the number-one rated show on television and, along with All in the Family, is the only sitcom in the history of the Nielsen ratings as the number-one show for five seasons, having spent the series in the top 20 ratings. It also remains the only scripted TV show with a predominantly African-American cast to top the Nielsen ratings, and to do so more than once. Its spinoff, A Different World, also became a ratings hit, featuring in the top 5 of the ratings for four of its six seasons. It launched the extended cast into stardom and Cosby, having already had a successful career on television, films and stand-up, became the highest paid actor on television.
It was also an international hit, garnering a following from across the world being a regular fixture in markets previously considered unattainable for African-American leads, such as Europe, where the show became a ratings and commercial hit and cemented itself as an international icon of 1980s pop culture. Its effects on Black American portrayal and gender politics on television were a major part of its success. The portrayal of Clair Huxtable, the matriarch of the Huxtable family, by Phylicia Rashad sparked an international wave of working mothers on television dubbed the "Clair Huxtable effect", and Bill Cosby was nicknamed "America's Dad" for his highly celebrated portrayal of Cliff Huxtable. The colorful sweaters he wore as Cliff became a fashion trend for a time which was temporarily revived in the early 2010s. Another sitcom starring Cosby and Rashad, Cosby, aired on CBS from 1996 to 2000, notable for its differences to The Cosby Show, garnering positive reviews. Since 2014, reruns of The Cosby Show have been pulled from several networks and venues as a result of the Bill Cosby sexual assault cases.
Premise
The show focuses on the Huxtable family, an upper middle class African-American family, living in a brownstone in Brooklyn Heights, New York, at 10 Stigwood Avenue. The father is Cliff Huxtable, an obstetrician and son of a prominent jazz trombonist. The mother is his wife, lawyer Clair Huxtable.They have four daughters and one son: Sondra, Denise, Theo, Vanessa, and Rudy. Despite its comedic tone, the show sometimes involves serious subjects, like Theo's experiences dealing with dyslexia, inspired by Cosby's dyslexic son Ennis, and teenage pregnancy when Denise's friend Veronica becomes pregnant.
Episodes
Pilot
The Cosby Show pilot episode uses the same title sequence as the rest of the first season, and is widely regarded as the first episode. However, it contains a number of differences from the remainder of the series.In the pilot, the Huxtables have only four children. Following the pilot, the Huxtables have five children, with the addition of their eldest daughter, Sondra, who is mentioned in episode four and appears first in episode 11. The character was created when Bill Cosby wanted the show to express the accomplishment of successfully raising a child who had graduated from college.
Bill Cosby originally wanted Vanessa Williams to play the part of Sondra due to her college education and background in theater arts. However, Williams had recently been crowned the first Black Miss America and pageant officials would not permit her to play the role while she was representing the Miss America pageant. Whitney Houston was also considered for the role of Denise Huxtable, but was unable to commit to the full-time television production schedule in the NBC contract, as she intended to become a full-time music recording artist.
Most of the story in the pilot presentation is taken from Bill Cosby's 1983 comedy film Bill Cosby: Himself. Cosby's character is called "Clifford" in the early episodes of the first season, but his name was later switched to "Heathcliff".
Additionally, Vanessa refers to Theo as "Teddy" twice in the dining room scene. The interior of the Huxtables' home features an entirely different living room from subsequent episodes, and different color schemes in the dining room and the master bedroom. Throughout the remainder of the series, the dining room is reserved for more formal occasions.
Background and production
Conception and development
In the early 1980s, Marcy Carsey and Tom Werner, two former executives at ABC, left the network to start their own production company: Carsey-Werner. At ABC, they had overseen sitcoms such as Mork & Mindy, Three's Company, and Welcome Back, Kotter. The two partners decided that to get a sitcom to sell for their fledgling company, they needed a big name behind it. Bill Cosby had performed stand-up comedy with award-winning albums and starred in several genres in TV and film in the 1960s and 70s, but his career had become more static by the early 1980s. According to a Chicago Tribune article from July 1985, despite Carsey and Werner's connection to the network, Lewis Erlicht, president of ABC Entertainment, passed on the show, prompting a pitch to rival network, NBC.Outside of his work on his cartoon series Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, Cosby was doing little in film or television, but Carsey and Werner were fans of Cosby's stand-up comedy and thought it would be the perfect material for a family sitcom.
Cosby originally proposed that the couple should both have blue-collar jobs, with the father a limousine driver, who owned his own car, and the mother an electrician. With advice from his wife Camille Cosby, though, the concept was changed so that the family was well-off financially, with the mother a lawyer and the father a physician.
Cosby wanted the program to be educational, reflecting his own background in education. He also insisted that the program be taped in New York City instead of Los Angeles, where most television programs were taped. The Huxtable home exterior was filmed at 10 St. Luke's Place near 7th Avenue in Manhattan's Greenwich Village.
Production notes
Early episodes were videotaped at NBC's Brooklyn studios. The network later sold that building, and production moved to the Kaufman Astoria Studios in Queens. Even though the show was set to take place in Brooklyn, the exterior façade was actually of a brownstone townhouse located in Manhattan's Greenwich Village at 10 Leroy Street/10 St. Luke's Place. The pilot was filmed in May 1984, with season one's production commencing that July, and the first taping on August 1.During its original NBC run, it was one of five successful sitcoms on the network that featured predominantly African-American casts. The others were 227, Amen, Cosby Show spin-off A Different World and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
Although the cast and characters were predominantly African-American, the program was unusual in that issues of race were rarely mentioned when compared to other situation comedies of the time with predominantly African-American casts, such as The Jeffersons. However, The Cosby Show had African-American themes, such as the Civil rights movement, and it frequently promoted African-American culture and culture of Africa represented by artists and musicians such as Jacob Lawrence, Miles Davis, James Brown, B. B. King, Stevie Wonder, Sammy Davis Jr., Lena Horne, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie and Miriam Makeba.
Chris Rock was considered for the role of Theo's best friend Cockroach, which eventually went to Payne.
The spin-off, A Different World, dealt with racial issues more often. The Cosby Show's series finale, taped March 6, 1992, aired during the 1992 Los Angeles riots, with Cosby quoted in media at the time pleading for peace.
During the third season, Rashad was pregnant with her daughter Condola. Rather than write this pregnancy in, the producers simply greatly reduced Rashad's scenes or filmed in such a way that her pregnancy was not noticeable.
Another main cast member pregnancy, that of Bonet, almost caused the actress to be fired, especially coming in the wake of appearing in the film Angel Heart, which contained explicit sexual scenes with actor Mickey Rourke. Cosby strongly disapproved of Bonet's role, but allowed her to continue on World until returning to Cosby after her pregnancy. Tensions remained, however, and Bonet was eventually fired in April 1991.
Theme song and opening sequence
The show's theme music, "Kiss Me", was composed by Stu Gardner and Bill Cosby. Seven versions of this theme were used during the run of the series, all variations of Cosby's 1974 song by the same name, from his album At Last Bill Cosby Really Sings. For season four, the theme song music was performed by musician Bobby McFerrin.Due to legal complications regarding the background mural, the opening for season seven, was replaced with the one from the previous season. The original season seven opening, with slight modifications, returned to use in the beginning of season eight.