The Bill Cosby Show

I vividly remember watching this show as a young kid and thought it was just great. First, I loved the opening theme music. The plots were very memorable. I too remember the one about the foul mouthed basketball player. Another one that sticks out in my mind was when he had to visit his parents and they were always arguing like a typical old couple. It was a text book lesson in comedic timing between two people as they hurled insults at each other. I liked the fact that there was no laugh track so I used my own judgment as to what I thought was funny versus not funny. This show was pure genius for the reasons mentioned that only somebody of Cosby's caliber could pull off. It was a one season wonder. i am going to rent the DVDs and start reliving them now.

Especially I really loved the episode where he tries to became math professor and he goes to the drugstore to buy the candies, just because he had to solve a problem about the price and weight of candies. "How many candies do you want?" "No, you have to tell me how many!"

Jolting hilarious!

As a child, I remember watching this show when the reruns aired on CBN (Now the ABC Family Channel) and really enjoying it. So when I saw the First Season DVD on eBay for a low price, I could not resist buying it.

The show centered around Chet Kincaid who was a gym teacher, football and basketball coach, and valuable member of the community. His willingness to help other people always seemed to get him into unenviable situations as well as hurting his love life. For instance, there was one episode where he agreed to do his sick nephew's paper route for one day and he ended up spending all morning trying to get the papers to the right houses. Much of the plot was clean, light-hearted fare. There were no episodes that focused on serious topics like racism. The good thing about the show was that it did not follow the same formula as most other sitcoms at the time. There was no laugh track which was almost unheard of at the time. The episodes focused more on character and situational development instead of laugh-out-loud comedy. Much of the dialog by Bill Cosby seemed like it was ad libbed which gave the show kind of a natural quality. It was also one of the first series to have an African American in a leading role and Cosby served as a great role model.

In 1965,comedian talent Bill Cosby scored a huge success as being the first black American to star in a non-stereotypical role,playing tennis coach/secret government agent Alexander Scott on the action-adventure espionage series "I Spy",which was produced by Sheldon Leonard which was very successful,filmed on location in various parts of the world and was in full color for the three seasons that it ran on NBC-TV from September 15,1965 until September 2,1968,producing 86 episodes. The show was so brilliant and clever it won Bill Cosby the Emmy in 1966 for Best Supporting Actor in a Dramatic Role.

In 1969,Bill Cosby returned to series television. Only this time it would be a situation comedy series,which was also successful in its own right. Created by Bill Cosby,along with Michael Zagor and Ed. Weinberger(who would go on to produced "The Mary Tyler Moore Show", "Taxi",and "Amen"),"The Bill Cosby Show",ran for more than two seasons for NBC-TV from September 14,1969 until August 31,1971,producing 51 episodes. Not only this show was brilliant in its own right,but it was Nominated for 4 Prime-Time Emmys in 1970,including one for Cosby,who was nominated for Best Actor in Comedic Role,along with Quincy Jones who was nominated for Best Original Score for a Television Series(who wrote and composed the theme score). "The Bill Cosby Show" starred Cosby as high school physical education teacher and coach Chet Kincaid. The setting was a school in a lower-middle class neighborhood of suburban Los Angeles. His relationships with family,students,and fellow teachers were emphasized,giving free reign to Cosby's gentle sense of humor and philosophy,which made this series stand-out from other comedies that premiered in the late 1960's and throughout the early 1970's.

His family life with his mother Rose(season one by Lillian Randolph,and second two by Beah Richards),his brother Brian(Lee Weaver)and his sister-in-law Verna(Olga James),were part of the program as his professional with the school principal Mr. Langford(Sid McCoy);the guidance counselor,Mrs.Peterson(Joyce Bulifant),and the suppose of a lot of kids,which came to him for guidance and some wisdom. This show also had a lot of special guest stars who were on board this series: One episode I do recall featured Cosby's co-star from "I Spy" Robert Culp. The others featured British actress Elsa Lanchester,and Henry Fonda. This series hasn't been seen since it was originally broadcast. During the mid-1980's and early 1990's,CBN Cable Network(Christian Broadcasting Network)reaired this series it its entirely. Most recently,the show has been resurrected on DVD.

Some people write about this show "failing" because it was only on for a couple of years. My cloudy recollection is that it was doing OK, between 15-20 in the Nielsens, when Cosby went into one of his funks and quit doing the show. Can anyone verify this? Regardless, it was very, very funny. Character-driven, not gag-every-10-seconds-oriented like so many lame-brained sit-coms. The story lines were often imaginative: e.g. Chet Kincaid spending the whole show trying to replace a needle valve for blowing up basketballs; dealing with a potty-mouthed student and his parents; trying to borrow a vehicle for a big date (ends up driving a garbage truck). It often taught good lessons, but with subtlety compared to his '80s show.

The last time I saw it on the air was on Pat Robertson's old Family Channel over a dozen years ago. !?!?! Why have these re-runs completely disappeared?