The Bill Cosby Show

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?

This two-season sitcom is a masterpiece of mid-century television production. That this fine show even made it to prime-time television is amazing enough. This is high quality TV: shot to film, great scoring/soundtrack, interesting scripts, even pretty decent cinematography.

And, no laugh-track.

Character-driven plot lines that revolve around bachelor/teacher Chett Kincaid's adventures: simply stated (by Bill Cosby in the bonus Interview), Chett is a guy that things happen to...Chet tries to get from point A to point B...but, in-between, all sorts of other things occur in his day-to-day activities.

Quincy Jones does the music...fabulous tunes!

This series is arguably Bill Cosby's greatest achievement.

Definitely my favorite Cosby Show of all time.

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.

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.