I know exactly why I haaate “Raymond.” I almost got saddled with those parents as in-laws. It’s like the life of pure hell I could have had…and is not funny to me in the slightest.
I remember liking Cosby a lot as a kid, but having seen reruns more recently, I’d say that some bits are still good but overall it’s definitely showing some age.
I don’t like sitcoms in general. I guess that makes me weird. But for those who do, enjoy.
It was too “message” and “uplifting”, not that there’s anything really wrong with either per se but I think a sitcom should go for humor first and all else secondarily. My biggest problems with the show were
1- the set: the house looks like a model house on a Tour of Homes, not a place where 5 kids grew up (and that damned “sofa in the middle of the floor” that all sitcoms have)
2- the “time pornography” issue: an obstetrician and a partner in a successful Manhattan law firm, a professional couple who IRL would easily put in 120 hours in a week [together], have time to choreograph routines for their parents’ anniversary and, my personal favorite, strip a teenaged boy’s room to the bare walls and then impersonate a variety of characters in order to teach a life lesson
3- neither parent ever seems to be stressed out in spite of extraordinarily stressful careers
The show was actually best when they encountered some “real” problems: their oldest daughter deciding to open a doomed wilderness camping shop after a $200,000 education (Claire/Rashad’s “I’m not leaving until I get my money!” rant was one of the funniest on the show, and completely believable), second daughter’s flunking out of college and impromptu marriage, Theo’s slacking, third daughter’s engagement to a guy she just met (also a great moment: Cliff can’t stand the guy until he learns he owns a house, then tells Vanessa “Get the man some coffee dear!”). But generally I thought it was just way too earnest.
And the funniest moment I thought was actually in the premiere episode- Theo’s “I’m just normal people” spiel that gets applaused followed by Cliff’s “That is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard in my life”.
I seem to remember that Cosby originally wanted the couple to be middle class, incidentally. He wanted Cliff to be a professor of some humanities subject and his wife to be a plumber (or some other skilled profession usually associated with men), but his wife Camille insisted they be white-collar professionals as there were no other shows about well to do black couples after The Jeffersons (and even they weren’t well educated).
IIRC, the same production team also developed Roseanne, which I much preferred even though I didn’t like the star. The Connor’s house looked lived in, they were far from perfect in terms of kids’ problems, they weren’t the Bundys but they also weren’t perfect parents, they had money problems from time to time (even had their lights disconnected in one episode), and just generally a show that FAR more people could relate to than the Leave it To Beaver 1980s way too ideal Cosby show.
It’s generally accepted that The Cosby Show saved the sitcom format from extinction. It was the #1 show in the Nielsen ratings for five consecutive seasons. Apparently someone thought it was pretty good (me included).
It was a great, family show. Most mainstream comedies (e.g. Two and a Half Men) aren’t appropriate for young kids. The Cosby Show showed a loving, but flawed, family. And overall I appreciate the message that Bill Cosby strives to deliver, even if it’s sometimes preachy.
I liked it–I was a teenager at the time and part of the target audience. Quite often it was refreshingly unpreachy in comparison to most shows–remember these were the days of “very special episodes” every other week, and most sit-coms had a “what did we all learn from this” moment at the end. All the elements people are complaining about–perfect house, parents with loads of time–were absolutely normal elements in 80’s sit-coms.
I was going to pop in Sampiro’s “time porn” comment. Occasionally when I’m flipping around the channels I’ll pause on ‘Cosby’ just to fantasize for a bit about squeezing it all into my increasingly-fleeting days: successful job, attentive to the kids, volunteer, go to art auctions, graduations, cook real meals, clean the basement, keep a gigantic Brooklyn brownstone clean, get called to the hospital for middle-of-the-night baby deliveries, yet still have the energy to do a little somethin’-somethin’ with the spouse when he or she puts on a fabulous classic black-music record.
I never watched Seinfeld because it wasn’t funny.
Come on, remember that episode where Theo wanted to move out, so they constructed this elaborate fantasy scheme to show him the real world?
The Cosby Show is occaisionally funny but more often sweetly comfortable. It’s about a man and a woman who are both educated, intelligent people who respect each other and have a lot of sex without constantly putting each other down, which is in and of itself refreshing. When I grow up I want to be Claire Huxtable; doesn’t everybody?
Heh. This made me laugh.
I loved it. I couldn’t really tell you why at this point, but I sure enjoyed watching it when it was first-run.
The episode where Sandra & Elvin announce that they’re not going to grad school and instead open a wilderness store is still hilarious.
When I’ve caught it in reruns, I can tell there are parts that haven’t aged well. And sitcoms have changed since then. But it was/is a very good show.
No, it seemed stale at the time. Remember, The Beverly Hillibillies was massively popular in its time, too.
And Jason Alexander was never good in any role.
The first season or two had bits taken directly from Cosby’s standup. At the time Cosby was about the best standup in the world. It translated well into the show. I remember the first episode being one of the best first eps I have ever seen. Later not so much. It became the some you were comfortable with that had a few laughs per show.
I looooovvveeedd the Cosby show, and looked forward to it every week. I was, of course, about seven at the time.
I occasionally catch an episode on cable - the early ones are still funny.
Sure it went on about five years too long, but what popular sitcom hasn’t?
Too earnest for me, as were most 80s sitcoms. I watched the first season or so, when it was salted with a lot of material from Cosby’s act, but I didn’t stick with it for long.
I remember a passing moment where Theo comes into the living room and Claire casually asks him to wash the windows, and he cheerfully agrees, instead of angrily refusing, complaining about how he had to do EVERYTHING around the house, storming out of the room and possibly throwing something, as most teenage boys would. My bullshit detector immediately flew into the red. That’s probably around the time I stopped watching.
Yeah, I feel much the same way. Most sitcoms in general are kind of hard to watch now that we’ve got shows that are more…savvy. The quality of TV shows has gone up so much lately.
In terms of sitcoms, I kind of prefer stuff like “Frasier” or “Seinfeld” that are less earnest or dependent on the “very special” episodes, and a bit more witty and cynical.
I thought he was brilliantly cast as a lazy, conniving jackass, and he was not a half bad physical comedian for certain roles.
I thought Jason Alexander was brilliant.
As for all the people feigning surprise that anyone could possibly find “Seinfeld” funny…um…guys, it was one of the most popular shows of the 90s. Pretty much everyone I went to school with watched it.
Yes lots of people liked the Cosby Show, but then again you knew that before you asked the question didn’t you?
Wouldn’t it have been much easier to drop the whole coy “question” routine and just state your opinion?
I think George Castanza is in the running for Greatest TV Character of All Time.
Anybody remember that there’s an entire episode centered around the graduation exercises at “Hillman”, where another HBCU is clearly standing in and we all learn a little bit about pride in our historically black colleges?
Yeah, it’s very earnest sometimes. That’s part of why I like it, I think. It’s like how my dad likes to watch Andy Griffith - one likes to think that’s how the world is.
Remember when, like, the Fresh Prince would have a very special episode? Some of them were kind of eye-rollingly sincere (Will gets pulled over in a nice car because he’s a young black man) but some were very moving (Will’s father shows up). There’s room in sitcoms for mawkishness, IMHO, and I don’t fault them for it as long as it’s true to the characters and story. It is entirely true to the characters for the Huxtables to piously attend a black college graduation. (I want to say Claire spoke, or a dearly beloved professor was retiring, or something.)