“The Cosby Show” debuted 25 years ago on NBC. To mark the anniversary and subtly promote their DVD release, many of the cast members reunited on “The Today Show” this morning for an interview with Matt Lauer. They showed some great clips, though I’m guessing almost everyone is familiar with them already since the show’s still on about five hours a day in reruns. Bill Cosby had some rather odd moments throughout the chat – he’s aged into a sometimes unusual fellow, to say the least.

Can you believe it’s been 25 years since The Cosby Show first aired?

To mark the anniversary, the cast reunited on The Today Tuesday to relive their favorite moments.

“Our stuff is funny. There’s love there. It’s all genuine,” Bill Cosby explains of the endurance of the show, which premiered Sept. 20, 1984.

Malcolm-Jamal Warner, who played Theo Huxtable, says the show is still popular after all these years because of Bill Cosby’s “vision. He wanted the show to be timeless. If I wanted to put slang in, he’d say, ‘No, let’s make up slang so 20 years later, it’s still relevant.’”

Keshia Knight-Pulliam, who starred as 4-year-old Rudy, says she thinks of the Huxtables as more of “an American family” than an “African-American family…that was what was so groundbreaking and still so relevant today. The family issues weren’t about race.”

Mom Phylicia Rashad continues: “We were always an African-American family…that’s an American family. We were not a novelty. This American family has existed for decades and decades and centuries…we were just new to television.”

Knight-Pulliam also opens up about learning her lines when she was just four years old. “I couldn’t read and I had to learn lines. I memorized them [with my parents],” she says.

[From Us Weekly]

The part about their show being funny was a great interaction. Matt Lauer notes that when other casts watch their clips on “Today” they seem to feel awkwardly, but the cast of “The Cosby Show” still laughs and enjoys them. Cosby replies, “Yes, because our stuff is funny.”

Some of his stranger moments occurred when he started talking about their great editor who knew to stay on the kids when they delivered a funny line, and then without any segue started talking about how everybody knows “the mother with the eyes” (meaning Rashad). And he goes off on that for a long time, until Matt Lauer finally says, “Did I even ask a question?” Everyone laughs, but for some reason Cosby doesn’t and then calls Lauer “Charles Dickens.” Naturally.

It’s hard not to notice that everyone still refers to him as “Mr. Cosby” or “Dr. Cosby” – something I’d noticed in other interviews over the years. Lauer asks if it has to do with respect, and Cosby replies “No, it has to do with checks!”

One of the most interesting questions comes off a skit from “The Daily Show,” in which one of the correspondents says that Barack Obama is basically just Cliff Huxtable. The reasons being that “They’re both married to hot lawyers, both work out of offices on the west side of their houses, and both have unrealistically cute daughters.” Lauer uses this as a jumping off point, asking, “Did this show, in some ways, pave the way for a President Obama?”

Malcolm Jamal-Warner answered it in a way I thought was really great. He said, “It changed the ways white America AND black America looked at the black middle class.” And noted that “24” had a black president, thus there were other shows that may have contributed along the way. Overall it was a fun interview to watch, even with some of Cosby’s unusual and slightly awkward antics.

Bill Cosby seemed surprised and a little flattered by a writer’s theory that the “Huxtable Effect,” named for his 80s sitcom family, helped people feel comfortable voting a black man into office. Writer Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez coined the term “Huxtable effect,” which she meant as a counter to the “Bradley effect,” a theory that the polls might not be correct because people would fib about whether they’d actually vote for a person of color. Valdes-Rodriguez claims that positive images of African Americans in popular culture like on “The Cosby Show” helped change public perception, with Obama directly benefiting from that change in this election.

Cosby said of course his show wasn’t responsible for Obama’s win, and that the historic moment is more due to who Obama is as a person. Cosby told a very touching story about how he brought photos of his late parents and brother with him to the polling booth and said they were voting too.

Cosby talked about the concept for his 80s show, which was a positive family-friendly sitcom in which the parents, not the children, were in charge.

When Bill Cosby entered the polling booth in his neighborhood last week, he carried with him photographs of his late parents and Jimmy, the kid brother who died in childhood.

“I pulled out the pictures, pulled the curtain shut. And I said, `You guys are gonna vote.’ And they did, on one piece of paper,” Cosby said.

He couldn’t resist delivering a punch line for fellow voters in Shelburne Falls, Mass. _ “I yelled out, `How do you spell plumber?’” _ even as he exulted in casting his ballot for the first African-American president.

There’s an argument circulating that “The Cosby Show” laid the groundwork for President-elect Barack Obama by presenting an appealing black family, the Huxtables, to young TV viewers who grew up equipped to thwart stereotypes and barriers.

Writer Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez called her theory “the Huxtable effect,” a counter to the so-called Bradley effect (named for failed black California gubernatorial hopeful Tom Bradley) of possible hidden racism among white voters.

Ask Cosby, 71, his view of the part his 1984-92 NBC sitcom played as political groundbreaker, and the man who looms large as both a comedian and blunt commentator on black America first offers a measured appraisal.

“I was amazed when the young woman’s theory came through,” said Cosby. It sounds plausible, he mused, recalling the show’s immense popularity and the many times that fans said Cliff Huxtable reminded them of their dad _ their white dad.

But he chafes at what he calls the “Karl Rovian” interpretation, referring to the Republican strategist’s Election Night comment on Fox News that viewers embraced the Huxtables as “America’s family” and not a black one.

“The reason why he’s in the White House is Cosby? No, no, no,” Cosby said.

He suggests looking beyond the influence of a TV family to that of a real one: the household in which the future president was raised.

He cites Obama’s account of being woken early to do his homework and his mother’s refusal to brook any complaints. Cosby bows as well to Michelle Obama and her father, who refused special treatment despite multiple sclerosis.

“This is what Michelle and Barack are made of, the things they see” in their parents, he said.

It was Cosby’s firm belief in parental responsibility _ and aggravation over ’80s programs _ that shaped the creation of “The Cosby Show,” out this week in a boxed DVD set of the complete series.

“I was not happy with what we used to call family TV in those days. … They had all these shows where you just dropped to one knee and fired, then a car blew up or a plant blew up _ all this dopamine-raising violence,” he said.

At a time when the sitcom genre appeared near death, the few family comedies that aired were especially dismaying.

“The situation comedies were failing because they had children seemingly who had taken over the house. In a sense, TV comedy writers and producers had decided they would no longer have a family where grown people were making corrections and kids were going through … `Leave It to Beaver’ type things,” he said.

The idea for a show where “the parents weren’t losing to the kids” was rejected by other networks before NBC executive Brandon Tartikoff bought a revamped version of it, with the original blue-collar family now morphed into affluent professionals.

“The Cosby Show” starred the comedian as a mellow physician who, with his lawyer-wife Clair (Phylicia Rashad), kept a loving, firm hand on their five children.

Tartikoff knew that Cosby, a recording, movie and TV star (with shows including the 1960s “I Spy,” in which he was the first black star of a drama series), was funny and likable.

“And Tartikoff also said, `What I like about this show is dignity. The family has dignity,’” Cosby recalled. “And what’s odd about it is it was just natural for me. Because what I wanted, the only thing I wanted, was to stop these children on TV from running the house.”

Wasn’t he also intent on shattering racial stereotypes?

“Look, I’m already black,” Cosby said, so pressing the race issue “gets to be stupid after all.”

But, he adds, “What I did have in mind was that the images that you see on television are not the behaviors of Americans who are black. Racism is so stupid, but it is and it does exist. Period.”

[From AP via Huffington Post]

I watched this show all the time when I was a kid and you just kind of got involved in the story and didn’t think about the fact that the family wasn’t white. Maybe it did change people’s ideas about race, but it did it subtly by just being a fun show. That’s probably the most effective way of all.

“The Cosby Show” aired for eight years, from 1984 to 1992 on NBC, and according to TV Guide it “was TV’s biggest hit in the 1980s, and almost single-handedly revived the sitcom genre and NBC’s ratings fortunes.” [via Wikipedia]

Here’s a clip of Cliff trying to get Rudy to eat her vegetables.

If you’re in the US, you can watch whole episodes of The Cosby Show on YouTube.

Bill Cosby is shown outside The Late Show on 10/11/08 (credit: WENN) and performing on 1/20/08. Credit: PRPhotos

Oscar nominee Terrence Howard claims that Bill Cosby once blacklisted him. As a brash 19-year-old, Howard had a confrontation with the legendary Cosby, and says he didn’t work for four years after that. Terrence went on to star in Hustle & Flow, for which he was nominated for an Oscar.

Oscar-nominee Terrence Howard almost destroyed his promising acting career when he was axed from The Cosby Show. The Crash star landed his first acting part in the legendary comedy show in 1988 – but he was sacked before any of his scenes were aired.

He explains, “I was 19 and had just moved to New York from Cleveland, I got on The Cosby Show on my second audition ever.” Howard was so angry that his scenes were cut, he confronted the show’s star and producer Bill Cosby – who he claims subsequently blacklisted him in the entertainment business.

He explains, “I told him, ‘I’m a man just like you.’ He didn’t like it, and the casting agent never took my calls again.” Howard didn’t work for four years, but recovered to forge a successful acting career – landing an Academy Award in 2006 for his role in Hustle + Flow.

[From Contact Music]

Obviously it didn’t hurt Howard in the long run, since his film career is doing pretty well these days. The story doesn’t seem that surprising or outlandish to me. After Lisa Bonet – who played one of Cosby’s children on The Cosby Show – filmed a movie that almost got an X rating and then did a nude photo shoot for Rolling Stone, Cosby had her fired because he disapproved. She was given a spinoff show after she threatened legal action. But Cosby has long felt it okay to dictate right and wrong, especially to young people.

Cosby seems to take his role of the moral authority pretty seriously, so Howard’s claims sound legit. It’s pretty damn ironic, considering the claims against Cosby.

Here’s Terrence Howard at the BET Awards on June 24th. Header Los Angeles, California – 24.06.08. Header image of Bill Cosby outside the ‘Late Show With David Letterman’ in New York on January 28th. Images thanks to WENN.

Bill Cosby just settled a case out of court with a woman who claimed he drugged and raped her two years ago. Probably the main reason he settled the case was the fact that there were 13 women willing to testify in court that Cosby had done the exact same thing to them! Two of the women lined up to testify are telling their story to People Magazine. The two former models say that they had beverages while hanging out with Cosby in the 80s and that they woke up hours later feeling sick and with their clothes off. Both of them ended up having relationships with him, which doesn’t mean that their stories aren’t true, just that they were impressionable and rather stupid to keep seeing Cosby afterwards. One of them was just 18 at the time.

The allegations came out after Cosby settled out of court last month a civil lawsuit charging him with sexual assault and drugging a woman in Philadelphia in 2004.

The trial had 13 witnesses lined up, listed as “Jane Does,” who stood ready to testify of similar experiences with the comic.

Barbara Bowman and Beth Ferrier were two of the 13, and both were interviewed and pictured in the People story. The two were represented by JF Images when they were introduced to Cosby in the ’80s. (Neither woman had come forward before, and they do not stand to profit from the allegations as the statute of limitations has expired, according to People.)

Bowman, who is married and now lives in a Phoenix suburb, was 18 when she says Farrell arranged to have her meet Cosby at a Denver nightclub, Turn of the Century. People magazine says Farrell then arranged for Bowman to move to New York, where her professional relationship with Cosby continued. Bowman says that in a Reno hotel in 1986, “(Cosby) took my hand and his hand over it, and he masturbated with his hand over my hand.”

She goes on to say that soon she was in a New York townhouse with Cosby, who gave her a glass of red wine. “The next thing I know,” she is quoted, “I’m sick and nauseous and I’m delusional and I’m limp and … I can’t think straight. … And I just came to, and I’m wearing a (men’s) T-shirt that wasn’t mine, and he was in a white robe.”

Ferrier, a single mom who still lives in Denver, says she was introduced to Cosby by Farrell in the mid-’80s. She tells People that Cosby was her mentor, a “father figure” to her, when she drank some cappuccino in his Denver dressing room and blacked out.

“I woke up in my car in the parking lot with my clothes all a mess,” she tells People. “I was definitely drugged. All I had to drink was coffee, and the room was spinning. Then I wake up with my clothes a mess and my bra unhooked. I wondered, I still wonder, ‘What did he do with me? Why was my bra unhooked? What happened?”‘

Ferrier went on to have an “on-and-off” consensual affair with Cosby for several years.

[via Fark]

Bill Cosby is pretty much on my shit list after he tried to sue Waxy.org for reposting a parody cartoon of him as a wacky clone called “House of Cosbys.” He also drew heat after blaming African-Americans for their plight post-Katrina.

If this shit is true he needs to do some jail time. Unfortunately the statute of limitations is up, so that means that these women can’t bring up their own charges or profit from their stories. He’ll be 70 next year, so it’s surprising that he was pulling this same stunt and was caught at it just two years ago. He’s been married to Camille Cosby since 1964 and they have five children together.

Bill Cosby’s legal team has sent a cease and desist order to popular blogger Andy Baio of Waxy.org for posting the “House of Cosbys” video files. “House of Cosbys” is a cartoon that depicts multiple cloned Cosbys living in a house together, similar to the plot of the Micheal Keaton film, Mulitplicity. Baio is standing his ground, and says that “House of Cosbys” is a parody which falls under fair use guidelines. He points to many other parodies of Cosby, and says that he refuses to be legally bullied:

Here’s House of Cosbys episode one:

Bill Cosby seems like even more of an asshole when you consider that he recently pointed out to Katrina victims that there were high crime rates in New Orleans before the natural disaster:

[via]

This is typical of Cosby, who has lashed out in the past at what he perceives as a violent black popular culture and an unwillingness to change. Cosby has seemed to blame the African American community for their plight and maintains a dismal perspective instead of looking at more broad sociocultural factors and seeing the positive aspects of black culture.