So.  When bringing up the television series of Bill Cosby, how do you or do you even acknowledge the giant elephant in the room?

This article on the “future of multi camera tv sitcoms” decides it has to…

Multi-camera was the ideal medium for an age, not yet concluded, of shows built around stand-up comedians, used to working before a live audience: Redd Foxx (“Sanford and Son”), Gabe Kaplan (“Welcome Back, Kotter”), Tim Allen (“Home Improvement,” the current “Last Man Standing”), Freddie Prinze (“Chico and the Man”), Bill Cosby (despite the failings of the man, it’s pointless to deny the power of “The Cosby Show”), “The Bernie Mac Show,” and more recently, with various degrees of success, Whitney Cummings, John Mulaney and Jerrod Carmichael, in shows all named for their leads.

I suppose it’s the listings that do it.  Cosby jumps right at you.  I do have to wonder if they couldn’t have put in a stronger qualifier, though — “the failings of the man” — which could cover minor issues as well as major ones, and granted I wouldn’t be explicit in specifically referencing his failing, but maybe we can up to “heinous crimes”.

And then on to a new edition of Art Linkletter’s “Kids Say the Darndest Thing”, and the history of that franchise…

CBS brought the idea back with Bill Cosby hosting a 1995 special and then a full series, which ran from 1998 to 2000.

Executive decision made somewhere in editing that the people can read through it effortlessly, without a “Yeah, I know” thrown in.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 22nd, 2019 at 7:07 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.