The Bill Cosby Show

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.

This was his BEST show! The heck with the Huxtables and whatever else Cosby did. This was his BEST show! 2 of my favorite episodes was when he subbed for a driver's ed class and when he invited his buddies over to watch a very important football game on his brand new TV. Well, his buddies saw the game but Chet didn't! All the other episode were good also. I wonder if any actors from the series became famous. What a great series with a great theme song and this show along with Room 222 made TV worth watching. I was a 13 when this series came out and decided then that I would NOT marry and tailor my bachelor life just like Chet Kincaid. He was the Bachelors' Bachelor! Hickey Burr! Hickey Burr Hickey Burr!!!! Hickey Burr!! And I don't understand why some previous comments have to mention race. ADDED ON October 2006- You can save the theme song on your computer- http://www.megaupload.com/?d=MQRE7761

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?

Bill Cosby's work has always has always been distinguished by a keen intelligence, in every medium to which he turns his talents. 'The Bill Cosby Show' is one of Coz's less distinguished credits, but it deserves to be better known: this series is a brave attempt at doing something different.

Even the theme tune of this series was unusual and distinctive, featuring a vocal track by Cosby himself making weird scat-like sounds ... of the sort now associated with Michael Winslow in the 'Police Academy' movies.

Although nominally a comedy, 'The Bill Cosby Show' was not a conventional sitcom, and there was only secondary emphasis on humour. (In other words, the show wasn't very funny ... but it wasn't trying to be.) Cosby was more interested in depicting believable characters in plausible situations, addressing genuine issues of the time.

Cosby played Chet Kincaid, the gym teacher at an urban high school. In one episode of this series, Chet had to contend with a teenager on his basketball team who played brilliantly but had a penchant for foul language. Unfortunately, American TV in the late '60s couldn't handle this theme sensibly. Whenever the teenager spoke, the soundtrack made a weird electronic bleeping noise ... leaving the audience to **figure out** that the boy had uttered a cuss word. In another episode, Cosby coached a Little League baseball team that only played on Sundays. His star pitcher was a young Hasidic Jew. When a game was rescheduled for the Saturday, Cosby had to deal with the fact that his pitcher's religious beliefs conflicted with his obligations to his teammates.

Bill Cosby is rightly praised for being one of the few African-American comedians who doesn't do racial material, and the skin colour of the character he played in 'The Bill Cosby Show' was almost totally irrelevant. Almost, but not entirely. In one episode, Chet went for a morning jog but immediately got arrested by a couple of white police officers who claimed that Chet fit the description of a man who had just committed a crime. Race was never mentioned, but it's hard not to think of all the occasions when white police officers have randomly arrested **any** black man who happens to be near a crime scene. I thought that this episode would be going in that direction, but I was surprised: at the end of the episode, when the cops nabbed the real culprit, he looked very similar to Cosby. (This reminded me of Hitchcock's movie 'The Wrong Man', starring Henry Fonda, in which the real criminal looked a lot like Fonda.)

Speaking of Henry Fonda, the best episode of 'The Bill Cosby Show' is a real tour de force, a three-hander starring Cosby, Henry Fonda and Elsa Lanchester, and taking place almost entirely in an elevator. Fonda and Lanchester portrayed, respectively, the maths teacher and the Polish charwoman who get trapped in the school's lift with gym teacher Cosby. They spend most of the episode in the elevator, waiting for help. The fact that Lanchester's character speaks no English makes the situation even more frustrating. In a desperate attempt to pass the time, Cosby teaches Fonda how to play Twenty Questions ... with very funny results.

In another episode, veteran character actor Mantan Moreland guest-stars as Chet's uncle. Moreland was a very talented performer who had to spend much of his career doing stereotypical Negro roles ("Feets, do yo' stuff!") but he's very good here as the uncle of Cosby's character. I'll rate 'The Bill Cosby Show' 7 points out of 10 for its honesty, its intelligence, and its bravery in offering audiences something different. But audiences are more interested in brainless laugh-fests than in intelligent character studies... which is why this series flopped.