I was a big fan of The Cosby Show growing up. I watched it all the time and my favourite episode was the one where the kids put on a show for their grandparents’ anniversary. The big finale is Olivia lip syncing her heart out to some gospel song sung by a woman, who sounds like she has just risen from the grave. And her performance is so great that they play it again during the credits (oh, another choice moment is the episode, where Bud duets with BB King on How Blue Can You Get. Bud (or Kenny as he was actually called) was one of my favourite guest characters). I also really liked A Different World, but that wasn’t so much because it was a spin-off as it was because I thought Dwayne Wayne was a riot and Cree Summer was kinda hot. I also read Bill Cosby’s book Fatherhood and I have Inside the Mind of Bill Cosby on vinyl, which I bought in a second hand shop years ago.

I also really like Eddie Murphy, so when I saw the movie Raw years ago I thought he did a funny impression of Cosby and I liked the way he made it sound like Bill’s real home was like it was on the show (I don’t handle the money. My wife, Camille, handles the money). If you haven’t seen Raw the bit centres on Cosby’s son Ennis, who wants to go see Eddie do stand-up and when he gets back Cosby asks his son what the show was like. After a while the kid finally tells his father, what Eddie said at the show, which leads to Cosby calling Eddie to complain about the filth-floin-filth that Eddie says on stage (to this day I don’t know what floin means or if it’s even the right word, but that’s what it sounds like). So Cosby chastises Eddie for cursing on stage, which leads to a very funny Richard Pryor impersonation with a lot of cursing and the show just continues with more and more funny stuff.

The point is that I didn’t actually think that Cosby ever called Eddie to complain about the show, but after reading a recent article where Cosby criticises the show The Osbournes I’m beginning to think that maybe he did. And that maybe he’s a bit of an annoying know-nothing know-it-all. I think that’s a real shame, because I always thought he seemed like a really nice guy.