re: #206 TedStriker

Speaking of Cosby, I grew up on The Cosby Show…I loved it, I loved Himself, but I can’t and won’t ever watch or listen to anything he’s done anymore because of the conniving, scheming rapist he turned out to be off-camera and off-stage that’s in such stark contrast to his well-crafted “America’s Dad” public persona.

When Phylicia Rashad tweeted in celebration of Cosby’s release from prison (that she later walked back for damage control when she was getting ratioed by hell and gone and dragged in the press for it, no doubt), I have to say that I was very disappointed in her and still am, to an extent.

However, I’ll give Rashad a bit of understanding on that tweet, for this one reason: Cosby was very methodical about pursuing his prey and, apparently, it seems that, in the case of the shows she did with him (including the later Cosby), Cosby didn’t “shit where he eat” and apparently didn’t target Rashad or his other then-castmates on those shows. Being friends and co-workers with Cosby over the course of almost forty years must have given Rashad a hell of a blind spot when all this started coming out, especially when it’s not, AFAIK, affecting her or people she knows directly. Even with all of the women that had been his prey over several decades all the way back to his college days coming out and all of the legal actions, she could have still been in denial about it all, because that’s not the Bill Cosby she knew…and that she didn’t want it to be true.

So, Rashad gets just this one…only this one.

In 1983, I used to enjoy “Himself,” when it was omnipresent on the premium cable movie channels of the time.

Watching it again many years later as an adult, I found myself taken aback by how often routines revolved around Camille and the Cosby daughters wanting Ennis killed. And how many routines came across as a justification for child abuse as a loving form of discipline.

After that, I couldn’t look at those routines the same way again.

The Dentist routine, though, remains comedy gold.