47 Fun Facts About The Cosby Show

Which future Grammy-winning singer appeared on The Cosby Show at age four as one of Rudy's sleepover guests?

Alicia Keys, billed under her birth name Alicia Cook, was among the children at Rudy's slumber party, where Cliff keeps order with games such as bouncing each guest on his knee like a bucking bronco.

On which network did The Cosby Show air?

NBC said yes after ABC turned the show down, and the hit carried NBC from also-ran to first place in prime time.

What is Cliff Huxtable's profession?

Obstetrician: Cosby had planned a blue-collar father until his wife Camille argued for professional parents like the Cosbys themselves, so he gave way and made Cliff a doctor.

What is Clair Huxtable's profession?

Lawyer: an earlier idea made Clair a Dominican who burst into Spanish when angry, a reversal of I Love Lucy, but it was dropped before the pilot was taped.

Who played Clair Huxtable?

Phylicia Rashad won the part with a look: in her screen test she stopped arguing with the boy playing her son and simply stared at him, and Cosby declared her his Clair.

In which New York City borough is the Huxtable home set?

Brooklyn was the Huxtables' home on screen and the early seasons were taped in the borough too, but the brownstone shown from the street really stands across the river in Manhattan.

Rudy Huxtable was first written as a boy; which child actor was the front-runner for the part?

Jaleel White, later Family Matters' Steve Urkel, was the favourite until auditions were opened to girls and a four-year-old won the producers over, so Rudy became a daughter.

In The Cosby Show's pilot, what does Cliff use to show Theo how far a pay cheque without college really goes?

Monopoly money: Theo ends up broke, pleads to be loved as he is and wins applause from the studio audience, until Cliff answers that it is the dumbest thing he has ever heard.

Which real-life issue did Theo's storyline explore, inspired by Cosby's son?

Dyslexia: Cosby's son Ennis was diagnosed at college and his grades took off, so Cosby wrote it into the show, with Cliff and Clair made to face their years of blaming Theo's marks on laziness.

Who played Theo Huxtable?

Malcolm-Jamal Warner auditioned on the last day of the search and played Theo as a smart-aleck, until Cosby asked if he would speak to his own father that way; his second reading won the part.

Who played Rudy, the youngest Huxtable?

Keshia Knight Pulliam was four at her audition and kept staring at a studio monitor, asking the director how he had put her on the TV; charmed, he moved her to the top of his list.

Who played Vanessa Huxtable?

Tempestt Bledsoe took a finance degree at New York University and in 1995 fronted a daytime talk show of her own, later saying roles were scarce because casting people still saw her as twelve years old.

Which future star played toddler Olivia Kendall from season six?

Raven-Symone was three when she auditioned for Cosby's film Ghost Dad and was judged too young for it; he liked her so much that he found her a part on his sitcom instead.

On The Cosby Show, which character marries eldest daughter Sondra Huxtable?

Elvin Tibideaux and Sondra come back from their honeymoon with a shock for her parents: instead of going on to medical school and law school, they plan to open a wilderness supply store.

What nickname does Theo Huxtable's best friend go by on The Cosby Show?

Cockroach, played by Carl Anthony Payne II, arrives in an episode where he and Theo face a test on Macbeth that neither has read, and rent a recording of the play rather than open the book.

Which music star invites the Huxtables into his recording studio after his car collides with theirs?

Stevie Wonder plays himself in the 1986 episode 'A Touch of Wonder', making up for the crash with a recording session at which he sings 'I Just Called to Say I Love You' with Clair and the family.

Clair Huxtable's maiden name was borrowed from Bill Cosby's wife Camille; what is it?

Hanks: Camille Cosby was born Camille Hanks, and the borrowing ran through the family tree, with Cliff's parents Anna and Russell named after Cosby's own mother and brother.

Which production company, founded by two former ABC executives, made The Cosby Show?

Carsey-Werner was new: Marcy Carsey and Tom Werner had left ABC to go independent, their old network passed on the Cosby pitch, and the hit set them up to make A Different World and Roseanne.

Before his wife Camille talked him out of it, what job did Bill Cosby plan to give Cliff Huxtable?

Limousine driver: Cosby liked the stories a chauffeur could tell and the free daytime hours at home with the children, but Camille insisted on professional parents, and Cliff became a doctor.

Harvard's Alvin Poussaint was hired to review The Cosby Show's scripts; what was his profession?

Psychiatrist: Poussaint, who studied the effects of racism, read the scripts and storylines so that the Huxtables came across as a healthy, realistic Black family and not a set of old sitcom stereotypes.

Which singer auditioned to play Sondra Huxtable the year before her debut album came out?

Whitney Houston did not get the part, which went to a Yale-trained actress; months later her first album arrived and she went on to seven number-one singles in a row.

Cliff Huxtable was a medical doctor, but Bill Cosby held a real doctorate in which field?

Education: Cosby took the degree at the University of Massachusetts in 1976, with a dissertation on using his own cartoon series, Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, as a teaching aid in schools.

Which jazz vocalist recorded The Cosby Show's season-four theme a year before his own number-one hit?

Bobby McFerrin sang it for a single season, because the show re-recorded its theme in a new style most years; within a year his 'Don't Worry, Be Happy' was at number one.

The spin-off A Different World was built around which Huxtable daughter?

Denise left for college and a series of her own in 1987 but lasted only one season there: she was written out and came home to the Huxtable household.

What is the fictional historically Black college in A Different World called?

Hillman College, placed in Virginia, is also where Cliff and Clair studied and where Cliff's father went before them, which is why a Huxtable daughter enrols there.

After Lisa Bonet left, A Different World centred on which two characters?

Whitley Gilbert and Dwayne Wayne, a rich Southern belle and a fast-talking maths whiz, fell into a love-hate romance, and their eventual wedding became a major event of the series.

Who took over A Different World as producer-director in 1988, drawing on her own years at Howard University?

Debbie Allen, sister of the actress who played Clair Huxtable, sent the writers to Atlanta's Black colleges every spring to meet students and staff, and many storylines grew out of those visits.

Which future Oscar winner played Maggie Lauten in the first season of A Different World?

Marisa Tomei played one of the few white students on the mostly Black campus and was dropped in the overhaul after that first year; her Oscar for My Cousin Vinny came five years later.

Why was A Different World's original lead character written out after only one year?

The actress's real-life pregnancy: Lisa Bonet was expecting a child with her husband Lenny Kravitz, and the producers would not make her character an expectant student, so she was sent home to the parent show.

During which national event did The Cosby Show's series finale air in 1992?

The Los Angeles riots were in their second day when the finale went out, and Cosby took to the air to ask people to stop the violence and watch the farewell episode instead.

Which item of clothing became Cliff Huxtable's trademark on The Cosby Show?

Sweaters: the loud patchwork knits were made by Dutch designer Koos van den Akker, and 'Cosby sweater' became shorthand for any garish jumper.

In The Cosby Show's Italian dub, the Huxtables' surname was changed to what?

Robinson: 'Huxtable' was judged too awkward for Italian tongues, so the family was renamed and the series itself went out as I Robinson.

On which night of the week did The Cosby Show air for all eight of its seasons?

Thursday: opening the evening at 8 pm, the show became the keystone of Thursday-night television and is credited with reviving the sitcom at a time when the form was thought to be dying.

Which stand-up comedian says he was meant to play Theo Huxtable's best friend on The Cosby Show?

Chris Rock called it the big break that never came and joked 'thank god that didn't happen'; the part went to Carl Anthony Payne II, and Rock reached Saturday Night Live in 1990.

In The Cosby Show's backstory, what did Cliff Huxtable's father Russell do for a living?

A prominent jazz trombonist: Russell was played by Earle Hyman, a classical actor who also worked on the Norwegian stage, which is why the old bandsman keeps breaking into Shakespeare.

Which sitcom does Entertainment Weekly credit The Cosby Show with helping make possible?

It cited a wider variety of shows with predominantly Black casts, from In Living Color onward.

Cliff Huxtable is 'Clifford' in the pilot, but what is his full first name for the rest of The Cosby Show?

Heathcliff: the pilot's office nameplate read 'Clifford Huxtable, M.D.', and the shot was reused through the first season even after the scripts had renamed him.

The Cosby Show's 1992 finale is built around which family milestone?

Theo's college graduation: once the long-broken doorbell is finally fixed, Cliff and Clair dance out of their living room, off the set and past the studio audience.

Which scholar wrote in a 1989 New York Times essay that The Cosby Show blamed Black poverty on the poor?

Henry Louis Gates Jr. enjoyed the show with his daughters, yet warned that a hit about a doctor's family changed nothing for most Black Americans, whose prospects he called the bleakest in a very long time.

Which nickname did Bill Cosby earn for playing Cliff Huxtable?

'America's Dad' grew out of Cliff's firm but funny parenting: Cosby built the series as an answer to sitcoms where smart-mouthed children ran the house, with parents who always stayed in charge.

At which fictional street address is the Huxtable home?

10 Stigwood Avenue changed shape after its first outing: the house in the pilot had a different layout from the one viewers saw in every later episode.

Who played eldest daughter Sondra Huxtable?

Sabrina Le Beauf was only ten years younger than her screen mother and was nearly passed over as too old for a daughter, but her Yale drama training won Cosby round.

Besides The Cosby Show, which two programmes topped the Nielsen ratings for five consecutive seasons?

TV Guide called the show 'TV's biggest hit in the 1980s' and said it almost single-handedly revived the sitcom genre.

The brownstone used for the Huxtable home's exterior actually stands in which Manhattan neighbourhood?

Greenwich Village: only the outside of the townhouse at 10 St. Luke's Place was ever filmed, while everything indoors was a studio set taped before an audience.

Which Ivy League university does eldest Huxtable daughter Sondra attend on The Cosby Show?

Princeton: Sondra was missing from the pilot, and Cosby added her afterwards so the Huxtables could show one child they had already raised all the way to a top college.

In a famous early episode of The Cosby Show, Theo's sister sews him a disastrous copy of which designer garment?

A shirt: Theo wants a pricey 'Gordon Gartrelle' to impress a girl, his parents won't pay, and the home-made copy comes out lopsided; the designer's name was borrowed from one of the show's own staff.

Which cable channel pulled its Cosby Show reruns and a planned Thanksgiving marathon in November 2014?

TV Land acted within days as sexual assault allegations against Cosby multiplied, and other channels followed; one that later brought the reruns back dropped them again on the day of his 2018 conviction, since overturned.