What It Was Like To Write For ‘The Cosby Show’

Cast of The Cosby Show

From Written By the Official publication of the "Writers Guild of America" comes a great feature article about what it was like to write for the classic sitcom The Cosby Show.

The Cosby Show was an unequivocal hit, but as the Written By article can attest, with excellence there comes certain caveats.

The Cosby Show is an American television situation comedy starring Bill Cosby, which aired for eight seasons on NBC from September 20, 1984 until April 30, 1992. The show focuses on the Huxtable family, an affluent African-American family living in Brooklyn, New York.

According to TV Guide, the show "was TV's biggest hit in the 1980s, and almost single-handedly revived the sitcom genre and NBC's ratings fortunes". The Cosby Show is one of three television programs (All in the Family and American Idol being the others) that was #1 in the Nielsen ratings for 5 consecutive seasons (the second season to the fifth season,1985-1990).—Wikipedia

As you will read, Dr. William H. Cosby better known as Bill Cosby insisted upon excellence and what bore from it was not only a classic sitcom, but one of the most successful series in television history.

Read the article here

UPDATE
July 2015

Bill Cosby Producer Breaks Silence: "The Legacy of the Show Is Very Important to Me"

Michael O'Connell, Bryn Elise Sandberg, The Hollywood Reporter
July 31, 2015

"Obviously it’s a challenging time... but I’m hoping that people will still be able to watch the show and identify with the Huxtables."

Bill Cosby's longtime producer has weighed in on the disgraced star and his legacy in light of the dozens of rape allegations levied against Cosby over the last year.

After promoting his Starz series Survivor's Remorse at the Television Critics Association summer press tour on Friday, Tom Werner spoke with The Hollywood Reporter, brushing off talk of Cosby specifically but emphasizing that The Cosby Show remains important to him.

"I don’t really want to comment on it," Werner told THR, when asked about Cosby. "The legacy of the show is obviously very important to me because the show was a groundbreaking show and it portrayed a middle-class African-American family in a very positive way. It had a lot of stories that resonated with families because people watched it together. Obviously it’s a challenging time for Bill Cosby and a challenging time for the show, but I’m hoping that people will still be able to watch the show and identify with the Huxtables."

Along with partner Marcy Carsey, Werner worked with Cosby on both The Cosby Show and the shorter-lived Cosby under their independent sitcom factory Carsey-Werner. The duo have remained quiet about the scandal for better part of the last year, though they did release a statement last November. “The Bill we know was a brilliant and wonderful collaborator on a show that changed the landscape of television," they said at the time. "These recent news reports are beyond our knowledge or comprehension."

The case against Cosby has grown considerably since then. And The Cosby Show's legacy, at least at the moment, does not look particularly salvageable. TV Land and BET Centric both yanked repeats in light of the scandal — Bounce TV similarly axed Cosby airings — though the series has yet to be removed from streaming services.