Cosby Show vs. Fresh Prince of Bel-Air

also which one had better "very special episodes"

no contest. fresh prince ruled.

smell you later

^^ truth

c o s b y

http://www.mypartyshirt.com/images/smellyalater.jpg

ss otm lock thread

will smith, world class tool

http://www.sneakerobsession.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/puma-fresh-prince-first-round-clyde-2.jpg
http://www.sneakerobsession.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/puma-fresh-prince-first-round-clyde-3.jpg
http://www.sneakerobsession.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/puma-fresh-prince-first-round-clyde-4.jpg

dont even tell me you dont want those

i would but im not a 12 y/o girl

link?!

um.. xpost

xxpost RONG

i would very much but would not want to be labeled a gay :)

xxp http://www.sneakerobsession.com/1933/fresh-prince-of-bel-air-west-philly-first-round-pack/

ALSO

http://www.sneakerobsession.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/puma-fresh-prince-clyde-3.jpg
http://www.sneakerobsession.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/puma-fresh-prince-clyde-4.jpg

we need cosby sweater themed af1's

ok those are just flat out fucking awesome xp

i wd also wear those jhosh i have no hatred for billy c

where the carlton burberrys @?

http://foodishilarious.ytmnd.com/

those stats are juiced tiny onions is at most a 5

did u listen to the laugh track???

yah theres no way thats 80% of when carlton does something amazing

where the carlton burberrys @?

-- jhøshea, Thursday, March 20, 2008 9:14 PM (6 days ago) Bookmark Link

this is a good question

Fresh Prince. never watched the Cosby Show, he seemed annoying in the ads i'd sometimes see for it and it just put me off.

Vivienne #2 sucked tho, why did the first one leave?

is hard to think of real classic Fresh Prince moments tho - all i got right now is Carlton dancing to Oprah theme.

"very special episodes"

Bullets over Bel-air!

Vivienne #2 sucked tho, why did the first one leave?

Don't know, but I stopped watching when Vivienne #2 showed up. It was just weak.

too bad we never got to see Jazzy Jeff literally jump over a shark

Fresh Prince. altho there is a lot of love on ILE for Cosby (I don't get it meself)

Carlton crushes the Huxtables with his dancing alone.

Cosby, tho i want those sneakers

I was the biggest Fresh Prince fan on earth, but no way that show is better than Cosby.

^^^

yeah guys the writing on FP was just slightly better than Saved By The Bell. I mean Cosby was no great shakes, esp the last couple of seasons, but um yeah. Cosby.

yeah guys the writing on FP was just slightly better than Saved By The Bell.

plus, cosby had cosby.

Whiney OTM: this question is weirding me out. It's like "Cheers vs. Empty Nest" or something.

I am allowed to not be entertained by the Cosby Show thx

xp Norm was no Joe Isuzu.

Or I guess in this case "The Jeffersons vs. What's Happening"

"Fresh Prince" didn't have Denise or Elvin, so it loses.

Oh, you know what, though? I was watching an older Cosby Show a while back, and there was a scene in Rudy's classroom (maybe 3rd grade, or something), and there was this familiar-looking kid in the desk next to her, and then I suddenly realized it was Tatyana Ali (i.e., Ashley from Fresh Prince)!

if you muted everybody on the Cosby show except Phylicia Rashad & the show wound up making no sense as a result, it would still rule supreme over Fresh Prince

Leonard part 6 vs. Men in Black

Fresh Prince is a relic of a very bad era. Cosby Show was a decent (if generic) sitcom.

also, gay white baby girlboy

I vote for PILLOWY MOUNDS OF MASHED POTATOES.

http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g228/ayame_envy_luver/carlton.gifhttp://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z298/cdump06/Images/dance/images/carlton.gifhttp://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g228/ayame_envy_luver/carlton.gif

"Fresh Prince" didn't have "Cosby"'s awesome batshit moments, like whenever Claire turned into a horndog after grounding Vanessa for 34 years or ordering Theo to clean the house after calling it a "circus" and the living room "the big top."

lol

in the age of abstinence and Nancy Reagan boners, the Huxtables were always splacking.

That episode with the dream sequence where he gives birth to a hoagie!

He always called them "hoagies"

real talk: Fresh Prince isn't even better than A Different World

There's no way anyone over 25 could look back fonder on Fresh Prince than Cosby without some serious revisionist history. Cosby Show was like the definitive '80s zeitgeist moment after Thriller.

I am over 25 and I can and I do. I dunno there's just something about the squeeky cleanliness + preachiness + ugly sweaters that just makes me go uhhhhhh ... Fresh Prince reminds me of when hip-hop was in a weird transition state between being goofy and threatening/underground and pop. Although tbh if either are on TV I don't ever stop to watch them. Unless Carlton is dancing.

I mean Fresh Prince would have Jazzy Jeff on. Cosby would bring on Dizzy Gillespie and then make some speech about black history and the civil rights movement zzzzzzzzzz

Maybe you should have paid attention

Cosby would bring on Dizzy Gillespie and then make some speech about black history and the civil rights movement zzzzzzzzzz

No he didn't.

He did when all your memories about the Cosby Show are based on Simpsons episodes.

Cosby introduced me to A Night in Tunisia without ever getting preachy about it! The only time he got smug was in the infamous episode in which Denise begs Cliff to let her see The Walking Lemons.

"Squeaky cleanliness" might be a bit of revisionist history in itself -- the show might have been very lovey and middle-class and responsible, but a high percentage of the jokes revolved around Cliff's desire to kill or abandon his children (as presented mostly in the form of loving mockery of everyone in the house, in all directions).

I know that doesn't seem like much now that ALL sitcoms are about parents who fear their children, but yes.

"Squeaky cleanliness" is also not a very good criticism when the point of comparison is the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, if you follow me. (Another much more obvious issue would be that the characters on Fresh Prince are like WAY far into the realm of flat sitcom cut-out stock types, and the plots move accordingly, which is fine sometimes, but doesn't exactly make for any kind of high-quality seasons-long depth)

Props to Cosby also for the first and best uses of the "characters play elaborate practical jokes on each other, because our show is really not about anything but a family in a house, and they get bored" trick

There are much better examples of that than this one, but the first thing to mind is "Chug-a-lug, Vanessa, chug-a-lug"

when hip-hop was in a weird transition state between being goofy and threatening/underground and pop.

Also, what?

i don't even hate Fresh Prince...but damn people are forgetting A SHIT TON of stupid preachy "lesson learning" that went on in that show....big time.

there's just so much genuine chemistry between the entire cast on cosby show.....the sexual sparks between claire and cliff.....cosby's genuinely fun and charming goofing around with the little kids, rudy's friends....it's just no comparison.

There are much better examples of that than this one, but the first thing to mind is "Chug-a-lug, Vanessa, chug-a-lug"

LOL I forgot that one. Also, Cliff: "I think we oughta call Rudy down here, put makeup on her, and yell at her to get it over with."

i swear there's some episode of the cosby show where cockroach and theo have to write a paper on shakespeare and they get stoned as fuck and write some crazy bullshit while listening to a record of macbeth or something.

unless i've made that up in my head which would be weird.

That's also the episode where Cliff, in a great beret, scowlingly goes outside to retrieve the "Macbeth" record from snowball-wielding hoodlums (who are never seen!)

"I'M A PARENT AND A TAXPAYER. I'M ALSO THE ONLY ADULT WHO WILL SUE LITTLE CHILDREN."

for the record I watched Cosby all the time when I was a kid so fuck off with the patronizing k thx

i'm not patronizing you sucka!! i'm passionately defending the cosby universe from revisionist MANIA!!!!!!!!!!!

ride or die!

I think people might also be misremembering Cosby's constant guest appearances with being "very special episode" episodes, which they never really were!

And I think Cosby guest appearances were generally awesome, not only in the level of the people they got on there, but the fact that they just came on to do whatever they were good at. Sure, it might not seem sitcommy for them to go out and watch Lena Horne sing for five minutes, but if I'm sitting around on my day off watching re-runs now, I'm seriously not going to complain about seeing a Lena Horne performance, or the one where it's Claire's birthday and their random friend comes over and sings her a song and you go "holy crap, this guy can si-- oh wait, that's Placido freaking Domingo"

xpost - haha that suing-children line, yes

when hip-hop was in a weird transition state between being goofy and threatening/underground and pop.

ie, gangsta rap had not taken over, and hip-hop had not yet become the chart-topping juggernaut genre that it is today

x-post

(That birthday one is ridiculous good, actually -- ending in that whole weird cartoony sequence where Cliff keeps bringing in cake after cake after cake, and there's no particular reason it's funny, no particular joke, except that it is in fact hilarious)

OR STEVIE WONDER!

(xpost)

its entirely possible that all the shitty/stupid things Cosby has done since this show have obscured whatever fond memories of it I may have had once. (altho I don't remember ever feeling particularly nostalgic for it - it just seemed super-square to me, in retrospect).

let's not get into all the shitty/stupid things Fresh Prince has done, btw

and HELL-lo, Rudy singing the most lascivious Ray-lette part of all in the family's rendition of "(Night Time) Is the Right Time."

I say 'EY MAN

(by the way, please note that they're listening to BLACK UHURU in the #1 rated sitcom of the decade)

This video is not available in your country

WTF??? england is not communist china

god i'd like to retract my vote from fresh prince to cosby. it was an impulse reaction - i'd just seen some carlton dancing clip on youtube!

carlton dancing v naked lisa bonet

"I think we oughta call Rudy down here, put makeup on her, and yell at her to get it over with."

Holy shit, that's funny.

I WANT MY MONEY NOW!

I'm a little confused by criticizing Cosby as "square," since that squareness is one of the great, lasting, lovable thing about the show. Mostly because it's the right kind of squareness. It's not like this show was square in terms of being toothless and corny, with everyone hugging and learning important lessons. It was square in the sense that it was ... Utopian, basically -- a vision of a world where most everyone is decent, friendly, and interesting, and done in a way that's pretty appealing to me. And 98% of the whole show was based around a family wandering around a house, not dropping sitcom zingers, but giving each other all the light mockery and grief, and doing all the banal funny things, that reasonably happy families do. I think I posted a clip to some other Cosby-related thread, a good two hilarious minutes that's nothing but four older guys playing cards and talking shit, and it's hilarious not in some "written" way, but in a pretty good approximation of the way a funny card game with four old guys would actually be funny, in life. Call that a square goal if you want, but it's funny to me in great, generous way -- a way that can remind you of what's funny and lovable about nice human beings in general. Which is something few sitcoms ever manage or really even shoot for.

this seems to be a classic sub-generational thing. people who group up in the 80's vs people who grew up in the 90's.

nabisco, I know what you mean, I feel the same way about Family Matters

real talk: Fresh Prince isn't even better than A Different World

-- M@tt He1ges0n, Wednesday, March 26, 2008 6:27 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

OH COME ON

Whose head is Cosby holding in that picture (in the very first post of this thread)?

season premieres of the cosby show were like an event. You’d watch to see what the new stupid intro would be. it was a big deal at my house. Thursday night 8:00! You knew that shit.

my awesome web skillz tell me its ross mathews, but I'll leave it to you to find out who that actually is, since I've been awake for 36 hours and don't really care.

Props to Cosby also for the first and best uses of the "characters play elaborate practical jokes on each other, because our show is really not about anything but a family in a house, and they get bored" trick

This reminded me of the great episode summarized on Wikipedia thusly:

"After saying he'll have no problem making it in the real world, the Huxtables convert their house in the 'Real World Apartments' and show Theo about the 'real world'; i.e., needing employment and references to get an apartment, income to get a bank loan, having to pay for his meals, etc."

Haha, Rudy as "Mrs. Griswold" in the granny glasses!

^^^ haha! yeah I remember that. And the more I think about it, I want to retract my statement up-thread about Cos being no great shakes. I'd venture it was probably tied with "Cheers" for best 1/2 hour sit-coms of the 80's. But man, those last couple of years or so did their damnedest to sully its legacy.

Cosby Show Family Ties Cheers Night Court Hill Street Blues BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM. Not even the Friends Seinfeld schedule could compete.

Yeah, those first three were seriously like "time to make popcorn" in my house growing up.

Thanks, Jacob! Still don't know why Cosby would be holding his head like that, but anyway.

fresh prince by a landslide:

- episode where will teaches ashley to take care of herself at school (JUST MIND YR BUSINESS)
- episode where will gets shot
- episode where kareem abdul-jabbar and uncle phil wear those amazing ostrich sweaters

the cosby show just makes me think of WYNTON MARSALIS all the time, although the hoagie episode (cosby's from philly, of course he calls them hoagies!) is totally amazing, i admit.

CONFESSIONAL: I only voted for Fresh Prince because I don't actually remember any episodes of Cosby Show.

any show with Kareem on it = WINNER as far as I'm concerned

"After saying he'll have no problem making it in the real world, the Huxtables convert their house in the 'Real World Apartments' and show Theo about the 'real world'; i.e., needing employment and references to get an apartment, income to get a bank loan, having to pay for his meals, etc.

THE NAME IS HARVEY. HARVEY WEEWAX.

"COCKROACH OIL"?

i like fresh prince, but the difference between the two shows is the difference between every great sitcom and every just okay sitcom....obviously they are all very artificial in a way, but the best sitcoms -- nabisco mentioned this as being like cheers vs. empty nest -- is that they seem natural and easy in their own skin, while a only-good sitcom (like fresh prince) always finds ways of seeming awkward and there being something just not-quite-right about it....whereas, let's say Friends, or Seinfeld, or Cosby Show, or even I think now How I Met Your Mother, have a way of seeming, well, just right, a sense that the reality of the show is tangible, even with the wackiest plots you somehow buy into it....whereas, let's say Fresh Prince, or Wings, or Reba, there's just something that keeps poking out at you, always reminding you you're watching a sitcom....

It's the difference between 2 identical suits, one is very cheap and one is very expensive...ostensibly the are the same thing -- but there's something about the expensive one that just seems better....it feels better when you touch it....anyway I'm not doing a good job of describing this, but it's true ....

all sitcoms fucking suck imho so I dunno if that argument holds any water to me

hahahahahahahaha why are you even on this thread if you hate all sitcoms?

sitcoms own the zone.

i've been thinking about trying to organize an ILX greatest sitcoms poll, but it seems like it'd be a lot of work just to want to kill everyone when Arrested Development inevitably places higher than Seinfeld or Cosby or something.

fyi i would vote seinfeld over arrested development

i like fresh prince, but the difference between the two shows is the difference between every great sitcom and every just okay sitcom....obviously they are all very artificial in a way, but the best sitcoms -- nabisco mentioned this as being like cheers vs. empty nest -- is that they seem natural and easy in their own skin, while a only-good sitcom (like fresh prince) always finds ways of seeming awkward and there being something just not-quite-right about it....whereas, let's say Friends, or Seinfeld, or Cosby Show, or even I think now How I Met Your Mother, have a way of seeming, well, just right, a sense that the reality of the show is tangible, even with the wackiest plots you somehow buy into it....whereas, let's say Fresh Prince, or Wings, or Reba, there's just something that keeps poking out at you, always reminding you you're watching a sitcom....

It's the difference between 2 identical suits, one is very cheap and one is very expensive...ostensibly the are the same thing -- but there's something about the expensive one that just seems better....it feels better when you touch it....anyway I'm not doing a good job of describing this, but it's true ....

-- M@tt He1ges0n, Thursday, March 27, 2008 11:55 AM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

this is true - even friends, which i dont like a lot, has this natural rhythm that the others dont... fresh prince had some A++++ zings but other than that it was pretty stagey

charles in charge is the greatest sitcom of all time btw

Does "Cosby" get any credit for being the show where "nothing happens" before "Seinfeld" popularized the concept? Most of "Cosby" revolves around Cliff eating shit with the kids before pregnant moms call.

"Chaki in Charge"

shit was always happening with the cosby kids. btw the show jumped the shark when denise came back with shes so raven who was once a cute baby but is now a large, large woman.

I'd love to host a "Cosby" festival for/with you guys.

fyi i would vote seinfeld over arrested development

-- and what, Thursday, March 27, 2008 4:10 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

seinfeld over everything else for me

i remember being excited to see what they would do with the opening credits each season as a child.

aww yeah i remember that too

bros bonding

"Chaki in Charge"

Inevitable. Should happen, though.

except now all the intros except like one (that crazy egypt shit) make me wanna die

yeah. the bobby mcfarren one is tolerable. ill get started on producing "chaki in charge" right after i figure out how buddy and i are going to have a date with the hertzfeld twins while i still have to babysit the kids tonight.

http://www.blackgayblogger.com/images/shaking_cosby.gif

buddy's looking bad these days

http://www.ponekeys.com/peter.jpg

http://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l122/tomsawyer_03/Junk/BillCosby.gif

Yes I'm one of those ilxors who will vote for Arrested Development over every other sitcom.

Ha, I totally said that on the original Cosby Classic-or-Dud thread: Seinfeld is filled with stuff happening, all kinds of manic movement and coincidences. Cosby is the only show where you see it on the cable guide and the whole episode plot description is something like "Rudy has a friend over to play" or "Cliff makes a sandwich."

That's half of what I mean about normal funny household stuff -- you get a whole episode where the plot is something like "it's Claire's birthday, so they go out to lunch," and no specific funny plot thing happens, but everyone's just goodheartedly fooling around and making jokes about her being old, and it's funny and pleasurable and you might even think "boy, I hope someday I can surround myself with pleasant funny people who would celebrate my birthday with warmth and hilarity."

nabisco - whats the best cosby season?

Season Two-Four are gold. When the show started to emphasize Sondra-Elvin plotlines post-wilderness store the energy flagged; when Olivia and Denise returned as Mrs. Lenny Kravitz, you can see the exhaustion lines on Cosby's face – he really looks like he wants to drill holes in the children's heads with Wallace Shawn's Black & Decker.

did it go for 6 or 8 years? I can't remember.

but I suppose I can google. 8.

think you're maybe projecting a li'l of yr own response onto the Cos there Alfred

Compare his reactions and punchlines in the Olivia seasons with the earlier ones. The man looks beaten.

I love cosby leanin wit it!

I cannot even comprehend how someone can vote Fresh Prince over Cosby.

Lisa Bonet with her DAUGHTER

http://www.celebrity-babies.com/images/2007/06/10/bdph0620_cbb.jpg

Tell me it hasn't really been 20 years since Angel Heart.

(You can tell that's Lenny Kravitz' kid: Check out the boots.)

is the daughter storing walnuts in her mouth?

raisins in her shirt?

it looks like her face is swollen and bruised

is the daughter storing walnuts in her mouth?

must...resist...Ice Cube...joke

What is this, TMZ?

she doesn't look great there, but it was pretty o_O on the Cosby kids poll thread when Nicole referred to her as Kravitz's "little troll daughter."

Zoe Bonet Kravitz is in some Jay-z video as his gf. shes hella hottttt.

http://www.aolcdn.com/ch_bv/zoe-kravitz-on-the-road-335a072307.jpg

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

I can't believe it was this close.

FPs the lurkers' choice dogg

whoah! lotta votes!

omg

i want to know what's included on the "rap sheet"

I have the Cosby with special Robert Culp guest appearance / I Spy reunion waiting on the DVR at home. Also one of the crossovers where they go visit Denise at college and Theo meets Dwayne Wayne.

nabisco otm

I am apparently now old enough that I'm really looking to getting home, lying down, and watching those while drinking grapefruit juice straight from the carton

I am allowed to not be entertained by the Cosby Show thx

― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, March 26, 2008 10:07 PM (8 months ago)

that is actually not true in my book

the Cosby show is, for me, the kind of with-us-or-against-us deal that "freedom" is for the Bush administration

I saw some Cosby Show reruns on TV Land or something the other day and was really amazed by how well it holds up! (apart from the occasional moment of jarring cognitive dissonance caused by, e.g., Theo trying to impress a girl by 'dressing up' in a ridiculous shiny sleeveless purple buttondown shirt)

"Your mother and I are rich."

Theo trying to impress a girl by 'dressing up' in a ridiculous shiny sleeveless purple buttondown shirt)

I remember the silk, two-tone (yellow and black) Gordon Gartrell shirt.

That whole sequence at the end of the shirt episode, when Theo runs in Denise's room with the shirt on and he's both furious and dumbstruck and the audience sees the shirt for the first time is one of my favorite moments of tv ever.

This video is not available in your country.

Fuck you, Cosby.

"I don't even own a $95 shirt, and I have a job!"

THE NAME IS HARVEY. HARVEY WEEWAX.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Thursday, March 27, 2008 11:45 AM (8 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

LOL I need to remember to use this name on a daily basis.

closeness of poll = ILXors high while watching TV

Fuck, that first Soto tube is awesome.

jeez morbz, i grew out of thinking diff. opinions on culture = THEY ARE RONG when i was like twelve

http://i31.tinypic.com/2iasggn.gif

I grew out of that with just about everything besides somehow thinking Fresh Prince was anywhere near as good as the Cosby Show -- this is kinda like how a sense of cultural relativity is all good but you dial it back when it comes to, say, murder

vs

^^^this video made me think that i could probably play drums

I got the ENTIRE "Cosby Show" box set from the library.

I wish you every happiness.

lol @ Der Komissar being one of the songs included in that Ribiero B-boy record

I MADE IT THROUGH THE ENTIRE "COSBY SHOW" ON DVD. Well, no, I skipped Season Seven.

Also: Earle Hyman!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1O0iWNUwh4

saw an old Fresh Prince the other day - the one where Carlton and Will get arrested while driving to Florida (iirc). Aunt Viv v1 so good.

Oh man.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVdvoLUDufM

cos is like top 10 tv characters imo

Claire is top three.

I grew out of that with just about everything besides somehow thinking Fresh Prince was anywhere near as good as the Cosby Show -- this is kinda like how a sense of cultural relativity is all good but you dial it back when it comes to, say, murder

― nabisco, Wednesday, December 17, 2008 1:24 PM

hahaha this is OTM

agreed

Fresh Prince is constantly on UK television channels just now and even though it's obvious, simple and sentimental, it's so much fun. Perfect comfort telly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_TkEgydyZY

http://assets0.ordienetworks.com/images/GifGuide/dancing/smith3.gif

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4NCnH7RPZY

James Avery, who played Uncle Phil, died last night apparently? r.i.p.