Synopsis
Cosby portrays grumpy Hilton Lucas, a New York City man forced into early (and unwanted) retirement from his job as an airline customer service agent. His wife Ruth is played by Phylicia Rashād. Initially, Telma Hopkins was cast as Ruth Lucas; however, she was recast after she didn't react well to Cosby's tendency to ad lib. The couple had one daughter, Erica Lucas, portrayed by T'Keyah Crystal Keymáh. Doug E. Doug played Griffin Vesey, a foster son the Lucas family took in when he was younger. Griffin occasionally tried to win Erica's affections, but they decided just to remain friends when in the fourth and final season, Darien Sills-Evans portrayed Darien Evans, Erica's fiancé/husband. Jurnee Smollett also joined the cast as 11-year-old Jurnee, whom Hilton adored.
The show was based on the concept from the BBC series One Foot in the Grave, starring Richard Wilson and Annette Crosbie. David Renwick, the creator and writer of One Foot in the Grave, was listed as a consultant of Cosby. One Foot in the Grave was notable for containing dark humor for a mainstream sitcom. The tone was significantly lightened for Cosby, although certain controversial scenes such as a scene in which the lead character incinerates a live tortoise, were recreated (albeit with a turtle in this case).
A notable later episode was the fourth season premiere, "My Spy", which showed Hilton watching an episode of I Spy (the 1960s series in which Cosby co-starred) and then dreaming an adventure with Robert Culp's character from that series. The same season also presented an episode entitled "Loving Madeline" which featured the standard opening credits for the series but was in fact a tribute to Kahn featuring the cast members out of character discussing the recently deceased actress, punctuated by clips from past episodes (this is similar to what an earlier sitcom, Barney Miller, did following the death of cast member Jack Soo in the late 1970s).
Cosby premiered to an audience of more than 24.7 million viewers, but averaged 16 million viewers during the course of the season. As the series progressed, ratings shrank and CBS, fresh with new hit comedies in Everybody Loves Raymond and The King of Queens, decided to move the series from Monday to Wednesday and eventually Friday. The moves led to a drop in ratings and, frustrated by declining ratings and the move, Cosby and CBS executive Leslie Moonves mutually decided to end the series. The last episode, "The Song Remains the Same," aired on April 28, 2000, and was the 95th episode to be produced and broadcast, drawing just over 7 million viewers.
Read more about this topic: Cosby