In memory of Malcolm-Jamal Warner

The very sad news broke today that Malcolm-Jamal Warner, the extremely talented actor and director and producer whose greatest role Theo Huxtable on The Cosby Show kept us uproariously laughing, has passed away at age 54.

It was hard to name a favorite character from that series, but Theo was definitely up there on my list.  Maybe because he was the only son of Cliff and Claire.  A lot of the comedy was his to bear because of that and he did it magnificently!

When I think of all the Theo-centric episodes of The Cosby Show, there is one stands out above the rest, and I believe that a lot of other people are going to say that this is funniest the character had.  Here in Warner's memory is a clip from the first season episode where Theo buys a "Gordon Gartrayal" shirt.  The interaction between Theo and his parents is hilarious!

Thoughts and prayers going out for his family.

EDIT: Wow, there's a part 2 from that episode that's been uploaded!  Here it is, Theo in the shirt that Denise made for him:

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Forty years ago this week: New Coke officially bombed

Depending on who you listen to this was either legitimate corporate bungling on an unprecedented scale, or it was the greatest ever conspiracy by an American company against its customers.  There is no denying though: whatever it was, it worked.

It began in April of 1985.  Soft drink mega company Coca-Cola ehhh... "changed" the formula of its flagship product. "New Coke" was claimed to be much better than the original product  That is what all the advertising told us anyway.  I mean, even Bill Cosby swore and declared to us that Coke had been improved upon.  "The impossible has become a reality," he assured us.

Bill Cosby wouldn't lie to us, right?  Right?!?!?

People tried New Coke.  And the vast majority of them said that it tasted nowhere as good as the original product.  I remember it also.  It tasted more like Pepsi Cola.  In fact, if I had done a blind taste test with New Coke and Pepsi I probably wouldn't have been able to tell a difference between the two.

There is no telling how many letters and phone calls the Coca-Cola Company.  But it was a lot of them.  And the company wisely took notice of the outrage.  Less than three months later Coca-Cola CEO Roberto Goizueta went before a nationwide audience and admitted that the reaction to New Coke had, ehhhh... not been what the company calculated it would be.  So the original drink was going to be coming back, as Coca-Cola Classic.  This was a MASSIVELY big deal.  I think all the network news broadcasts that night opened with the Coke story.

So within a week or so we got Coca-Cola Classic on our shelves and vending machines, and they sold so fast that distributors could barely keep up.  Sales of the original Coke in the early weeks and months of its return eclipsed those of its competitors.  Which makes some wonder... and I am one of them... if the whole thing was an orchestrated stunt from the very beginning.  It was brilliant psychology at work, if truly it was.

Ultimate Classic Rock remembers the fortieth anniversary of the return of the original Coca-Cola formula.  Something that one had to have been there to really appreciate the enormity of.

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Hey Hey Hey! It's the profanity-strewn prison rape episode of FAT ALBERT!

A few weeks ago I came across a religious broadcasting station that runs episodes of Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids on weekday afternoons.  I'd forgotten how awesome this show was!  My DVR has been set accordingly, so I can once again watch the wacky adventures of Fat Albert and his gang during the evenings or whenever.

From the show's start, its creator/producer/narrator Bill Cosby intended for the series to teach and enlighten as much as it entertained (it eventually became the basis of Cosby's doctorate in education).  As the show progressed, Cosby and his staff began to take on bolder issues, such as racism and guns (interestingly, that particular episode did not condemn firearms entirely, it just cautioned young people to be extremely careful with them).

So it was 1984 and Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids was finally winding down after being on Saturday morning television for twelve years.  And the Cos' decided that at long last it was time to unload a "scared straight" story at the kiddies.  Many other shows enjoyed by children were also doing "very special episodes" (I still cringe whenever I think of "Gordon Jump as the pervert bike shop owner" on Diff'rent Strokes... come to think of it, most of the Diff'rent Strokes episodes were like that.  Being "very special", not Dudley and the pervert bike store owner I mean).  Anyway...

"Busted" would be unusual if it had been produced today, but in the mid-Eighties it was way more daring.  In a departure from the norm, Bill Cosby began the show warning viewers that this episode would have foul language (like "bastard", "damn" and "hell") but it had to be that way to be as accurate as possible.  What Bill didn't tell us about is that we would soon be witnessing Fat Albert and his friends being oggled with lustful eyes by hardened felons!  No other episode to the best of my recollection ever had Fat Albert jumping scared into Dumb Donald's arms.  Or had poor little Russell (my favorite character of the entire show) being asked if he wants "a candy bar".

The language has been toned down from its original airing, but everything else is as disturbing as ever.  From 1984 here are Fat Albert, Rudy, Bill, Russell, Bucky, Dumb Donald, Weird Harold and Mushmouth in "Busted"...



That would frighten anybody into doing whatever they possibly could to avoid going to the big house!

Unfortunately, twelve years later would see the publication of Alex Ross' and Mark Waid's classic graphic novel Kingdom Come.  And in its very first pages we find Fat Albert and his pals shooting down some civilians on the streets of Gotham City, just before getting arrested by Batman's patrol droids.

(Looks like "scared straight" didn't work, huh.  One can only assume that Rudy wound up learning the hard way to watch himself in the shower...)

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