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Referenced By / The Cosby Show

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Live-Action TV

  • That's So Raven: In "The Way We Were", when Raven tells Eddie about her latest vision, he responds by asking "You sure you weren't watching The Cosby Show?". Incidentally, Raven-SymonĂ© and guest star Geoffrey Owens were Cosby cast members.
  • Another Actor Allusion on Living Single: A Thanksgiving Episode has Max (played by Erika Alexander, who played Pam) and Kyle pretending to be a couple to show up her old boyfriend and his fiancee and she mentions that she's the top Black female attorney, pointing out "Because you know that Clair Huxtable wasn't real."
  • In Living Color!: In Men on Television, when reviewing shows on NBC, Antoine quips that the initials of the channel used to stand for "Nothing But Cosby".
  • The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air:
    • When observing an argument between Phil and Vivian in one episode, Will says to him, "You know, Clair would never talk to Cliff like that." After a Death Glare from Phil, he then awkwardly walks out screaming, "What, Carlton?"
    • Malcolm-Jamal Warner (Theo) guest stars in one episode as Hilary's boyfriend. When he enters the house and sees everyone eating together, he quips, "Look at this family all eating dinner together. I thought that was something you only saw on The Cosby Show."
  • The Golden Girls. In the episode "It's A Miserable Life", as the girls are planning a funeral for a neighbor they all despised, the funeral director suggests holding the service on Thursday night. Cue cries of outrage from the women—"Are you crazy?! "Hell, no!", etc. The man profusely apologizes, saying, "I forgot. The Cosby Show."

Video Games

  • The Simpsons: Bart vs. the World: In the trivia mini-game, one of the incorrect answers to the "Who is the Simpsons' Family Doctor?" question is "Dr. Huxtable".

Web Video

Western Animation

  • American Dad!: In "White Race", Roger, in disguise as a talent agent, mentions that he discovered Raven-SymonĂ© and "snatched" (read: kidnapped) her to replace Keshia Knight Pulliam on the show.
  • BoJack Horseman: In "Angela", Angela mentions that The Cosby Show was edited to remove Bill Cosby after his fall from grace, leading it to be renamed The Show, before asking for BoJack's permission to edit him out of Horsin' Around now that everyone hates him.
  • Family Guy:
    • In "Peter, Peter, Caviar Eater", the Griffins watch an episode in which Theo tells his father that he got a girl pregnant, but Cliff just keeps speaking nonsense and making faces until his head pops clean off.
    • In "Brian Goes Back to Collage", Bill Cosby appears at the 1980's TV Convention, teaching an aerobics class his dance moves from the theme song.
    • In "Dial Meg for Murder", after Meg gets busted for being in a relationship with a convicted felon, Peter goes to get his Cosby sweater for "serious parenting", only to come back saying he couldn't find it.
    • In "Halloween on Spooner Street", Chris tries to dress as Cliff Huxtable for Halloween, but Lois objects because he's wearing blackface.
    • In "Tom Tucker: The Man and His Dream", Tom reveals he once guest-starred on The Cosby Show as Dense's boyfriend, but got kicked out for asking "If you guys are a family, why are none of you the same shade of black?"
    • In "Peter's Sister", the family watches The Cosby Show "knowing what we know now", leading to a parody of the title sequence in which Cosby roofies the cast (plus Bea Arthur, the Noid, and the NBC peacock).
      Peter: Huh, I was so busy not seeing color, I didn't see the raping, either.
  • The Simpsons: Given that the show once aired opposite Cosby, they've taken a few jabs at it. In particular, Dr. Hibbert and his family are based on the Huxtables.
  • Tiny Toon Adventures:
    • In the short "And All That Rot" (from the episode "Brave Tales of Real Rabbits"), Buster accuses a group of old ladies of stealing jewelry and threatens to punish them with "No TV on Thursdays!". As the angry ladies prepare to beat him up, Buster remarks, "Must be Cosby fans."
    • In the short, "Why Dizzy Can't Read" (part of "Elephant Issues"), when Buster unplugs Dizzy's TV, which turns into a monster, the TV Monster's last words are, "But Cosby's on next!". Babs then imitates Bill Cosby to convince Dizzy that if he watches TV while he walks down the street, he will ignore street signs and wander into danger.
    • In "Acme Cable TV", one of the programs features Gogo Dodo in The Gogosby Show.
    • In "It's a Wonderful Tiny Toons Christmas Special", when Montana Max's attempts to sabotage the Tiny Toons Prime-Time Holiday Spectacular succeed and make Buster look bad in front of the celebrity guest stars, Cher tells Buster, "I gave up It's a Cosby Family Christmas to do this!"

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