History Characters / TheCosbyShow

* {{Expy}}: A streetwise teenager coming to live with wealthy relatives? Sounds an awful lot like Series/TheFreshPrinceOfBelAir, which premiered on Creator/{{NBC}} the same year that Pam debuted.

* BigEater: Specially after he enters college. He gets it from his father.

* NotSoAboveItAll: She can be as silly as Cliff, but almost never shows it to her children. When she gets her own room in Season 8 and can finally be alone, she completely cuts loose.

* EurekaMoment: He describes having one when witnessing the births of his and Sondra's twins and the epiphany from it made him decide to return to medical school.

** The crowning moment however, was when Vanessa and her friends lie to see The Wretched concert. She tells her mom that she and her friends are staying at her friend Susan's house when in reality, they are gone for the weekend, which is already not starting off so well. Later, they take Janet's brother's car and they make a stop at Wilmington, Delaware, which unfortunately, ends up being stolen. Instead of reporting the car stolen and finding a way to get home, she and her friends ask the police on how they can get a ride to Baltimore. By the time they get to the concert, they get conned and lose their travel money and tickets, and were fortunate enough that a friend of Janet's brother gave them bus fare. What was the result? An unhappy night, with Clair reaming into Vanessa over her lies and the danger she could have potentially put herself in. Cliff bluntly asks this of her when Clair is finished.

* LegacyCharacter: InUniverse, Cliff wants to give her his Football title of "The Grey Ghost," during her time in little league, but gets vetoed when the rest of the family dubs her "Sweet Feet" instead.

** Starting in Season 3, she tends to get uppity when things don't go her way. This is the focus of one episode's B-plot when she doesn't get the part she wanted for a ballet performance.

* HeroicBSOD: A particularly brutal math test leaves him wandering the school parking lot in a daze, muttering, "I couldn't get past number three..."

** The crowing moment however, was when Vanessa and her friends lie to see The Wretched concert. She tells her mom that she and her friends are staying at her friend Susan's house when in reality, they are gone for the weekend, which is already not starting off so well. Later, they take Janet's brother's car and they make a stop at Wilmington, Delaware, which unfortunately, ends up being stolen. Instead of reporting the car stolen and finding a way to get home, she and her friends ask the police on how they can get a ride to Baltimore. By the time they get to the concert, they get conned and lose their travel money and tickets, and were fortunate enough that a friend of Janet's brother gave them bus fare. What was the result? An unhappy night, with Clair reaming into Vanessa over her lies and the danger she could have potentially put herself in.

* TheRedBaron: Known as "Combustible" Huxtable when running track and had the nickname of "The Grey Ghost" when he played football.

* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: He is a good friend to Rudy. He's also very sleazy and fairly sexist. These two facts are mutually exclusive. He'd almost count as a PoisonousFriend if Rudy wasn't too sharp to listen to the things he says, usually at least.

** The crowing moment however, was when Vanessa and her friends lie to see The Wretched concert. She tells her mom that she and her friends are staying at her friend Susan's house when in reality, they are gone for the weekend, which is already not starting off so well. Later, they take Janet's brother's car and they make a stop at Wilmington, Delaware, which unfortunately, ends up being stolen. Instead of reporting the car stolen and finding a way to get home, she and her friends ask the police on how they can get a ride to Baltimore. By the time they get to the concert, they get conned and lose their travel money and tickets, and were fortunate enough that a friend of Janet's brother gave them bus fare. What was the result? An unhappy night, with Clair remaing into Vanessa over her lies and the danger she could have potentially put herself in.

** Another episode, she proudly goes on a drinking spree with her friends only to wake up hung over (not to mention she is not even 18 years old yet). Fortunately for her, she wasn't given a severe punishment.