Original Airdate: October 31, 1985
You can watch this episode on Amazon Prime (free, though I don't recommend it) or on DVD.
So this post requires an admission that Pete and I still watch the Cosby Show, despite the creator, namesake and star of this show was recently (finally) sentenced to prison for his crimes which occurred before, after, and DURING the production of this show. My relationship with this show has always been complicated. Before Cosby was accused of anything, I felt the show was existed in a fundamentally sexist dimension, where women are either rolling pin-wielding pussy whips (Claire), drooling morons (Denise), or some combination of the two (Vanessa and everyone else). I watched anyway. The first time I was aware of any misconduct on his part was in 2005 when Andrea Constand accused him of sexual assault and I was like "SEE?! OF COURSE HE WAS! HE'S ALWAYS HATED WOMEN!" but then time passed, not much else happened, and I'm not sure what happened to my anger, but it kind of dissolved away. I didn't exactly forget about it, but I didn't hear any follow ups on the concept of Cosby-as-Monster, so I let it go. Then he spent several years being a general dick about how people of color should live, followed by Hannibal Buress's reminding all of us just exactly how awful he is. I guess due to social media, this time people didn't let it go or whatever, DOZENS of women subsequently stepped forward, and I guess here we are.
Since 2014 when Buress refreshed our collective memories, Pete and I have been struggling with first whether it's ok, and second whether we're capable of watching the Cosby Show. At first the answer to both questions was "absolutely not." Pete has said that he didn't realize exactly how much he thought about the Cosby Show in his day-to-day life until it became gross to watch it. Slowly we both started to crave it again. From a moral standpoint, by watching the Cosby Show, we weren't exactly supporting a monster, right? Streaming services and TV networks showing the Cosby Show in syndication immediately scrubbed it from their lineups (although in writing this blog entry, I learned that you can actually watch the Cosby Show if you're an Amazon Prime member. Crazy.), so there's (almost) no way to throw royalties his way. We had the entire series on DVD before 2014, so we can watch it almost guilt-free.
Whether we can watch it without thinking about how the father figure of the best representation of upper middle class black America in the 80s is a brutal serial rapist is different question, to which I guess we'd both answer is an apologetic shrug. I think the truth of the matter is that we missed the Gordon Gartrell shirt, the Happy Anniversary lip sync, and other classic moments to include (finally), this episode, the first Cosby Halloween episode titled simply "Halloween." We started watching it again and honestly, I don't think much about his actions outside of this show. I absolutely hate him for what he did. But funny show is funny.
I think as we realized when we watched it for the podcast, not a lot happens in this episode but with notable exceptions, that's most Cosby Show episodes, isn't it? Vanessa is having a Halloween party and she invites Robert, the coolest boy in her class. She
drops a tray of glasses, which she breaks right in front of Robert, which I guess is embarrassing enough for her to leave her own party. But not enough to keep Robert from asking Vanessa to go steady later on in the episode. He literally asks her to go steady which even for then seemed like an antiquated term. I wasn't dating in October 1985, but it smacked of the childhoods of Cliff and Claire. I could be wrong, but by '89, kids were "going together," but certainly not "going steady." Sounds like promise rings and poodle skirts. The party resumes in her bedroom after her parents invite all of her friends up to her bedroom, which I thought was pretty inappropriate, but what do I know?
Cliff takes Rudy and her friends trick-or-treating which I guess is enough of a B-plot for this show.
Denise and Theo went to a Halloween party elsewhere and I guess Theo was being protective of Denise's virtue but that's not something that really happened again. And it's odd because Denise is older. This "plot" spanned about 90 seconds but is worth bringing up because Denise looks fucking NUCLEAR in her Cleopatra costume. I want to look like this every day of my life. That gold wig, that makeup, the little turquoise wire snake. Just--so good. I have no earthly clue what Theo is supposed to be. I couldn't get a decent screen cap of the cape, but there appears to be a cheetah pelt safety-pinned to it.
The episode ends with Cliff and Claire doing a flirty message-sending game with Rudy as their go-between, which is reminiscent of how Robert and Vanessa approached each other earlier in the episode. Cliff would tell Rudy to tell Claire something about thinking she's all-that and Rudy would walk across the room and adorably get it very wrong in relaying the message to Claire. This goes on for far too long. I have to admit that during this exchange, it's a little difficult to forget about Cosby's crimes and the whole thing is kind of creepy. Bummer note to end this on, but that's the end of the episode.
WAIT NO, I have another tidbit. Claire is dressed as Tina Turner for Halloween. I think she got the hair exactly right, unlike our friend Vivian Banks, and her outfit was fairly cute too. I think I said as we were watching it that I would wear that outfit today, to include the black shoes with yellow socks.