This is one of TV Guide's most famous covers: Bill Cosby squaring off against Bart Simpson. The veteran against the newcomer, Fox against NBC....who would win this match? The result was that both suffered ratings declines, but Cosby, being longer in the tooth, got the KO. It also split my family demographically: my parents stuck with Cosby and I had to watch The Simpsons in the other room until the summer of '92.
The night The Cosby Show aired its final episode, The Simpsons had an extra animation at the end of a "Three Men and a Comic Book" rerun. It went like this:
(from the stagnant snpp.com)After the 30-Apr-1992 airing, a brief Simpsons clip was shown. Close-up of the Simpsons television. A picture of Bill Cosby, with the legend, ``The Cosby Show / 1984-1992''. Muses Homer, ``Little Theo. You grew up before our eyes.'' Bart asks, ``Hey, Dad. How come they're taking The Cosby Show off the air?'' Homer answers, ``Because Mr. Cosby wanted to stop before the quality suffered.'' Quality, schmality! If I had a TV show, I'd run that sucker into the ground! -- Bart learns of the demise of `The Cosby Show' Homer pats Bart on the back. ``Amen, boy. Amen.'' |
And he did just that.
This clip has never been shown anywhere or put on any DVD since that one appearance. Also: am I crazy or did the credits used to scroll, like movie credits do, at the end? Even on DVD, which is usually taken from the masters, the credits for the early episodes are frame-oriented. What gives? Did it happen or not?