It should come a surprise to exactly no one that Family Guy taking a blatant jab at Bill Cosby’s disgraced legacy is as debauched as it could possibly be. Well, I guess it could have been more extreme in some way, but the fact that it tied into the opening sequence to The Cosby Show just made it seem more tainted. Check it out below.
Obviously the “Knowing What We Know Now” aspect is solely referring to the fact that a slew of women have come out relatively recently saying that Bill Cosby has been drugging and raping people for many years. As such, we get to see all the females involved with the show – Phylicia Rashad, Lisa Bonet, Tempestt Bledsoe and guest stars Bonnie Franklin and Bea Arthur – in various states of dress and sobriety. I don’t know why it’s more disturbing to see Arthur walking around in just a sweater than everything else, but it is. And I guess we should be happy that none of the younger cast members showed up here. You just never know with these guys. I mean, there was a Noid.
As horrible – and admittedly funny, at least to me – as this clip is, there’s a bit of awkward poignancy when Peter says that he was so busy not seeing color that he missed all the rape. It’s not even just that Cosby is black, but that he was a comedy legend who played one of the most wholesome characters in TV history. No one expects that someone whose signature look is “a sweater” could be guilty of such heinous crimes.
It’s not like this is the only time that Family Guy has ripped into Cosby, although they usually just poked fun at his nonsense words and facial expressions. There was one clip where he was getting undressed with a woman in bed, which seemed like a good time to get raunchy with things, but it was just him spouting gibberish. Personally, the clip below is my favorite of all the Cosby references.
I’m pretty sure there are lots of people that really do wish his head would just fall off of his shoulders like that.
The gag took place during a Thanksgiving-ish-themed episode that had Kate McKinnon voicing Peter’s professional wrestler sister Karen “Heavy Flo” Griffin, who later takes on Peter when he’s disguised as the lady wrestler Maxie Patty. So this was obviously not going to be an episode full of humor so high brow that it got a nosebleed. Thankfully, though, what was higher was the episode’s ratings as compared to last week’s dismal audience.
