The Terrible Catsafterme

SEASON 1 – NBC

Theme song: “Kiss Me” composed by Stu Gardner and Bill Cosby

• 001. Pilot – 9/20/1984
  • Dr. Clifford Huxtable is a middle-aged OB/GYN living in Brooklyn Heights, New York with his family, his lawyer wife Clair (Phylicia Ayers-Allen, later Phylicia Rashad), and their children Denise (Lisa Bonet), Theo (Malcolm-Jamal Warner), Vanessa (Tempestt Bledsoe), and Rudy (Keisha Knight Pulliam). Clair is extremely angry when Theo brings home four D’s on his report card, and charges Cliff with talking some sense into him. Cliff uses Monopoly money to try and convince him that he will not be able to afford to live on a minimum wage job, and Theo in turn tries to tell his father that he should love him regardless of his talents. Cliff thinks that is ridiculous and insists that he try harder. Cliff also has to contend with Denise’s style of dress and her date (Todd Hallowell), a former merchant marine who has an earring. Cliff tries to get some alone-time with Clair when they go to bed, but Vanessa and Rudy end up in bed with them when Rudy thinks she hears a wolf-man in their closet. Keith Reddin is father-to-be Mr. McManis. 3/27/16 
• 002. Goodbye, Mr. Fish – 9/27/1984
  • Vanessa informs Cliff that Rudy’s fish Lamont has died. Cliff knows how much Lamont has meant to her and attempts to explain life and death to her. Rudy is so upset by it that she can’t eat. The other kids find it funny that Cliff is making such a big deal about the dead fish, so he orders them to attend a funeral for Lamont in their bathroom under threat of calling in a minister if they do not comply. During the ceremony, Rudy gets bored and asks if she can go watch television. Meanwhile Clair tries to tell everyone in the family about being praised by a bigwig at work but keeps getting interrupted by Cliff’s pager and talk of the fish. 3/27/16
• 003. Bad Dreams – 10/4/1984
  • Cliff won’t give Vanessa permission to see the movie Death Track 2000 because she is so susceptible to nightmares, but she ends up sneaking it out and seeing it anyway and winds up not able to sleep. Meanwhile Cliff tries to get Theo interested in his cowboy hero Colt Kirby. Cliff allows her to sleep with him and Clair for two nights, but can’t get any sleep because she is hogging the bed. Clair ends up telling Vanessa about being scared there was a witch outside her window when she was a girl and presents her with a ‘bravery medal’ which she says has been in her family for years. It turns out that it was actually Cliff’s old relay medal. Denise tells her father how she got angry with her date Freddy for staring at the waitress’s legs, so she orders lots of expensive food and then ends the date. 4/7/16
• 004. Is That My Boy? – 10/11/1984
  • Cliff breaks up a fight between Rudy and Vanessa, by having Rudy go hang out in his room alone, and then forgets to go let her out. Later Theo comes home late and explains that he had tried out for the football team for fun with his friends, and didn’t end up getting cut. Cliff is ecstatic that Theo may just follow in his footsteps and become a star football player. Cliff won’t stop talking about it, and jumps at the chance to give Theo some football pointers… but then finds out that Theo is terrible at the sport. Meanwhile Rudy feels ignored and forgotten, so Clair makes consoles her by telling her all of the perks of being a five-year old. Cliff and Clair vow to cheer for Theo no matter how good or bad he is at football. Cliff points out that he had better keep the bench from flying up, and Theo shows off his victory dance. 7/8/16
• 005. A Shirt Story – 10/18/1984
  • As Cliff fights off an oncoming cold, Theo comes home from shopping with his mother with a $95 shirt made by Gordon Gartrell. Cliff tells him that it has to go back and gives him $30 to buy another shirt, much to Theo’s disappointment since he wants to impress his date Christine (Sonia Bailey) with it. Denise offers to make him a replica version using the $30. Everyone is skeptical but Denise is adamant that she can do it. As Denise gets down to the wire, she has a confidence crisis about getting it finished… and then when she actually does, it is a disaster with crooked sleeves. Theo flips out, and after Cliff tells him that he can’t get another shirt, but then after he feels Theo he has suffered enough he tells him that he hasn’t taken the Gartrell back yet. It all ends up a moot point, as Christine sees the new shirt that Denise made and thinks that it is fabulous, so much so that his friend Phillip Washington (Kadeem Hardison) wants one too. Casandra Murray is Phillip’s date Melissa James. 10/1/16
• 006. Breaking with Tradition – 10/25/1984
  • Cliff has Theo do some chores to pay off a debt, and when Cliff tells Theo to answer the door and tell whomever is there that Cliff is busy taking a nap, he follows the instructions implicitly… even though the visitor is Cliff’s father Russell (Earle Hyman). Cliff retrieves him and he comes back to watch the game, and try to convince Cliff to push his kids to go to Hillman College, which is his alma mater.  Cliff is more inclined toward Princeton where Sondra is attending. Cliff feels out Denise to see if she might be interested in Hillman. She doesn’t and has to break the news to her grandfather, but when she finds out that the men greatly outnumber the women, she changes her tune. Cliff reveals that he went to Hillman to follow Clair… but won’t allow his father to tell Calire. 7/8/16
• 007. One More Time – 11/1/1984
  • Clair babysits her friend Janice Harper’s baby Jonathan, and starts to get baby fever and seriously considers having another one. Cliff is against it from the start, and the kids have mixed feelings; Vanessa would just as soon have a dog. Clair’s mother Carrie Hanks (Ethel Ayler) comes to visit her, and tells her that at a certain point she wanted no more kids, and tells Clair to consider that oftentimes kids come back to live with their parents. Meanwhile Cliff loses a game of basketball to Theo, which makes him feel his age. He approaches Clair telling him how worried it would make him to become parents again so late in life, and Clair tells him that she is now over the feeling of wanting another child. The two start to think about their future travel plans once Rudy graduates. Marilyn Rockafellow is Cliff’s patient Mrs. Burke, whose scenes were excised in syndication and DVD release. 10/1/16
• 008. Play It Again, Vanessa – 11/8/1984
  • Cliff and Clair are both irritated that Vanessa has lost interest in playing her clarinet, which cost $245. Vanessa finally agrees to practice but is so terrible that she tries to get out of performing. Cliff brings in her teacher Mr. Hampton (Dizzy Gillespie) to tutor her. He plays the mouth harp for Rudy as well. The family attends Vanessa’s recital, and although it is rocky, she gets through it. Cliff gets irritated when Clair yells for an encore. Meanwhile Cliff tries to get Clair to job with him and makes fun of her running style. Theo beats Cliff in chess, which is followed by several wins for Cliff. 12/27/16
• 009. How Ugly Is He? – 11/15/1984
  • Vanessa tips off Cliff that Denise has a new boyfriend named David James (Kristoff St. John), but she doesn’t want him to know because of Cliff’s ill treatment of her other boyfriends. Cliff finds out that everyone in the family has met him and likes him, so he agrees to behave himself if Denise will have him over for an ‘adult’ dinner. The night gets off to a good start when David brings Cliff a record of jazz great Tony “Clean Head” Taylor… but then quickly degenerates when David tells Cliff some of his radical ideas – not attending college despite his terrific grades, wearing socks that don’t match, and worst of all, criticizing doctors for their inflated prices. Clair convinces Cliff to enjoy the riveting conversation, but then she has a change of heart when David also criticizes her law profession and her choice to not spend her life raising her family. Before they can blow up at him, Denise drags him out to the movies, but then she herself gets irritated by David’s radical ideas of having several wives and forcing them to do hard labor. Cliff refuses to get involved and leaves it to Denise to tell him how she feels. Jossie DeGuzman is Mrs. Ramos (scenes cut from syndication and DVD). 12/28/16
• 010. Bonjour, Sondra – 11/22/1984
  • With Thanksgiving approaching, Theo wants to take over the duties of carving the turkey, so Cliff puts him through his paces by having him practice on a chicken and a head of cabbage. Cliff is also excited because his oldest daughter Sondra (Sabrina Le Beauf) is coming home from Princeton for the holiday. She announces to Denise and her mother that she would like to spend the summer in Paris, and Clair is all for it. Convincing her father isn’t so easy, as he has a family trip to the Grand Canyon in mind. He calls a family meeting but he is the only one who doesn’t vote for her to go. He chats with her and makes sure that she is interested in more than just partying and finally agrees. At Thanksgiving dinner, everyone says what they are thankful for and then finally Cliff gives Theo the carving knife for the turkey. 4/8/17
• 011. Knight to Night (aka You’re Not a Mother Night) – 12/6/1984
  • Clair is stressed out, although she denies that the source is neither the kids nor her job. Sensing she is simply overwhelmed, Cliff arranges for them to go out to dinner and then on to the Biltmore Hotel to spend the night. Cliff has a talk with the kids and puts Denise in charge. Theo blackmails Denise to let him go out, and takes a call from the pregnant Mrs. Collins and gives her advise. Cliff and Clair spend a romantic evening of joking when Cliff doesn’t care for his pigeon and wants Clair’s steak, and then strikes out when he says “let’s get it on” at the hotel. Clair advises him to be romantic, and when he comes through, Clair is the one who says “let’s get it on”. They arrive home the next day to find the kids fighting, so Cliff sends them all in to clean the kitchen together. Clair denies that she wanted the whole weekend away from the kids, but Cliff admits he wanted the whole month. Anne Twomey is patient Mrs. Jennings. 4/8/16
• 012. Rudy’s Sick – 12/13/1984
  • Clair is preparing to interview to become partner in her law firm, and Cliff has confidence that she’ll get the job. Vanessa informs Cliff that Rudy is sick so Cliff has to take care of her while Clair goes to her interview with Mr. Halifax (Clarke Gordon), which consists of him talking non-stop about every subject imaginable. Cliff gives Rudy medicine and leaves her on the couch while he goes downstairs to see his patient Janet Yamado (Haru Aki) and her husband Steve (Doug Yasuda), who keeps passing out thinking about the birthing video. Halifax later calls and after telling Cliff unrelated tales, announces that Clair is now a partner. Cliff is not only proud of her, but also of Theo, who has applied himself and gotten a good grade. 4/8/17
• 013. Father’s Day – 12/20/1984
  • On a snowy day two weeks before Christmas, Cliff takes the day off and he gets in a conversation about his Fathers Day gift from the past, pulling out the useless gifts that he’s received over the years. He puts them all on and then lectures his kids about getting him something better when the next Fathers Day rolls around. Theo leads the charge in going shopping for their Dad and convinces Clair to take them. After coaching Ben Lee (Tzi Ma), a chauvinist man who likes keeping his wife (Suzee Pai) home ‘barefoot and pregnant’, Cliff comes home to a surprise Father’s Day celebration. Vanessa gets him a home weather station, Denise gets him an electric ice cream scooper, Theo gets him rubber slippers, and Rudy gets him tennis balls. Clair gives him an early edition book of the Lincoln-Douglas debates. Cliff declares them the nicest Christmas presents he ever received for Fathers Day. Doris Belack is the saleslady. 11/10/17
• 014. Independence Day – 1/10/1985
  • Theo comes home with his ear pierced for a girl and shows it off to Denise, but when she thinks it may be infected, she spills the beans to their father. Cliff tends the ear, but relies on his father to lay into Theo. Russell understands the need to impress a girl, especially when he recalls that Cliff once tried to straighten his hair for Clair and burned it all off. Although Cliff tries to stop him, Russell tells the whole family about the hair incident, and tries to soften the blow with Clair when she gets angry about the ear. Cliff’s mother Anna (Clarice Taylor) butts in with a story of her own about how Russell once tries to tattoo his name on his chest, but spelled it wrong an it had to be removed. Cliff had always been told that it was a war injury. The Huxtable men resign themselves to realizing they do crazy things for women… but always manage to win the over. 11/27/17
• 015. Physician of the Year – 1/17/1985
  • Cliff has been voted to be Physician of the Year and is getting ready to attend the presentation banquet. After separating a fight between Vanessa and Rudy, giving Theo his first shaving lesson, and considering whether to allow Denise to go out with friend after the show, everyone, dressed to the nines, takes off for the banquet… except for Cliff, who has been called to visit his patient Mrs. Randall (Aleta Mitchell), whose husband is on the road as a player for the New York Knicks. Cliff thinks that he will only be late, but where contractions get closer, he resigns himself to the fact that he won’t make the banquet. Cliff entrusts Theo to read his speech, and although nervous, he does an admirable job at relaying his father’s words. Sheldon Leonard is Dr. Wexler. Elisa de la Roche is the nurse. 6/28/18
• 016. Jitterbug Break – 1/31/1985
  • Cliff and Clair are planning to go out dancing with their friends Marie (Judith Jamison)  and Ralph (Donald McKayle), and as they get ready for the evening, the try to convince Rudy to eat her Brussels sprouts. Denise has plans of her own: to ask her parents if she can wait overnight in line for a Walking Lemons concert. When the Huxtable babysitter has to cancel because of illness, and Denise says he already had plans with her friends, Cliff asks Theo to babysit. He reluctantly rises to the challenge, and quickly learns his lesson about asking for money. His first job is to try and get Rudy to eat her vegetables, but he fails miserably. Cliff denies Denise permission to stay out all night, so her friends (Gerard Cooper, Blair Underwood, Christine Langner, Alex Paez) all give their money to one friend to get the tickets, and come spend the evening at the Huxtable house for an impromptu breakdancing party. Denise tells Rudy she can only watch if she eats her vegetables and that does the trick. Cliff mocks the breakdancers, and when Ralph and Marie show up, they integrate their Jitterbug dancing with the breakdancing. 7/6/18
• 017. Theo and the Joint – 2/7/1985
  • On a cold winter’s day, Theo leaves to play ‘freeze football’ and while he is gone, Clair finds a joint inside his Geography book. Theo claims that it is not his, but even though his parents both say they believe him, he feels like they’ll look at him different. Theo confronts fellow student Tony “The Enforcer” Braxton (Stephen Thompson), who admits that he put the joint there when the teacher walked in. Theo demands that Tony go home with him and admit to his parents that the joint is his, but Tony refuses… until Theo says he is willing to fight him. Theo brings Tony home and he tells Cliff that the joint was his. Cliff is impressed that Theo stood his ground but tells him it was unnecessary because he already believe him. He gives Tony advice that he has a problem and he should seek help. Theo and Tony become friends and Tony joins Theo for freeze football. Meanwhile Cliff struggles to get Rudy in her winter attire, and Vanessa does all she can to try and find out what is going on with Theo. Iman appears as Mrs. Montgomery, who can’t decide if she wants to know the sex of her baby. 2/6/19
• 018. Vanessa’s New Class – 2/14/1985
  • Vanessa works on her solar system project for her new class’s Science Fair, but Denise warns her that her project could have been much better had she spent more time at it. When she gets it to school, she finds that her friend Janet Meiser’s (Pam Potillo) robotics project and Leon Haywood’s (Rado Randriamomonjy) tornado project are both vastly superior to hers. She tries to convince the teacher Mr. Robertson (William Christian) to give her more time, but he refuses. Leon and Janet come in first and third respectively, while Vanessa comes in 14th place. Vanessa accuses Janet of having her dad help her, which causes a rift between the two of them. In fact, Vanessa blames everyone but herself until Cliff has a talk with her. Vanessa eventually admits that she didn’t apply herself and decides to do the project over just to prove it to herself. Vanessa and Janet reconcile and Cliff invites them all to go out for pizza. Meanwhile Cliff attempts to fix the dishwasher, but ends up gutting it with no idea how to put it back together. Clair makes him admit that he in fact was in over his head. Kim Hauser is Melissa. Audrey Wong is Nancy. 2/6/19
• 019. Clair’s Case – 2/21/1985
  • Clair has been working late so Cliff has taken on the housework and cooking duties, so he starts experimenting with foreign cuisine including using cow’s tongue and turtle’s feet much to the kids’ disgust. When Clair decides to take on a case involving auto mechanic Mr. Wilson (Shawn Elliott), who happened to have cheated Sondra, when the other prosecutor gives it up, this means that she will be home even less. Cliff enlists the kids to help do the cleaning and coaches Theo on making beds and Denise and the girls on how to mop the kitchen floor. Cliff tries to get Clair’s attention when she is up late working on the case, but she blows him off. Cliff attends the trial of Wilson, where Clair proves that the he simply covered up the serial number on the engine and charged her for a new one without replacing it. Cliff surprise another man (David Langston Smyrl) in the courtroom when he vows to take out the attorney and the gets Clair to ‘agree’ to a date and marriage. Alan North is the judge. Lloyd Battista is the other lawyer. 1/15/20 
• 020. Back to the Track, Jack – 2/28/1985
  • Cliff gets a visit from Ernie Scott (Al Freeman Jr.), his old college track coach from Hillman and tries to recruit him for a Masters Track Meet where many of his old teammates typically participate. He also tells Cliff how many of his old rivals would like rematches with him, and claim that Cliff never beat them. Cliff and Theo hit the indoor track to do a time trial and Cliff quickly realizes how out of shape he is after a lap and a half. While collapsed on the couch at home, he gets a call from one rival Colonel Sandford B. “Tailwind” Turner (Joshua Culbreath) antagonizing him into returning to racing. Cliff hits the gym again, this time with both Theo and Coach Scott, and whips himself back into shape. Before the Coach picks up Cliff for the Masters Meet, Cliff gives Vanessa some pointers for slow dancing with her date. At the meet, Hillman faces off against Norton University alumni. During the relay Cliff and Tailwind are the last to get the baton and maintains the lead for most of the race, but Tailwind comes up from behind and they cross the finish at the same time. Although he didn’t win, Clair is suitably impressed when they hit the bed that night. However Cliff is too stiff to turn out the lights. Runners include Dhamiri Abayomi, James Bantum, Ira David, James Hodge, Larry James, Charles Pratt, and Dawson Pratt. 1/15/20
• 021. The Younger Woman – 3/14/1985
  • Cliff comes home at 3am after a long day of delivering babies and tells Clair that his friend and fellow doctor Mike Newcomb (Robert King) is dating again after losing his wife. This leads to a discussion during which Clair tells Cliff that he has her permission to date again if she dies. Although Cliff says he won’t date again, he can seemingly give no correct answer to whom he would marry, eventually setting on someone who looks and acts exactly like Clair… but even this seem to fill her with good-natured irritation. The next morning he is awoken by the thunderously loud music of the singer Clyde, coming from Sondra and Denise’s room. Mike comes over and brings his new girlfriend (Terry Farrell) who is attractive and much younger than him. Although they are shocked, neither Cliff nor Clair can find anything wrong with her. Later they discuss this with the kids, but Cliff can’t get past the fact that none of them can even pretend-mourn about his Cliff’s being dead in the scenario he gives them about Clair dating a 19-year old. Clair later laments how good Mike’s relationship seems because they have so much to talk about. Cliff shows her that they can have fun by wordlessly listening to jazz music and feeding each other fruit. 4/30/20
• 022. Slumber Party – 3/28/1985
  • Vanessa is heading off to ice skate with her friends, and Rudy is left behind and bored. After declining to help Theo sell more of his football booster tickets and insisting that he can’t sell his allotment of ten without leaving the house, Cliff offers to play with Rudy. She isn’t interested, but asks if she can have a slumber party. Even though Clair will be out until 8pm, Cliff thinks he can go it alone. Rudy brings over her friends Maria (Alica Cook aka Alicia Keys), Naoka (Naoka Nakagawa), Desiree (Desiree Scott), Sing (Sing Smith-Stewart), and twins Dana (Dana Bryant) and Kyle (Kyle Bryant). The neighborhood fat boy Peter Chiara (Peter Costa) tags along as well. Cliff teasingly addresses each child individually, gives them each a round of bucking horse knee, then pretends to be a monster, but when they get too wild, he sends them to the kitchen to get cookies from Theo. Cliff’s father stops by and bets him $20 that he can get all of the kids quiet in one minute. Cliff goes into the kitchen, and when he comes out, they are all perfectly quiet and sitting with him on the couch. Cliff hands over the money, and Grandpa uses the entire kitty to buy the rest of Theo’s booster tickets. Rudy confesses to her father that Grandpa told them if they were quiet, Cliff would give each of them a dollar in the morning.  NOTE: Rudy dedicates this episode to all of the kids watching. 4/30/20
• 023. Mr. Quiet – 5/2/1985
  • Cliff prepares a graph about weight gain for expectant mother for a presentation that he is giving to the local community center where Clair does legal counseling, and Rudy helps him color the graph. The guy who runs the center is named Tony Castillo (Tony Orlando) and he introduces the new kid (Raymond Rosario) to Chester (David Langston Smyrl), who runs the front desk. One of the expectant mothers Mrs. Mitchell (Angela Bassett) grills Chester because Cliff is late. Tony’s girlfriend Selena Cruz (Ada Maris) is also heavily involved with the center. Theo finds a little boy outside named Enrique Tarron (Alexis Cruz) who is getting beat up by some older kids, and brings him inside for Cliff to dress his injured finger. No matter how hard they try, neither Tony nor Cliff can get Enrique to talk to them. Cliff teaches his seminar, and Mrs. Rodriguez (Olga Merediz) is concerned about how much pain will be involved, and although Cliff tries to dissuade her from worrying about it, Mrs. Mitchell makes sure everyone knows how much pain she went through. Two other mothers (Lisa Mordente, Alva Chin) express how much being pregnant gives them thoughts about how much they hate their husbands. During the lunch hour, Tony and Selena have lunch outside and say goodbye to the Huxtables thanking them for their work with the center, and Cliff is slightly embarrassed to not be able to speak Spanish correctly. After the Huxtables leave meet Enrique’s mother Sonya (Pearl Tama), and she tells them that Enrique has been painfully shy. She goes to find him, and as they are leaving, Enrique finally speaks to Tony and tells him that his friends call him ‘Papo’, finally making a connection. Back home Cliff tries to enjoy his lunch and gets irritated when Theo interrupts him to ask if he can do something. But when Cliff realizes that Theo is asking if he can donate his basketball to the center, he can’t help but give his son a kiss on the cheek. Emmet O’Sullivan Moore is the elderly guy looking for any class taught by a woman.  8/11/20
• 024. Cliff’s Birthday – 5/9/1985
  • Clair, Vanessa, and Rudy go and scope out the site that will see Cliff’s 48th birthday party, an old hotel restored and opened as a small intimate venue to see Lena Horne (herself) perform. The event organizer Mr. Thornehill (Clarence Williams III) tells them that Ms. Horne received her letter and has invited them to sit at her special table. The girls, knowing that Cliff will do everything possible to find out his birthday gift, plan a way to trick him before the event. Cliff tries to get any information he can out of the younger girls, Theo, and Denise, who is working on writing a depressing song called I Walk Alone. Everyone purposely lets Cliff overhear them making a fancy meal of Beef Wellington and Gazpacho soup, but once he shows up in the dining room to eat, they spring a pizza on him covered in mushrooms, which he hates. After his disappointment reaches a boil, they take him to the hotel for the concert where he is suitably surprised and impressed. Lena Horne sings the tune I’m Glad There Is You. After the show, the family is invited back to her dressing room where they all introduce themselves. Lena tells the 16-year old Denise that she wishes she could return to that age, since she moped around depressed through all of it. Denise is inspired to re-write her song with more positive lyrics that talk about the love she has for her parents, now called Their Love Is Real. 8/12/20

SEASON 2

• 025. First Day of School – 9/26/1985
  • Rudy is up early and excited about the first day of school, and once she wakes up her parents, Cliff and Clair are equally as excited to get the kids out of the house. Clair puts Cliff in charge of waking up the others. He finds Vanessa up and getting herself made up for her first day of Junior High, but Theo and Denise, now entering her Senior year, prove a little harder to wake up. Clair finds out that Rudy had put a tuna sandwich in her lunchbox two weeks earlier. Theo had cut his sleeves off his new expensive sweatshirt. After they get the kids out the door, Clair is ready to celebrate, and has even blocked some of Cliff’s time off by making an appointment using the fake name Mrs. O’Gower. After school, Theo complains that he got the most difficult teacher Mrs. Westlake, but his father laughs it off. Rudy is upset because a boy has called her ‘Rudy Huckleberry’ but Cliff explains that is only because he can’t find anything else to poke fun of. Clair becomes irritated when all of the kids keep yelling for each other throughout the house, so Cliff and Clair start having their conversation by yelling at the top of their lungs. As they go to bed that night, they get a call after 10pm for Vanessa, and lament that she has now entered the teenager ranks. 11/27/20
• 026. The Juicer – 10/3/1985
  • After criticizing Theo for standing in front of the open refrigerator while he picks out a snack, Cliff introduces him and Rudy and her friend Peter to his new juicer, showing them how to make carrot juice. He then tells Rudy in no uncertain terms that she is not to play with the juicer ever. Later Clair runs some errands and puts Vanessa in charge of watching Rudy and Theo, while Cliff deals with repairman Sam Lucas (David Langston Smyrl) looking at water leak in his office. The repairman can give him now better estimate than between $75 and $1200, and between three hours and a month to complete the work. Nevertheless Cliff gives him the go-ahead. Upstairs Vanessa gets on a phone call with her friends, and Rudy and Peter go downstairs for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Since they are out of jelly, Rudy puts a bowlful of grapes in the juicer and it overflows all over the floor. Theo and Denise find the mess, but Theo suggests that Rudy needs to be held accountable so they have snacks and do not attempt to clean it. When Cliff finds the mess, he is initially irritated at them for not cleaning it, but Clair takes their side and says those responsible should clean it. They first have a talk with Vanessa about her priorities, and make her clean part of it. Then Clair gets Rudy to tell Cliff what she did. He admits he is mad and gently gives her the assignment to clean the low parts of the kitchen. Clair thinks Cliff is partly responsible too, and gives him probation from new appliances for five years, which keeps going up as he continues to try and ‘influence the court’. 11/27/20
• 027. Happy Anniversary – 10/10/1985
  • Cliff’s parents Russell and Anna’s 49th anniversary is coming up, so Cliff and the family plan a dinner and evening of entertainment and gifts for them. In addition to the painting they have made, Cliff purchases them a ticket for a cruise through Europe, although Theo thinks Nairobi would be a better choice. When they arrive for the dinner, Rudy immediately gives the secret of the trip away, so Cliff goes over the cruise with them right off the bat. The parents think of every excuse imaginable not to go, so Cliff tries to sell them on Nairobi. After dinner, the family performs a dance and lip sync to Ray Charles’ Night Time Is the Right Time, and then unveils the painting and tells the story of their meeting when Russell worked in the band at a ball and spotted Anna dancing at the ball and asked her out. That night at home, Anna can’t help but stare at the painting and then suggests that the young people in the portrait would have jumped at the chance to go to Europe, so they decide to accept the gift. Cliff and Clair speculate on their lives after 49 years of marriage, and suggest living one day at a time like his parents did. 3/19/21
• 028. Cliff in Love – 10/17/1985
  • Cliff is excited to have Sondra home from Princeton for the weekend, but things take a dark turn when she and her boyfriend Elvin Tibideaux (Geoffrey Owens) break up once again. She claims that the night before, he was expected to come see her at her friend Roberta’s house, but he didn’t show up for several hours after he said because he was out with his friends. Cliff doesn’t understand why she tolerates Elvin, so he and her mother suggest that she go out with another boy that her friend has been trying to set her up with. Elvin then shows up with flowers, and although Cliff is annoyed by his beliefs that women should not work and stay at home and take care of their husbands, Sondra forgives him and they reconcile. This is also good news for Theo, who has taken the brunt of Sondra’s wrath just for being a man. Sondra had in fact made a date with the other boy, Daryl (Joseph C. Phillips), and still goes out with him to concert on Saturday afternoon. Cliff finds the boy perfect for Sondra, being a pre-med student and with progressive beliefs about men doing their fair share of the cooking. After their date, Cliff invites Daryl to have dinner with them before Elvin arrives to drive Sondra back to school. He prods Daryl to make a good impression while there’s still time. Daryl likes taking things slower, but tries to somewhat appease Cliff. It is a fruitless endeavor, and he heads home. Clair reminds Cliff that he was once just like Elvin but only later came around to his current thinking under her guidance. Elvin shows up to pick up Sondra, and when Clair offers him coffee, his makes a remark how he didn’t think she served men. Clair lightheartedly makes it clear that she serves no man, but she and her husband work together as a team, and that’s how marriage should be. 3/19/21
• 029. Theo and the Older Woman – 10/24/1985
  • Denise has her friend Susanne (Robin Givens) over to the house to collaborate on a Sociology project of observing Denise’s family. Theo has no interest in helping until he sees Susanne and falls for her immediately. He begins acting in ways that aren’t his norm at all: dressing up, cleaning his room. and telling Susanne how having all sisters has taught him about how to treat women. Denise can’t stand to see him act this way, and shudders at the thought of Theo dating one of her friends, especially one two years older, but Susanne seems very impressed with him. Denise even goes to her folks to try and get him to stop, but they tell her that she is overreacting. Just as Theo is laying it on even thicker, a guy named Mark Roberts (Blair Underwood) show up to pick up his girlfriend… Susanne. Theo feels embarrassed and slinks out of the room when he hears that Mark is a wrestler who has gotten an academic scholarship. Theo goes outside and shoots baskets clumsily, often trampling on his mother’s garden. Clair tries to go out and talk to Theo, but Cliff stops her and goes out himself. When Cliff can’t even interest hi in a cookout, he advises Theo to calm down and head to the library to quiet his nerves. Theo later comes home with a girl named Tori Beckwith (Victoria Platt). Clair shows her around the garden, and Cliff suggests having her stay over for a cookout. 7/15/21
• 030. Halloween – 10/31/1985
  • It’s Halloween, and Vanessa is hosting a party at the house, while Cliff is planning on taking Rudy and her friends Peter and Katie (Linda Arroyo) trick or treating. Cliff claims he won’t be wearing a costume, but with Clair’s ‘encouragement’, Rudy ends up dressing him in various clothing items. Vanessa freaks out when she finds out that the coolest guy in the seventh grade, Robert Foreman (Dondre T. Whitfield), will be at the party. Vanessa is afraid to talk to him, so she sends messages via her friends Janet and Scott (Akili Prince), to find out if he likes her while making sure that he doesn’t know she likes him, unless of course, he likes her. After going back and forth, the two wind up chatting and dancing. Unfortunately when Vanessa brings out a tray of glasses, she accidentally drops them and shatters them on the floor. She is mortified and runs off to her room. Clair goes up to talk to her and tell her an old story about how she once embarrassed herself in front of a boy she liked when she chickened out on the high dive. Cliff then brings all of Vanessa’s friends up to her room to continue the party. Robert also comes up and speaks to her privately, offers to walk her to school and talk on the phone, and then asks her to go steady. Vanessa is thrilled to accept. While Cliff and Clair clean up the mess downstairs, they use Rudy to send messages back and forth to each other, seeing how many words she actually gets right. Audrey Wong is now Audrey. 7/15/21
• 031. Rudy Suits Up – 11/7/1985
  • Clair’s mother is visiting and makes it clear that she’s not happy that Rudy is out playing Pee-Wee Football. Cliff brings Rudy home from practice, and although he won’t admit it around Rudy, he is ecstatic with how terrific she is. He is less thrilled with Theo, who is channel surfing in the living room, which is driving Cliff crazy. When Cliff finally shuts down the TV, Theo is forced to talk about school, and how tough Miss Westlake is on him, when she makes Theo stand at the chalkboard and work out a math problem. Sondra chalks it up to ‘performance anxiety’, but Cliff thinks Theo needs to do his homework more often to get better. Meanwhile, the family heads off to Rudy’s first game, but Cliff has to talk Clair into going along. Rudy “Sweet Feet/Grey Ghost” Huxtable winds up scoring four touchdowns, and suddenly Clair is her biggest fan. Suddenly Clair is her biggest fan, and they prepare the family a celebratory hot dog meal. Cliff becomes annoyed when he finds Vanessa playing a record over the phone for her boyfriend Robert. He then gets annoyed when Clair and Denise join Cliff watching a Bears-Giants game, and engage in inane conversation about uniforms, good looking players, and Walter Peyton, who they believe is not as good as Rudy. Later, the family head off to the championship game against the Cougars. Rudy’s team winds up losing 47-6. Rudy decides she wants to quit football. Clair thinks that the sport should change the rules. Cliff finds the whole thing amusing, since Clair seemed okay with the rules when Rudy was winning. Rudy comes in that night and takes Cliff’s spot in bed. 1/12/22
• 032. Denise Drives – 11/14/1985
  • Clair takes Denise to her driver’s test, and she passes and gets her license. When they return home, she tells her parents she wants to talk to them about something, but Cliff gets interrupted when two of his patients, Mr. (Paul Hading) and Mrs. Kenton (Ann Flood) show up for their appointment. Although they are in their upper middle age, Cliff has the pleasure of telling them that Mrs. Kenton is pregnant, which the Kentons find amusing. The laughter is contagious and Cliff is still laughing when he returns upstairs to the living room. Denise thinks this will be a good time to ask her parents if she can use the $1600 in her savings account and buy a car. Theo also yhas an interest in things going smoothly, as this will make it easier for him to ask for a motorcycle when the time comes. Cliff tells Denise that he’ll have to come look at the car, even though Denise is adamant that she is going to get it since it his her money. Clair lays down the law and tells her how many times they have had to stop her from wasting that money, and also how she will have nothing left if she spends it all. Once cooler heads prevail, Cliff takes her to look at the car, which winds up being a lemon. Meanwhile, Cliff has had Theo call for a repairman named Sam Lucas (David Langston Smyrl) to come and fix the banister on the stairs. When he overhears Cliff telling Denise, they’ll continue to look for a car, he offers up his Aunt’s 1962 Stingray. Cliff agrees they can test drive it, and it proves to be a reliable car. Cliff haggles with him and gets the price to $850, much to Denise’s utter delight. Theo tries to discuss his future motorcycle with his mother and father, but can only get ‘no’s’ from both of them. 1/12/22
• 033. Clair’s Sister – 11/21/1985
  • Clair’s sister Sarah (Yvette Erwin) invites Clair to meet her at the restaurant Paul & Jimmy’s in order to announce that she and her boyfriend Garvin (Mario Van Peebles) are getting married. While there, two men, Greg (Jeff Mooring) and Thad (Russell Curry) try to send them drinks and hit on them… until Clair tells them that she is married and has four children. Later back home, Cliff and Clair get ready to host Clair’s parents at the house, so that the ladies can go over wedding plans. Cliff, who always gets beaten by Clair’s father Al (Joe Williams) in Chess sets up the board for another rematch. He tells Theo that he’s figured out how to ignore Al’s many distractions during the game. Vanessa and Denise discuss how they will plan their weddings, and Denise wants a more free-spirited wedding. The ladies discuss the philosophy of marriage, and laugh at Sarah for trying to learn about marriage from a book. Clair and her mother give their thoughts on perfect chapter names for the how-to books. Cliff and Al go head to head in chess, but ultimately Cliff finds himself in Checkmate. When Garvin comes to the house to pick up Sarah, she questions whether they can make it work like the couples who have sixty years collectively of marriage. Garvin tells her he doesn’t know, but he knows he loves her… and that is a good enough answer. After they leave, Al confesses he’s like to sing at the wedding like he did at Clair’s but he isn’t sure he can make it through the song without crying. He and Clair then do a duet of We Belong Together. Al admits that he will have two great sons-in-law but hopes that Garvin will learn how to play chase better. Eli Giaggo is the waitress. 5/21/22
• 034. Clair’s Toe – 12/5/1985
  • Clair realizes that the next day is the anniversary of the day that Cliff proposed to her, so she plans a special dinner at the Golden Dove. They get to talking about how smooth they will both be dressed, and it suddenly turns into a competition as to who will be the most smooth. They decide on the ground rules that they will use only clothes that they already own, and that the kids will be the judges. While Clair is getting ready, she stubs her toe on the chest in their room. Cliff suggests that she get it checked out at the hospital, and it turns out is broken and they wrap it up. She refuses to use a crutch, and also won’t listen to Cliff when he tells her not to go to work. While there, she winds up in a conversation with her client Mr. Barker (George Grizzard) and another lawyer Miss Kessler (Anne De Salvo) about how long it took for Barker’s and one of Miss Kessler’s friends’ toes to heal, and it is much longer than the two weeks they were initially told. Clair was told two weeks, so she starts to worry. Then her assistant (Liliana Komorowska) tells them that it only took her 10 days. Back home, Cliff brings Clair some wooden flip-flop style shoes, but Clair finds them ugly. Russell brings her a Kenyan cane that he tells her belonged to his father that he was presented by the parents of a boy he saved from getting hit by a train. Although the story is a lie, it gets her to use the cane. That night they hold the contest with Theo acting as MC and the girls judging. Cliff gets a rousing round of applause after he presents his suit. Then Clair appears using her new cane and with a paper bag wrapped on her foot. When Cliff points out how ugly it is, she unveils the wooden flip flop that Cliff gave her, now adorned with jewels. She gets an even bigger applause and wins the contest. After they return from dinner that night, they sit on the couch and swoon, and Cliff asks for an apology for the way she wouldn’t listen to him over the last two days. After complimenting all of his facial features, she finally does apologize. 5/22/22
• 035. Denise’s Friend – 12/12/1985
  • Clair is going through clothes and comes across the sweater she was wearing the night that Cliff proposed to her. She gets irritated when Cliff can’t remember what she was wearing, but redeems himself when he recalls the music that was playing on the radio. Meanwhile, Denise chats with Cliff about one of her friends, who has a medical issue and doesn’t want her parents to know about it. After being assure that Denise isn’t talking about herself, he agrees to see her. After he works with a group of pregnant women at the community center, the friend (Stacey Dash) shows up to see Cliff. He tries to convince her that she should tell her parents if she is worried about a medical issue, and she says she will think about telling them. Although it turns out to be nothing more than a bladder infection, Cliff starts thinking about his own family and calls a family meeting of the older four kids. He and Clair tells them that they want them all to come to them if they ever had an issue or get into trouble. The kids agree right away, but Cliff and Clair want to have more of a discussion. The kids joke about not being able to tell them everything, as they are afraid their parents might get angry. The go through several examples such as Theo being pregnant, Theo confessing to taking out Cliff’s car and causing a ding, Vanessa dating a 17-year old, and Denise admitting that she spent the night at Tommy Watkins house while his parents were on vacation when she was supposed to be staying with her friend Jeanette. Clair cannot help but being angry at this confession… until Denise admits she made the whole thing up. Cliff then clarifies that certain things they could potentially do might make them angry, but that there is no one who loves them more or wants the best for them any more than their parents, and hope they would choose to come to them. Everyone is finally on the same page, even though Clair feels she needs to call Jeanette’s mother to validate Denise’s story. Cliff also questions whether Theo ever really did drive his car without a license. Theo says he never drove his father’s car, except for once: the time he drove Denise to Tommy Watkins’ house. He then tells Cliff that he’s just messing with him. Clair then makes Cliff recall a hair bow that she wore when she was younger. They remember the time when they were teens when they were supposed to go to a church choir picnic, but they went on their own down to the river to have their own picnic with kissing and necking. Clair says they should call and confess this to their parents in the spirit of their discussion with their own kids. Cliff agrees to go first, and he proceeds to tell his mother the tale, and she gets angry at the confession. However, he then hands the phone to Clair, since he had actually been talking to her mother. Lauren Tom is Mrs. Gwynne. Shari Headley is Mrs. Dubois. Edythe Jason is the other pregnant woman. 9/15/22
• 036. Mrs. Westlake – 1/2/1986
  • Rudy tries to read a book to Cliff but he keeps falling asleep. Theo then comes home and tells his father how worried he is about the math test he took in Mrs. Anna Maria Westlake’s (Sonia Braga) class, even though he says he studied all he could. His friend Cockroach never got past question number 3. Cleo describes Mrs. Westlake as the Dragon Lady, and how she has her hair tight in a bun, wears glasses. and looks down on everyone. Later, Mrs. Westlake calls to talk to Cliff about setting up a meeting, so Cliff invites her and her husband Jack (Matt Williams) over for dinner. Theo is mortified and tells Cliff that he should have asked for his permission, to which Cliff shows him who pays the bills. Making matters worse, none of his sisters will be there for dinner either. When she and her husband arrive, Cliff finds it humorous that Mrs. Westlake looks nothing like Theo described, with her long hair down, no glasses, and makeup. Before they eat, Mrs. Westlake reveals why she wanted to talk to Cliff: she is pregnant and wants him as her doctor. Theo is relieved during dinner, but is annoyed when everyone laughs about how she struggled with English phrases after moving to the states from Rio, Brazil. Mrs. Westlake then asks to see Theo alone, and she puts her hair up and her glasses on before giving him his test privately. Theo is thrilled when he finds out he got an 89 on such a hard test, even accidentally giving her a hug. Mrs. Westlake admits it was a hard test and talks about how one student never got past question number three. She also tells him how she is hard on him only because she wants to push him and other students to give their full effort… and she takes as a compliment that she is doing her job when students call her the Dragon Lady. After she has gone, Theo admits to his father that he had a good time. Cliff gives him some pointers on how to study consistently until waiting to cram every night. 9/16/22
• 037. The Auction – 1/9/1986
  • Elvin and Sondra get back together, and Elvin drives Sondra home from Princeton. He is anxious to make good with Clair, so he decides to stay and bake her a chocolate chocolate chip cake. Cliff offers to taste test it, but he has a hard time cutting it and a harder time swallowing it. Meanwhile, Clair comes home with a Sotheby’s auction house catalog and shows Cliff a painting that was created by her Great Uncle Ellis Wilson. He became an artist of note, and Clair remembers the painting hanging in her grandmother’s house when she was a kid. It is now valued at $7000-$9000 and Clair would like a chance to bid on it. She wants to buy it with her own money, and Cliff tells her that if she wins it, he would be glad to hang it in their living room. Elvin makes the mistake of asking Clair if she got Cliff’s permission to buy it. He tries to recover by offering to make dinner for them the night after the auction. Cliff is adamant that he shouldn’t, but Clair accepts the offer. Cliff then tries to give him a quick cooking lesson by telling him that he is making his special spaghetti sauce, but to cook it with Mrs. Farber’s Hot and Spicy Barbecue Sauce. At the auction house, Cliff tries to scope out conversations to see if the Willis painting has any buzz. He becomes concerned when one customer (Stephen Oxendine) mentions that some painting appraised in the $10,000 range went for more in the $100,000. Theo scopes the place out for hot girls and meets one named Darlene (Michelle Pierce). He makes enough of an impression that she later calls him when he gets home, and Theo had to cope with all of the giggling and poking fun from his sisters. During the auction, Cliff tries to bid on a painting to hang in his office, but an older man (David O’Brien) and his wife Betty (Eileen Letchworth) win it when Clair stops Cliff from getting carried away with auction fever. Clair had to be against a few different contenders for the Wilson piece, but she ultimately gets it for $11,000 to everyone’s delight. Back at home, Elvin works on warming up the barbecue sauce, and when Clair tries it, she tells Elvin that it is almost as good as Cliff’s, mentioning that they should market it… as long as they get permission from Mrs. Farber. John Marion is the auctioneer. 1/5/23
• 038. Vanessa’s Bad Grade – 1/16/1986
  • Cliff is struggling with a lack of sleep due to being up all night from a baby delivery, so he and Clair decide to postpone the movie date until Friday. Meanwhile, Vanessa wants to buy a new sweater for her Senior Dance date with Robert. Clair suggests that she ask Denise if she can borrow one of her sweaters, but Cliff thinks Denise will never agree, and bets Clair a giant tub of popcorn at the movies that she won’t. Sure enough, Denise refuses Vanessa’s request. Vanessa and Robert study together for their history exam, specifically “the War of 1912.” Clair is excited to see the award-winning movie, but Cliff can talk about nothing but the popcorn. Vanessa confides in Theo that she got a D on her History test, but despite Theo’s advice, Vanessa postpones telling her parents about the grade until after the dance. When Vanessa can’t decide what to wear to the dance, she sneaks into Denise’s closet when she’s not home and borrows her purple dress. When they get home, Denise interrupts Vanessa when she is about to kiss Robert, to confront Vanessa about the sweater. Cliff and Clair come home, discussing the movie, which was subtitled and put Cliff to sleep during almost the full film… and his popcorn and soda disappeared. Vanessa and Denise, who are arguing upstairs, wind up in a shoving match, and then a wrestling match, until their parents break it up, knocking Cliff to the floor in the process. Both of the girls are punished for their behavior, but they talk to Vanessa about her specific poor behavior lately. As they are leaving the room, Vanessa shows her parents her D test paper. When they go back downstairs where Robert is waiting, Cliff asks him what kind of grade he got. When he tells them that he got a D+, Cliff decides that they need to be done studying together for a while. They beg for one more chance for their next test, but Cliff denies them. As Cliff is getting ready to take Robert home, the entire family is distracted by the TV showing Martin Luther King’s “Let Freedom Ring” speech, which they watch in thoughtful concentration. Vanessa quietly apologizes to Denise. 1/5/23
• 039. Theo and Cockroach – 1/30/1986
  • Theo and his friend Walter “Cockroach” Bradley (Carl Anthony Payne) brag to their friend Donnie (Claude Brooks) that they have a record of the William Shakespeare play MacBeth that they plan to listen to instead of reading the play for their exam the next day. Donnie tells them that it took him a week to read it, so they think they’ve really saved a lot of time. Then they meet a new girl named Teresa (Traci Wolfe) on whom they both develop a quick crush, but she only seems interested in Theo. Meanwhile back home, Cliff has taken Rudy sled riding and nearly died in the process. Theo and Cockroach enter the front door with a gang of kids throwing snowballs at them. When Cockroach drops the MacBeth record outside, Cliff has to go retrieve it. The kids refrain from throwing snowballs at him until after he gets the record and heads back in, at which time they pelt him from the back. He then gets a garbage can lid and some snowballs from the backyard and head out and drives them away. Theo and Cockroach stall listening to the record and play a few rounds of tackle basketball. Cliff tells them to start studying, so they listen the record… but can’t interpret the Shakespearean dialogue. They try to find a place in town performing MacBeth that night, but no place has it. Theo then tries to get Denise to tell them all about. She gives them the basic plots and tells them about Cleland notes, which are small books meant to accompany an actual reading of the book. However, Denise gets annoyed when they start referring to girls as “burgers” and won’t tell them anymore. Nevertheless, they find the Cleland Notes for MacBeth and read through them. They feel they have a good understanding of the play, but when Clair finds them with the notes, she and Cliff discuss in front of them how much these books always fail to cover. This makes Theo nervous, but he still doesn’t read the play. After he takes the test, he tells his parents he probably got about a C, since there were plenty of questions he had gotten from the notes. Clair tells him that he is going to have to read the play and then take a test that she administers. This is bad news for him as he had planned for a date with Teresa over the weekend. Clair then admits to Cliff that she hasn’t read the play in years and tries unsuccessfully to talk him into helping her read it and create the test. Earle Hyman is the voice of MacBeth. 6/25/23
• 040. The Dentist – 2/2/1986
  • Clair is reading the paper in bed and gets riled up about the water meters they will be forcing on the houses in the city thanks to a new high-rise building going up, which will rapidly increase the population and strain the water supply. Meanwhile, Peter comes over to the house and wants to hide out because his father (Barry Moss) is going to take him to the dentist for a toothache. All of the Huxtable kids know that the local dentist Dr. Burns (Danny Kaye) is great, but Peter doesn’t want to risk it. Mr. Chiara calls to find out if Peter is there, so Cliff goes up to Rudy’s room to find him hiding under the covers of the bed. Eventually his father retrieves him and heads to the dentist. Rudy goes along to try and make him feel better. Since Mr. Chiara has the same lack of personality that Peter does, he is happy to stay in the waiting room and let Rudy accompany him. Dr. Burns has trouble getting him into the ‘tooth shuttle’ dentist chair, and then once he does, he can’t get Peter to open his mouth. He tries showing him the fake teeth but that doesn’t help either. When Dr. Burns then pretends to cry, Peter finally agrees to open his mouth and the examination continues. Later that night, Clair invites Peter to stay for dinner and prepares soft eggs for Peter since his mouth hurts. Dr. Burns stops by because Rudy has left her hat at the office. He tells Cliff that he is due for an examination, but Cliff tries to blow him off. Clair suggests that he go on his day off on Thursday, and Cliff agrees as long as he shows him the fake teeth and lets him ride in the tooth shuttle. Dr. Burns even agrees to let Cliff have two toys since Cliff let him kiss Clair when he came in. That night Cliff hides the newspaper so that Clair won’t get upset and bring him into a conversation. When she finally finds it under the pillow, she finds that Cliff has cut out several of the articles. Max Barabas is the kid patient James. Eli Giaggo is James’ mother. 6/25/23
• 041. Play It Again, Russell – 2/13/1986
  • Cliff’s mother Anna hangs out at their apartment and listens to Rudy’s never-ending supply of knock-knock jokes, while Cliff goes out with his father to watch him play trombone with his friends at the club. When they arrive home. Cliff can’t resist teasing his father about how disappointed he is that his trombone solo seems to last a matter of seconds and only consisted of one brief note. They all tell him that they will want more from him when his band The Jazz Caravan gets back together at the The Baby Grand Club for an old-fashioned jam session dedicated to one of their own, Roscoe Sinclair, who had recently passed away. Cliff tells his mother privately that he looks like he has lost his confidence, and despite his stubbornness, he wants her to try and get him to practice and play his heart out. Back at their house, Anna tells Russell, she doesn’t want to see Spencer Cunningham (Jimmy “Badman” Oliver) outplay him. She is tired of Spencer’s wife (Josephine Premice) telling her that no one can play like Spencer. Meanwhile, Cliff gets out his old photo albums to see his father’s band, but it quickly turns into a game of Clair testing Cliff to see what he can remember about their wedding day, so they have to pull out those albums as well. The kids are all ready to attend the jam but assume that they will be merely watching relics like pieces in a museum. They all meet up at Cliff’s place and head to the jam session. Sure enough, when they arrive, Mrs. Cunningham is singing with the band under the watchful glare of Anna. The band puts on a rip-roaring jazz performance, and each member performs a solo with their instrument, and Russell does not disappoint with his trombone. Russell is one of the last band members on the stage, and he plays slow music as Cliff and Clair dance. Mrs. Cunningham tells Anna that Russell hasn’t lost his touch, and Anna acknowledges that Spencer hasn’t either… even though he has his head down asleep at their table. Art Blakey is on drums. Bootsie Barnes is on saxophone. Jimmy Heath is on saxophone. Tommy Flannagan is on piano. Joseph B. Wilder is on trumpet. Percy Heath is on bass. Tito Puente is on drums. Carolos “Patato” Valdias is on congas. Eric Gale is on guitar. Joseph B. Wilder is the trumpet player. Slide Hampton plays Russell’s trombone. 10/18/23
• 042. A Touch of Wonder – 2/20/1986
  • Cliff corrects Rudy for standing on a chair to change the clock because it doesn’t match her watch. Vanessa comes home after waiting in the cold weather for Denise to pick her up at the library. She has to walk home in freezing cold. Denise and Theo come in all smiles and tells their parents that they got into a minor car accident. Denise says they were stopping at an intersection when a patch of ice caused them to go slightly into the intersection. They are then rear-ended by a limousine, who had music artist Stevie Wonder (himself) as the passenger. Stevie himself got out and made sure they were all right. Denise and Theo take this story to school, and it is enough to get Theo a date with Tanya Simpson. This makes Theo want to become a musician, thinking that a girl gives him a date because he was merely hit by one. Denise wants to wait to get the car fixed because she wants to have Stevie’s dent with her for a while. Stevie Wonder then calls the kids and invites their whole family to a recording session. Denise and Theo are beside themselves with excitement, and once they leave the room, both Clair and Cliff show their excitement as well. Cliff comes by for a minute, but he has to leave to deliver a baby. The rest of the family stays to watch, and Stevie records them snippets of their voice and fashions a song out of the sounds in his synclavier. He then invites Clair to sing a duet of I Just Called to Say I Love You with him, and the rest of the kids join in as well. Stevie has the engineer Gariel (Paul Lemos) make a recording of the song they made for them to take home, which the family all enjoys listening to together. Cliff asks Theo if Stevie took him on a yacht and fed him caviar, and why Stevie would be a musician if he didn’t do that. Theo gets the point that people’s jobs should reflect their actual interests. After the kids go to bed, Cliff decides to hit the hay early as well. After he goes upstairs, Clair puts on a record of Stevie Wonder singing Sugar, causing Cliff to wonder back down and get physical with his wife on the couch. Lorraine Morin-Toree is Stevie’s assistant. 10/22/23
• 043. Full House – 2/27/1986
  • After a night of delivering babies, Cliff comes home at 5:30am ready for a good night’s sleep, and then sleeping into Saturday, getting up and reading the paper quietly. After he gets Vanessa and Rudy out of the bed, he is able to begin his rest. He later wakes up to find the newspaper wrapped in a bow atop him. He heads downstairs and runs into Theo and Cockroach in the hallway where they are arguing over which one has a fuller mustache for their dates that night. Cliff moves on to the kitchen where Vanessa and her boyfriend Robert are each listening to their own radio. Robert comments how late Cliff slept in, and questions whether he has a low energy cycle and whether his biorhythms are off. In the living room, Denise and her boyfriend Eddie Lakeheart (Clayton Prince) are listening to reggae music. Cliff joins them on the couch but gets more and more annoyed as Eddie be-bops through the music and eventually begins to sing. Sondra and Elvin are in the dining room, where Elvin is studying, and Sondra is fuming in anger at him. The issue is that Elvin never gets angry, and when Sondra had tried to make a point about Elvin’s constant tardiness by picking him up two hours late, it didn’t seem to faze him. Cliff heads back up to his room, but Rudy and her friend Naoka have taken over the bed to watch cartoons. Cliff then heads to his office and starts reading the paper alone, but Clair comes to the door and brings him a pizza, for which he is grateful. Elvin then interrupts to tell him that Eddie was going to give him a ride, but one of their cars is blocking him. He had tries to move it but it wouldn’t start. Later that evening all of his daughters’ boyfriend return to pick them up for dates. Cockroach and Theo try to sneak out for their dates with Tracy (Tracy R. Proctor) and Linda (Monique-Vion Sorel) without being seen, but Cliff stops them to see that they have put mascara under their noses to simulate mustaches. After poking fun of them and trying to embarrass them in front of their dates, Cliff snaps a picture of his daughters and their men. Alone in the house with Clair, Cliff starts to finally enjoy reading his papers, but Clair turns on the TV and he gets distracted by the mating rituals of the Peruvian sand crab. 2/22/24
• 044. Close to Home – 3/13/1986
  • Clair heads out for a pottery class with Denise wearing one of Cliff’s sweatshirts, which he accuses her of only wearing in case it gets covered in clay. Cliff makes pate to serve to his visiting guest Dr. Dan Morgan (Samuel E. Wright), an old friend who went to the rival Morehouse College. They had worked together the previous year on a charity carnival, during which Cliff was the victim in the dunking booth. Cliff tries to steer him away from going down that road again, but Dan claims it was their biggest moneymaker. Clair and Denise return from the pottery class, and Denise find the collapsed vase that her mother attempted to make hilarious. Cliff joins in the fun of teasing her. Meanwhile, Vanessa has Rudy help her scouring the house to find her missing paper that she wrote for History class. Theo and Cockroach have an assignment to write a rap song for their Speech class, which they kick off by coming home wearing sunglasses. As Cliff jokes about putting Clair in the booth, Dan suddenly breaks down and says he has to leave. Cliff brings him to his office where they chat privately about his issue that he and his wife Sarah have been dealing with. Their daughter Sarah has become addicted to alcohol and cocaine and has been in and out of expensive rehab a couple of time, only to relapse. At one point she disappeared, and Dan had to get her from a filthy apartment, laying limp on a mattress in the corner. He asks Cliff what he did to keep his kids away from drugs, but Cliff insists that they all raised their children the same way and he was merely lucky that his kids have never gotten into drugs. Cliff offers to talk to her, but Dan says she’s already talked to many folks she respects, and it hasn’t done any good. Cliff says that it seems it is up to Cindy’s hands to recover. Before Dan leaves, Cliff tells him that he and Clair are there for him for whatever he needs. When Theo and Cockroach present their rap, Cliff tells them that they need to do something with more substance. Unable to find her paper, Cliff helps Vanessa recreate her movements the last time she had her paper. They wind up finding it in the freezer where Vanessa had been when making herself a drink. Denise continues to poke fun of Clair’s vase and calls it a used tea bag holder, while Claire insists that it is ‘high art.’ Theo and Cockroach give the rap another crack, and wind up with a more meaningful song about doing something with one’s life. 2/22/24
• 045. An Early Spring – 3/20/1986
  • Cliff is outdoors with Rudy trying to help her ride her bike without the training wheels, but despite the fact that he promises to catch her, she still manages to crash. Clair is also outside and greets Cliff’s pregnant patient Anna Maria Westlake, who also happens to be Theo’s math teacher at school.  Theo comes home with Cockroach so they can study Geometry, but Cockroach winds up getting frustrated and complains that he’ll never use it in real life because he plans to go into scrap iron business with his father. Meanwhile, Vanessa panics when she gets a pimple before her date with Robert, so Denise agrees to show her some tricks to cover it up. Cliff gets a call from Mrs. Westlake that the baby is moving a lot, so Cliff tells her to have her husband Jack drive her to the emergency room. Cockroach thinks there is no need to study since she will obviously not be at school the next day. She ends up giving birth to a baby named Gabrielle Antonia, and the boys are thrilled, knowing that they will have a substitute teacher the next day. Denise introduces Vanessa to the headband that will cover her pimple, and it turns out that Robert finds it sexy. Unfortunately, she then finds a pimple under her nose. Clair starts to help Rudy with her bike-riding, and she winds up getting her to ride it on her own without anyone holding on to her. Theo comes home from school and tells his father how their new sub teacher Mr. Baker showed up and said that Mrs. Westlake will be out for the year. He said there will be a new test the next day and started to review but could not get the class’s attention. Suddenly, Cockroach stands up and demands that they not let Mrs. Westlake down, and that they should try and make her proud. This astounded Theo, who got in line immediately, and likewise surprises Cliff. The class comes to visit Mrs. Westlake in the hospital, and as they are leaving, she holds Cockroach back and thanks him for what he did in class. When she asks him why he did it, he just say that the way they were behaving just wasn’t her class. 7/10/24
• 046. Theo’s Holiday – 4/3/1986
  • Theo seems to owe money to everyone in the house, and the way he thinks he can rectify it is to ask for an advance on his allowance. Cliff insists that he’d better start thinking of alternative solutions, but Theo says that he plans to become a model as soon as he turns eighteen years old. Theo heads off to spend the night with Cockroach, and Cliff tells him to be back at 10am as he is going to give him a lesson on how he will be treated in the real world. When he arrives, Vanessa is outside posing as Margo Farnsworth, an apartment dweller in the building. Theo plays along and meets Harley Weewax, who is Cliff posing as the apartment landlord. He says that Theo’s parents left him $2000 in play money to get started being on his own at the Real World Apartments. Clair poses as the Chuck Wagon restaurant owner Millie Farquar, and Rudy is the building owner Mrs. Griswald. When Theo goes up to his room, he finds that it is emptied out, simulating an unfurnished apartment. Weewax requires $600 for the months, another $600 for the last month’s rent, and a $600 security deposit. He also requires references that indicates that Theo has a steady income. Downstairs, they have set up the Firestone Modeling Agency, where the receptionist Kitty La Rue, also Vanessa, gets Theo in to see Denise as Mrs. Firestone. She tells him that he will need a portfolio of his modeling pictures, which will cost between $800 and $1200. Theo decides to kick his end up a notch by bringing Cockroach, who acts as his employer Horton W. Dansbury at Cockroach Oil, where Theo is a spokesman. After he gets Weewax to agree to his apartment, he asks to see his father to see how long this ruse will go on. Cliff tells him that it will be 24 hours, and his next step is to act as if it is the real world and get some furnishings for his ‘apartment’. Downstairs next to Millie’s is Amanda’s Furniture City, where Clair as Amanda is willing to sell him his furnishings. Since Theo only has $200 left for furnishings, he doesn’t have enough to buy back his bed after purchasing his stereo. Amanda recommends that he goes to the bank to get a loan. He stops by the ‘restaurant’ to get something to eat, but Denise, who claims to be Denise Farquar, Millie’s daughter, insists on charging them for their meal so they merely split an apple. They then go to see Vanessa, who is posing as Mrs. Covington, the Vice President of the bank. The bank manager is Mrs. Griswald, who approves a loan for Cliff and Clair as they start their family but denies Theo’s $2500 loan request because of a lack of credit history. That night, Theo spends the evening on his floor. His parents come in to check on him and bring him some food, and Theo admits to them that real world is tougher than they thought. Cliff reminds him that when he is dealing with his own money, he is much more frugal than when he is dealing with his parents’ money. Theo says that he’s learned his lesson: when he enters the real world to never do business with his family. 7/10/24
• 047. The Card Game – 4/10/1986
  • Cliff has one of his former professors, Dr. Barnabus Foster (Roscoe Lee Browne), the head of the English department at Hillman, over for a visit. Cliff tires to recite one of the old poems they studied, She Walks in Beauty by Lord Byron, but can’t recall it, despite having gotten an A in the class. Even though Clair only got a B, she can recall it verbatim. During the visit, Cliff’s friend Chuck call and tells him that he can’t make the traditional Pinochle game against Cliff’s father and his friend Homer Dobson (Bill Gunn). Dr. Foster offers to step in and partner with Cliff, despite warnings from Cliff and Clair that Russell and Homer often cheat by telling one another about the suits with which to lead by obvious clues. Cliff also complains that when they pick up all the tricks, which is called a head rub. they literally rub Cliff’s head. Meanwhile, Theo gets a secret package, but then tells Denise that it contains a diamonoid ring that was advertised for $19.99 during the wrestling matches on TV. Denise laughs at the ring, so Theo shows it to his father, who also has no problem identifying it as a cheap knockoff. Theo become self-conscious about giving it to his girlfriend Tanya (Tanya Wright). Cliff tries to get Dr. Foster to work out signals for the card game, but Foster says he’s rather lose with dignity than win as a scoundrel. While the game gets underway in the kitchen, Theo and Tanya sit outside talking on the stoop. He finally gets the nerve to give her the ring, and she loves it because it came from him. Despite obvious cheating from Russell and Home, Dr. Foster is a sharp player and ties up the game when he trumps their trick. Theo and Tanya nearly share a kiss to celebrate their nearly-five-weeks together, but Rudy interrupts. Dr. Foster and Cliff come out the victors in the game and take pleasure in rubbing their opponents’ heads. As Cliff shares his victory ice cream with his father, Theo comes in with his happy report that she loved the ring. Russell wants to make sure that Theo knows how to treat a woman, but he tells him that his father already had ‘the talk’ with him. Theo says he will treat his girlfriend just as well as his father did, which prompts Russell to think that he might need another talk. 11/11/24
• 048. Off to the Races – 5/8/1986
  • coming soon…
• 049. Denise’s Decision – 5/15/1986
  • Cliff hears Claire playing the Jimmy Scott record An Evening in Paradise, and they dance to the music. They then get in a disagreement over what year the song was released. Clair thinks it is 1960, while Cliff thinks it is 1962. They make a bet over who is correct, with the loser having to make dinner that night, do the dishes, serve breakfast in bed the next morning, and finally, wash the other’s car. Denise reads the date off the record to settle the argument, and it turns out that Clair is the winner. Denise gets a letter from Berkely College telling her that she has been accepted, and although she is excited, she still hasn’t chosen where she plans to go. With five colleges in mind, including NYU, South Dakota, Hawaii, Hillman, and Berkely, her parents tell her she really needs to make the decision soon. She vows to announce her decision after Cliff’s dinner. Denise starts asking her sibling, but Sondra says she needs to make the decision. Vanessa doesn’t care where she goes as she does in fact go so that she can get her room. Cliff tries to get out of the bet by asking Clair to go double or nothing on other song dates, but she refuses. Sondra tells her parents that she thinks Denise is scared to leave and that she might do better to take a year off to travel. Rudy tells Cliff that she hates college because it takes people away. Cliff agrees that he is sad but offers up some consolation on that they can visit, she can come visit, and they can talk on the phone. Cliff tries to get Theo to commit to helping with the car, but he says that his mother told him that he cannot do that. Cliff’s parents come over for dinner, mostly to hear Denise’s big announcement. Denise tells her grandfather that she’s narrowed her choices to NYU and Hillman. He sends Cliff in to help his mother in the kitchen, while he tries to persuade Denise how much Dr. Zachariah J. Haines is an asset as the president of Hillman college because he cares about the students. Everyone is anxious to end the dinner so that Denise can announce the college of her choice, except for Theo who wants more potatoes. Denise finally makes the announcement, and after beating around the bush to keep everyone in suspense, tells them that she’s chose Hillman. Vanessa is ecstatic, and Russell is thrilled. All of her siblings express their support, and Cliff and Clair read congratulations and memories that they wrote, moving both Claire and Densie to tears. 11/11/24

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