Stars: Bill Cosby, Phylicia Rashad, Malcolm Jamal Warner, Tempestt Bledsoe, Lisa Bonet

Director: Jay Sandrich

Summary: Already a presence on television for much of the 1960s and 1970s, in 1984 Bill Cosby debuted his new series, THE COSBY SHOW, which went on to become one of the most popular shows on television. Even in its very first year, THE COSBY SHOW was the third highest-rated show in America. On the programme, Cosby played Dr. Heathcliff Huxtable, who along with his wife Claire, an attorney, struggled to balance the challenges of their successful careers with the demands of their five children. The five kids all varied greatly in age and each had their own problems, which led to a variety of plotlines for the sitcom to utilise. Cosby's goal with the show was to present a positive view of a regular, middle-class, and successful African-American family. Contains all the episodes from the show's second series.

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An Emmy-winner for Outstanding Comedy Series its first year, The Cosby Show rapidly became to Thursday nights what The Wonderful World of Color and Bonanza were to Sundays in the 1960s: a family tradition. And the best was yet to come. Season 2 features some of this gold-standard series' benchmark episodes, most notably. "Happy Anniversary," the one in which the family honours Cliff's parents' wedding anniversary with a show-stopping lip-sync routine to Ray Charles's "Night Time Is the Right Time." In "Theo's Holiday," Theo (Malcolm-Jamal Warner) gets a taste of the real world when his family shows him what it takes to live on his own. The Emmy-winning "Full House" anticipates Seinfeld "nothing"-ness as an exhausted Cliff (Bill Cosby) wanders his home in search of peace and quiet.

In The Cosby Show's charmed world, race was beside the point. Cosby strove to address universal truths about parenthood. In this season's first episode, "First Day of School," adorable Rudy (Keisha Knight Pulliam) tells her father she doesn't want to return to school because a classmate called her "a name." Much like Cliff, the audience braces for the worst until it is revealed that she was teasingly called "Rudy Huckleberry." More to the show's point was fostering an appreciation of black heritage, history, and culture. In "The Card Game," Theo gives his girlfriend Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man to read. In "The Auction," Clair (Phylicia Rashad) bids on a painting by her great-uncle, artist Ellis Wilson, which used to hang in her grandmother's house. And in the stirring final moments in "Vanessa's Bad Grade," the entire family congregates in front of the television to watch Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech. From the first, The Cosby Show promoted education and fulfilling one's potential.

In one of the season's very best episodes, "Mrs. Westlake," Theo's dread math teacher, a.k.a. "The Dragon Lady," (guest star Sonia Braga) comes to dinner. Fearing the worst from the strict teacher who has forced him to study harder, he is stunned not only by her transformed bombshell appearance but by the results of his math test, which he feared he failed. Love and respect for one's elders and each other thrive in the Huxtable household. In the Emmy-winning "Denise's Friend," Cliff and Clair hold a hilarious and heartwarming family meeting to assure their children that no matter what trouble they get into, they can always come to them. From Danny Kaye's delightful Emmy-nominated performance in "The Dentist" to Rudy's gridiron heroics in "Rudy Suits Up," season 2 is brimming with happy memories of TV's most functional family. --Donald Liebenson

Aspect Ratio:	4:3 Full Frame
Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Special Features:	Interactive menu
Year:	1985
Release Date:	August 25, 2008
Runtime:	600 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	8255333
Keywords:	English, Show, Comedy, Cosby, General, Series, Complete
Genre:	Comedy