Bill Cosby's New NBC Show Is No Longer In Development

[kpete]

Source: Huffington Post

NBC has confirmed to HuffPost Entertainment that a planned sitcom project with Bill Cosby is no longer in development. The network had no further comment on the matter. A representative for Cosby was not immediately available for comment.

NBC's move comes in the wake of sexual assault allegations that have been levied against the 77-year-old comedian during the last month. Earlier on Wednesday, Netflix also postponed the release of Cosby's new stand-up special, "Bill Cosby 77."

Plans for Cosby's potential new NBC series were first announced in January of this year. As Deadline.com reported at the time, the show's focus would be Cosby, who was set to star as "the patriarch of a multi-generational family."

In July at the Television Critics Association press tour, NBC entertainment president Jennifer Salke elaborated on the show's planned plot: "Bill plays the patriarch of the family, dispensing his classic wisdom on relationships and parenthood, with three daughters, husbands, and grandchildren." In August, it was confirmed that Cosby and NBC had a deal for a show in place, and that the finished product would likely air in the summer or fall of 2015. Despite the deal, sources told HuffPost Entertainment that NBC never gave an official go-ahead to the series and that the network was waiting on script delivery. The show was created by Mike Sikowitz and Mike O'Malley.

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/19/bill-cosby-nbc-show_n_6186498.html

[pnwmom]

1. With more than a dozen women making similar accusations, including women who are not

suing him and have nothing to gain, I think he has fallen greatly in most people's eyes.

The old video that was recently released -- his "comedy" routine from the 60's about drugging and raping women -- didn't do much to help his case.

So this decision of NBC's seems inevitable. There are too many questions for him to fit the role of a positive family patriarch.

What a shame.

[Elmer S. E. Dump]

2. He really had a routine about drugging and raping women?

I sure missed that one!

[pnwmom]

3. It's true. Someone recorded it in 1969 -- he jokes about putting Spanish Fly

into a woman's drink.

Hardy har har.

http://time.com/3591974/bill-cosby-spanish-fly-joke-drugging-women/

SNIP

In Bowman’s account and the accounts of several other women, Cosby allegedly slipped incapacitating drugs into the women’s drinks. They would pass out and wake up with Cosby assaulting them. As it turns out, years before he was doling out folksy wisdom on The Cosby Show, Cosby used that exact kind of scenario as joke fodder.

In a clip recently unearthed by the Village Voice, Cosby unsettlingly laughs about slipping the aphrodisiac “Spanish Fly” into women’s drinks as if dosing women was a sort-of universal boys-will-be-boys lark. In the clip, Cosby even says he went to Spain with his costar from the television show I Spy — for which Cosby was the first African-American costar in a primetime series — in hopes of picking up some Spanish Fly while there.

It’s True! It’s True! was recorded live at Harrah’s in Lake Tahoe and is one of the few Cosby records that isn’t family-friendly. Aside from the now-chilling Spanish Fly routine, the comedian drops a few curse words, and discusses burlesque shows and gambling.

SNIP

[Odin2005]

11. Holy shit!

[Quackers]

22. Hell, I didn't know that!

Thanks for posting!

[pnwmom]

23. You're welcome. I doubt that it was a coincidence that they decided to drop his new show

the day after this came to light.

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

30. Hannibal Buress joked about date rape

So should he now be assumed to be a date rapist?

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/11/19/bill-cosby-foe-hannibal-buress-joked-about-date-rape.html

What about all the comedians who make jokes about killing people? Should Louis CK be considered a potential murderer now?

Regardless of one's belief on Cosby (I think he did it), going back and trying to infer guilt or innocence from a comedian's routine is a bit of a stretch.

[pnwmom]

32. Buress wasn't accused by women of drugging and raping them.

Whereas women who have nothing to gain -- who aren't planning to sue Cosby, but just want the truth to get out -- are accusing him.

So his stories about drugging women so he could have sex with them have a context that Burress's jokes do not.

[merrily]

28. In the Sixties, I bet a lot of people missed it, even if they heard it.

It was perfectly fine to laugh at such things then--or so people thought.

[hlthe2b]

4. Sad .....

Not sure there is anything else to say..

[Exultant Democracy]

5. Tried and found guilty in the court of public opinion.

The show probably wasn't going to be that good anyway, and hopefully he deserves this.

I'm not going to say anything supportive of Cosby because I have no clue what when down in those hotel rooms after two people went back to them to do a lot of drugs.

I will say this Julian Assange got far fairer treatment on DU when he was facing multiple accusations of rape, all under very similar same circumstances.

[pnwmom]

6. I think he damned himself with this old "comedy" routine.

I think the court of public opinion got it right this time. And I'm glad that in 2014 -- as opposed to 1969 -- drugging and raping women is no longer considered funny.

http://time.com/3591974/bill-cosby-spanish-fly-joke-drugging-women/

SNIP

In Bowman’s account and the accounts of several other women, Cosby allegedly slipped incapacitating drugs into the women’s drinks. They would pass out and wake up with Cosby assaulting them. As it turns out, years before he was doling out folksy wisdom on The Cosby Show, Cosby used that exact kind of scenario as joke fodder.

In a clip recently unearthed by the Village Voice, Cosby unsettlingly laughs about slipping the aphrodisiac “Spanish Fly” into women’s drinks as if dosing women was a sort-of universal boys-will-be-boys lark. In the clip, Cosby even says he went to Spain with his costar from the television show I Spy — for which Cosby was the first African-American costar in a primetime series — in hopes of picking up some Spanish Fly while there.

It’s True! It’s True! was recorded live at Harrah’s in Lake Tahoe and is one of the few Cosby records that isn’t family-friendly. Aside from the now-chilling Spanish Fly routine, the comedian drops a few curse words, and discusses burlesque shows and gambling.

SNIP

[Exultant Democracy]

7. You know that Spanish Fly doesn't incapacitate anyone right?

Not that it means he isn't guilty, but Spanish fly is like oysters, not GHB.

[pnwmom]

8. He's joking about slipping a highly toxic substance into unknowing women's drinks

so that they will have sex with him.

Close enough.

Spanish Fly is more like arsenic than oysters.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_fly

The ease of toxic overdose makes this highly dangerous, so the sale of such products as Spanish fly has been made illegal in most countries. . . .

In powder, mixed with food, cantharides could go unnoticed and has thus been employed as a poison: Aqua toffana, or aquetta di Napoli, was one of the poisons associated with the Medicis. Thought to be a mixture of arsenic and cantharides, this was reportedly created by an Italian countess, Toffana.Four to six drops of this poison in water or wine was enough to deliver death in a few hours. Symptoms of cantharidin poisoning including burning of the mouth, dysphagia, nausea, hematemesis, gross hematuria, and dysuria.

[Ash_F]

13. He said it is something every boy dreams of obtaining

"Spanish Fly was the thing that all boys from age 11 on up to death — We will still be searching for Spanish Fly."

-Bill Cosby to Larry King


A joke?

There is usually some truth in jest.

[Monk06]

18. Wittgenstein said, "If a thing can be thought, it can be said." Cosby thought and said it.

I personally never dreamed of Spanish Fly. I took it to be an urban legend even as a 14 year old in 1966.

Even at that age I didn't dream of raping a woman using drugs to make it easier to get away with it nor did I dream of committing any other crime just for the thrill of it.

I always thought the Huxtable character was unconvincing. Too perfect and like Jim Anderson, the patriarch of Father Knows Best, the heroic figure of a male world where dad is always right and if not you do what you are told anyway.

I found it to be one of the most reactionary sitcoms since the Eisenhower years. The fact that Cosby openly embraced this character as an ideal is telling.

[Ash_F]

19. There was always something off about Cosby, to me

I could never pinpoint exactly what it was. I guess I know now.

[nomorenomore08]

15. Slipping an aphrodisiac to an unknowing person is still somewhere on the scale of rapey-ness.

Albeit perhaps not as high as using an actual "roofie."

[pnwmom]

24. An "actual roofie" is not as toxic as this stuff, which can kill with a few drops.

It's clearly a rape, inducing a woman to have sex by secretly plying her with a drug.

[nomorenomore08]

26. I admit I don't know much about "Spanish Fly" (nor do I wish to).

I didn't realize it was such a highly toxic substance. But not very funny either way.

[pnwmom]

29. I didn't realize it either. But apparently there's a long history of its use.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_fly

The ease of toxic overdose makes this highly dangerous, so the sale of such products as Spanish fly has been made illegal in most countries. . . .

In powder, mixed with food, cantharides could go unnoticed and has thus been employed as a poison: Aqua toffana, or aquetta di Napoli, was one of the poisons associated with the Medicis. Thought to be a mixture of arsenic and cantharides, this was reportedly created by an Italian countess, Toffana.Four to six drops of this poison in water or wine was enough to deliver death in a few hours. Symptoms of cantharidin poisoning including burning of the mouth, dysphagia, nausea, hematemesis, gross hematuria, and dysuria.

[Supersedeas]

33. Wow...oysters?

[Hulk]

9. Not surprising....

I've always had a dull feeling for Bill Cosby, just like Bob Hope in my book. Funny, yeah, maybe. But a "saintly figure" that does shows for the boys (and girls) in war zones wasn't all what it was cracked up to be. Yeah...brought lots of cheers and distraction to some pretty miserable lives....of course again, those were the miserable lives in the back that could afford to be available for his shows, and not those of us who were pounding the bush and heard about it as though it was a million miles away. I watched Bob Hope shove some kid aside that wanted his autograph one time, and that was a turn-off for me from that day on. I realize "stars" probably get sick of people approaching them, but what a lousy way to deal with a young lad who looked up to him. Besides, Hope got a lot in return for his visiting the troops abroad. TONS of free publicity at the very least.

But back to Cosby, I had neutral feelings toward him up until I saw him appear on fox-nonsense, enabling the idea that the break down of the "black family" is responsible for the crime and misery in the black community today. It's probably a true fact, but fox pushes it as the SOLE reason why the blacks are mis-trusted, pulled over by the law (for no reason), being incarcerated at significantly higher rates than whites, etc. I just think appearing on fox lowered his respect for truth and his own race, that is struggling to get recognition for equality today. Lost faith in "mr funny". And now this???

I think there's a lot to old "mr. funny" that we aren't aware of. The deal with his son being killed alongside the highway turn-off? Was that just a random murder? Not the "god" the reich wing wants to idolize. Funny, yeah....but lots of unknowns.

[nomorenomore08]

16. "I just think appearing on fox lowered his respect for truth and his own race."

Well said.

[Ash_F]

20. I his son was killed in a racist hate crime, if I am not mistaken. /nt

[Hulk]

31. Could've been...

I thought it was some random murder alongside the freeway, or at an off ramp. But that was decades ago. In any case, I'm not a huge Cosby fan, and less so since he appeared on fox-nonsense, supporting their "blacks are lazy, bad parents, and it's all their fault they are discriminated against by the criminal system, the economic system, etc, etc."

[PatrynXX]

10. NBC? Nazi BC what

Guilty till proven innocent smh yeah great. yeah NBC has the right to pull something like this but it's extremely bad American PR for them..

[pnwmom]

14. There will never be a trial so the public is free to form its own opinion. And it's pretty hard

for most reasonable people to ignore the "comedy" recording that came out yesterday about giving Spanish Fly to unsuspecting women. It casts a different light on the claims of all the women who've accused him of drugging and raping them.

http://time.com/3591974/bill-cosby-spanish-fly-joke-drugging-women/

SNIP

In Bowman’s account and the accounts of several other women, Cosby allegedly slipped incapacitating drugs into the women’s drinks. They would pass out and wake up with Cosby assaulting them. As it turns out, years before he was doling out folksy wisdom on The Cosby Show, Cosby used that exact kind of scenario as joke fodder.

In a clip recently unearthed by the Village Voice, Cosby unsettlingly laughs about slipping the aphrodisiac “Spanish Fly” into women’s drinks as if dosing women was a sort-of universal boys-will-be-boys lark. In the clip, Cosby even says he went to Spain with his costar from the television show I Spy — for which Cosby was the first African-American costar in a primetime series — in hopes of picking up some Spanish Fly while there.

It’s True! It’s True! was recorded live at Harrah’s in Lake Tahoe and is one of the few Cosby records that isn’t family-friendly. Aside from the now-chilling Spanish Fly routine, the comedian drops a few curse words, and discusses burlesque shows and gambling.

[Old Nick]

12. I'm sure he must be devastated,

as he buys another Lamborgini Diablo with cash.

[KMOD]

17. I adored Bill Cosby as a child

Early to mid 70s, I loved Fat Albert. I loved his stand-up. And as a young adult, I would watch The Cosby Show on occasion, and enjoyed it as well. I

It's getting very hard to look past all the allegations, at this point. I feel numb. My heart goes out to the many women he (yes, it's alleged still at this point, but it's way beyond the point of dismissing it) hurt. And I'm sickened that someone I admired (he reminded me so much of a favorite uncle of mine) could be so horrible.

[davidpdx]

21. Plus TV Land is pulling The Cosby Show off their lineup

The actors/actresses usually receive royalties for their work when it goes into syndication. That means all of the cast would no longer get royalties from the show airing on TV Land.

[pnwmom]

25. They are more of his victims then. n/t

[davidpdx]

27. Agreed

It is too bad they get punished for his behavior.