Random thought of the day

I had a thought today while thinking about actors and such:

Why was it called "The Cosby Show"?

I mean, I know why it was called that, but when you think about it that was an incredibly generic name. And it also breaks with part of the convention of naming shows after their leads, in that Bill Cosby's character didn't share his real life name in any sense.

On Seinfeld, Jerry Seinfeld literally played himself (can you "play" yourself?).

On shows like Rosanne, Bob Newhart and Mary Tyler Moore, the protagonist carries over at least his or her first name.

But on "The Cosby Show" his character was Cliff Huxtable. That's a far cry from "Bill Cosby". A far, far cry.

In researching this crappy little post I learned that this isn't the only time this has happened. Apparently on "The Dick Van Dyke" show, Van Dyke played a character called Rob Petrie.

Maybe that's the lesson: if you're gonna name the show after yourself you better be a hell of a TV legend if you wanna pull it off.