Friday, May 23, 2008

Further Back in Cosby's History, We Find Macbeth

“Theo and Cockroach.” By Thad Mumford. Perf. Bill Cosby, Phylicia Rashad, Malcolm-Jamal Warner, and Carl Anthony Payne, II. Dir. Jay Sandrich. The Cosby Show. Season 2, episode 12. NBC. 30 January 1986. DVD. Urban Works, 2007.
Before they had to read Julius Caesar, they had to read Macbeth.

Although not nearly as entertaining (or as Shakespeare-centered . . . and the two things may go hand in hand), the episode has its moments.

It’s the first appearance of Cockroach, for instance.

Also, it comes down pretty hard on substituting the text with the version by Cliffs Notes.

And their confusion over the LP version of the play is pretty convincing.

And . . . that’s about it!

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Bardfilm is normally written as one word, though it can also be found under a search for "Bard Film Blog." Bardfilm is a Shakespeare blog (admittedly, one of many Shakespeare blogs), and it is dedicated to commentary on films (Shakespeare movies, The Shakespeare Movie, Shakespeare on television, Shakespeare at the cinema), plays, and other matter related to Shakespeare (allusions to Shakespeare in pop culture, quotes from Shakespeare in popular culture, quotations that come from Shakespeare, et cetera).

Unless otherwise indicated, quotations from Shakespeare's works are from the following edition:
Shakespeare, William. The Riverside Shakespeare. 2nd ed. Gen. ed. G. Blakemore Evans. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997.
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