Goldilocks…and the end of THE COSBY MYSTERIES

An episode of THE COSBY MYSTERIES that I co-wrote w/ William Rabkin & Terence Winter (who would later go on to win an Emmy on THE SOPRANOS and an Oscar nomination for THE WOLF OF WALL STREET) is up on YouTube. It’s called “Goldilocks” and I haven’t seen it in 30 years… but I will never forget it.

Cosby called two days before we wrapped the episode and asked us to add ninja assassins to the finale…”with those flying stars and everything.” We thought he was joking. He wasn’t. When we told him there was nothing remotely related to ninjas in the episodes, he said “there is now.” So we wrote the damn ninjas into the episode. But when he got the pages, he said it was obviously not our best work, and he wasn’t going to show up to shoot the finale.

So… the bad guys basically out themselves for the crime and then “Cosby” just shows up to arrest them. We used Cosby’s stunt double and footage from another episode to cobble together the incoherent ending. 

NBC took one look at the rough cut and said, you know, this is insane, let’s end our misery. We couldn’t agree more. They cancelled the show and we were paid off for the remaining four or five unproduced episodes. 

I haven’t been able to bring myself to look at this turd since then. Let me know how awful it is.

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