Last night, I was watching the episode where Theo teaches at an after school center for at-risk youth (Theo and the Kids: Part 1). Now, I've seen that episode many, many times but this is the first time I noticed that this was supposed to be his spinoff series. Lynne Thigpen played the Principal/Director of the youth center, they went into detail about the problems of 3 of his students, and they had Lisa Arrindell Anderson from "Livin' Large" as the teacher next door and looked to be the possible love interest for Theo. More than likely it was gonna be called "Theo & The Kids" or just "Theo" and for some reason they never went through with it.

oh man, i just baaarely remember this, but i remember that episode had "spin-off" written all over it.

That spin off did happen, it used Arrested Delevopment's " Tennessee " as the theme song, but as happens often it was canned after just a few episodes.

UncleGrandpa said:

yep, i remember that.

how many spin offs did the cosby show have?

I know 'a different world' was on but I dont think anyone else. to me i like that show after Lisa bonet left. it was boring as hell during the first season.

ladygirl99 said:

wasnt there one called "grand" too?

UncleGrandpa said:

You know what!? You are exactly fuckin' right! I remember it now! And maybe that's why I was so sure that that episode was supposed to be that because I faintly recalled that show. And wasn't it in fact called "Theo"?

StoneCrib said:

IIRC, it was called "theo" or something like that. i remember seeing that show...

Handclapsfingasnapz said:

Yeah, I do now as well. It may have had 5 episodes...I'm going to Google it right now...

Ah! Got it! It was called "Here and Now" and he was a teacher at the Student Center, and he wasn't even Theo Huxtable he was Alexander (A.J) James, how weak is THAT? Did the owners of The Cosby Show not give him permission to use his Theo name? That's fucked up. No wonder it only had 14 episodes.

Interesting enough, there was one episode where Mos Def, Lauryn Hill and Omar Epps appeared called "Lovers And Other Dangers"...that's a nice ass cast.

Here are the links with all the info. Interesting shit.

http://imdb.com/title/tt0599923/
http://www.tv.com/here-an...mmary.html

StoneCrib said:

ohhh yeah, that was the name of it! even though it wasn't on for too long i still remember it because of the theme song. that, and it was on NBC.

Handclapsfingasnapz said:

I'm still trying to figure out why he didn't use Theo or not allowed to use it, because "Here and Now" is a shitty ass name for a sitcome, especially when you have name recognition as "Theo."

ladygirl99 said:

I didn't like it as much after she left. Whitley was bad as a main character and it didn't make any sense that Dwayne loved her. Also, I liked Marisa Tomei.

StoneCrib said:

it wasnt a spin-off of The Cosby Show...totally different creative tream/people behind it (with the exception of one writer) per imdb.

ladygirl99 said:

hell yes it was boring with her boring ass on there....

kidelrich said:

really? i always felt like dwayne, whitley, ron, kim, freddy, jalisa, walter, and kim made that show. it was hella funny after denise and marisa tomei left.

sosgemini said:

Yeah, but it was...ya know? I mean, they used the whole "Teacher at a Student Center" as his occupation. It was a spinoff, just not under the "spinoff" rules.

missfee said:

Was Kim your favorite character or something?

I watched the show during its entire run, but I liked it better before the two hottest girls left. I'm a guy, sue me.

StoneCrib said:

i give up...

sosgemini said:

Whaaaah? Come on, it's the same premise just a different name so it's just like a spinoff.

StoneCrib said:

but a spin-off comes from the same creative entities....The Cosby Show was produced by Carsey-Warner (who also produced Roseanne)...They had nothing to do with this show. I'm assuming that they did the spin-off episode in hopes that NBC would be interested, NBC passed and someone else offer MJW a show that was similiar (and probably cheaper to produce without Carsey-Warner's involvement) and NBC decided to go with it...

ahhh...i must really be bored to get all deep over "Theo"...

sosgemini said:

Yeah, but that's just it, Malcolm continued it so it IS a spinoff, he just used different producers and writers and changed his name but it's the same character.

StoneCrib said:

sosgemini said:

kidelrich said:

naw she wasn't, didn't realize i had written her name twice....actually whitley and ron were my favorite characters....

I dont even remembered the show and I was a teenager at the time.
If it came on Thursdays, I was probably watching Martin and ROC on FOX to be worry about what NBC had.
I was also mad that A Different World got preemptied alot during their final year.

kidelrich said:

Why is that? They made a good couple imho. I love it when Dwayne burst in the alter and interrupted Whitney's weddding to another guy and I forgot his name!
I guess you the minority here because it seems like the ratings improved after MIZ Debbie Allen made some drastic changes to the show.

ladygirl99 said:

ROC... now there was an awesome show. dutton is such an incredible actor. i wonder if those are on dvd

martin just annoys me, cause i love tisha c but hate the shit out of him

cborgman said:

You can catch roc on late at night on the TV One channel if your local station has it