The Cosby Show: Goodbye, Mr. Fish

The Cosby Show: Goodbye, Mr. Fish
NBC
September 27, 1984
Sitcom
DVD
C+

This first of three episodes written by Earl Pomerantz is one that I remember best from that season, which is to say vaguely.  Rudy's fish dies so Cliff decides to hold a funeral for it, and, yes, that's the entire plot.  It's an episode focusing on the core cast, but unlike Roseanne (another Carsey-Werner show), this family just isn't that interesting or well-defined.  Cosby has to carry the episode and the series, and his shtick is kind of stale over a third of a century later.  The result is another not too bad but not classic twenty-ish minutes of situation comedy.  (Only, yes, at the time it was a big deal that it was a black family doing such a cliched situation.)