Cosby Shakespeare

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Anybody remember The Cosby Show?  While listening to my Macbeth novel on audiobook I was reminded of this scene, where Theo and his friend "Cockroach" decide to skip reading Macbeth, and just get the audio out of the library:



When that fails them (they can't understand a word) and there are no performances in the area to go see, they fall back on the Cliff Notes (ahem, "Cleland Notes") and it becomes a moralizing story about not taking the easy way out on your homework.

Claire, the mom, is just ridiculously annoying as she wanders about the house quoting Macbeth from memory, knowing that the kids won't understand it. It's like they wrote episodes of this sort solely so that the adults come throw some lines in there.  When Theo claims that he managed to squeak by on the test, she then tells him she's going to give him *another* test of her own devising?  Sorry, but I find that awful.

For a better episode don't miss the guest appearance by Christopher Plummer, in their Julius Caesar episode (he does not appear toward the end, and more in the second section):




I'm trying to decide if I did stuff like that in my living room, in front of my kids, whether they would find it awesome, or ridiculously embarrassing.

(* Did Christopher Plummer really say, "I have seen original manuscripts by William Shakespeare"??? )