The Cosby Show
57 Varieties
TV Flash files “57 Varieties” as the last listed hour of season 5 — The Cosby Show (1984–1992) on NBC, season 5, episode 26, aired 1989-05-11, 30 min.
From the desk
How this hour is filed
This leaf is S05E26: listed hour 124 of 201 in the The Cosby Show guide, last listed hour of season 5. It aired 1989-05-11 (30 min). The listed hour before it is “Day of the Locusts” (S05E25). Next is “Denise: The Saga Continues” (S06E01).
Catalog log
Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.
Theo asks his parents to give him fifteen hundred dollars for an educational summer trip to Egypt. The Huxtables are not sure about giving him the money so he invites his teacher to the house to talk to his parents.
Viewer FAQ
Where does 57 Varieties sit in the The Cosby Show guide?
S05E26 is listed hour 124 of 201 — last listed hour of season 5, season 5 episode 26.
When did The Cosby Show S05E26 air?
57 Varieties aired 1989-05-11 and is listed at 30 minutes.
Should I watch The Cosby Show as comfort TV?
Watch it as craft and as history, not as a clean hug. The Huxtable household is peak 1980s multi-cam — and the star's later disgrace is public record that reframes every rerun.
In the series
Why this series still plays
For the craft of 1980s multi-cam family comedy at absolute peak dominance — ensemble timing, kid arcs, and a household that felt like a national hearth. Watch as television history, knowing the star's later disgrace is part of the public record.
Thursday was not a mood. It was a **timeslot that owned the chart**. NBC's The Cosby Show (1984–1992) made obstetrician Cliff and lawyer Clair Huxtable the appointment that yanked the sitcom out of a post-rural-purge slump and stacked Must See TV like inventory with a laugh track. Carsey-Werner multi-cam at commercial peak: 201 episodes, eight seasons, Nielsen topping through multiple mid-to-late-1980s seasons. Rex will toast the living room as civic hearth. The business was a Brooklyn brownstone treated as civic…
Filed against
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Phylicia Rashad made Clair Huxtable the household’s steel on The Cosby Show — 1980s multi-cam family comedy at peak dominance, ensemble timing, kid arcs, a living room that felt like a national hearth. Watch as television history, knowing…
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- Lisa Bonet as Denise Huxtable
Lisa Bonet made Denise Huxtable the coolest weather in The Cosby Show’s 1980s household — Brooklyn brownstone multi-cam at peak dominance, a daughter who dressed like an art-school dare inside a national hearth. Ensemble timing, then a…
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Keshia Knight Pulliam's Rudy Huxtable was The Cosby Show's kid weather at 1980s multi-cam peak — ensemble timing, a household that felt like a national hearth, craft you watch now as television history with the star's later disgrace on…