The sexual-assault allegations against Bill Cosby during the past couple of years has made me want to ask this: What if The Cosby Show never came to existence?

If The Cosby Show had never been created, how would this have affected the NBC network? Would NBC still be stuck in 3rd place during the 1984-85 season? Also, how would this have affected the shows influenced by The Cosby Show, or those that have seen a ratings boost because of The Cosby Show (like Family Ties and Cheers)? Would certain shows that debuted later (like The Golden Girls) have either had shorter runs or never been created at all?

We would have gotten that 7th season of Gimme A Break! in the fall of 1987 . Season 7 was to star Nell Carter as Sam's housemother in college. This was revealed a few years ago by Lara Jill Miller. It would have been awful, and the show would have ended in 1988 for sure.

Instead we got the spinoff A Diff'rent World.


We probably would have gotten other shows that came and went after The Cosby Show, or maybe more spinoffs. Maybe a Diff'rent Strokes or Facts Of Life spinoff that would have been bought and aired in the mid 1980s. NBC seemed to try get spinoffs from all their shows that were long running in the mid 1980s. Not sure if Amen and 227 had spinoff attempts, but Gimme A Break!, Facts Of Life, Diff'rent Strokes, Cosby Show, Cheers, all had them. Just Gimme A Break! never had a successful spinoff episode made into a series.

In the universe where The Cosby Show didn't exist, NBC should have considering putting The Facts of Life on Thursdays at 8:00. Just imagine TFoL being paired with Family Ties in that 8 pm hour; Would a scheduling option like that have worked so NBC Thursdays would still be as dominant during the mid-to-late-1980s (with a possible ranking in the Nielsen Top-20 for TFoL)?