Ken Levine shares some behind the scenes info about working with Bill Cosby

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https://kenlevine.blogspot.com/2020/...questions.html

Antenna TV just aired the BECKER episode 'Drive, They Said', which David and you wrote. The description of the show indicated that 'Becker finds three men (Bill Cosby, Ray Romano and Kevin James) side by side in his waiting room". A couple of questions; were you on the set when it was taped, had you worked on Everybody Loves Raymond prior to this? The scene with Cosby, Romano and James was cut. At first, I just figured it was cut so the station could add commercials. But I read that the scene isn't included in the DVD. Any insight connected with this Becker is appreciated. (Were you responsible for the description of the poetry of baseball. Was the opponent always going to be McGuire and the Cardinals?)

Yes, on the last two questions.

As for the Cosby/Romano/James teaser – this was a promotion that CBS ran one night. All four Thursday night sitcoms at that time took place in New York, so they thought “wouldn’t it be fun to have crossover episodes for all four shows?” Each show would do a teaser featuring all four stars in character. Each show had to figure a reason for the four to get together. And if I’m not mistaken, they filmed the one for Cosby on the West Coast. His show was actually filmed in New York.

I was on the BECKER set the day they shot that teaser. This was before I directed Ray so I didn’t know him at the time.

Here’s what I remember: Ray Romano and Kevin James were lovely. Bill Cosby was a giant a**hole. Fortunately, Cosby came with his showrunner, who was basically his wrangler. We'd still be there if it wasn't for him.

But Cosby questioned everything, balked at everything, and made it a much less pleasant experience for all concerned. It also took several hours to film instead of a few minutes.

To my knowledge, that teaser has never aired beyond that one night. I don’t miss it. I’m sure if I saw it again it would just bring up lousy memories.