Why We'll Never Forget Malcolm-Jamal Warner In That Hideous Designer Knock Off Shirt

Everyone knows the name 'Gordon Gartrelle.'

Malcolm-Jamal Warner’s death this week hit Generation X particularly hard. We have strong memories of watching The Cosby Show every Thursday night from 1984 to 1992. We watched with our families, as well, not by ourselves on separate screens. Americans don’t watch TV this way anymore, and that’s also something to mourn.

The Cosby Show, at its peak, averaged 30 million viewers a week. Its popularity didn’t exclude it from Emmy consideration, either. Nowadays, there is a distinct schism between the most popular sitcoms (e.g. Ghosts on CBS) and the Emmy winners (e.g. Hacks on HBO Max).

So, when the news broke that Warner had died Sunday at 54, there was a feeling of shared loss. No matter your cultural background, if you were alive in the 1980s, you knew Theo Huxtable. Soon, social media was filled with images of his misbegotten shirt. (Watch below.)

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Bill Cosby told Larry King in 1989 that The Cosby Show succeeded because the parents always “won.” He resented other sitcoms of the period that depicted harried parents who Cosby thought were constantly outdone by their kids. The Cosby Show’s first episode delivers a pointed twist on that dynamic. Theo is in trouble because he got a “D” on his report card. After he gives a rousing speech about why his parents should accept him even if he’s just an “average” guy, Cosby’s Cliff Huxtable immediately cuts him down to size: “Theo... that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my life! No wonder you get Ds in everything! You’re afraid to try because you're afraid your brain is going to explode and it's going to ooze out of your ears. Now I'm telling you, you are going to try as hard as you can. And you’re going to do it because I said so. I am your father. I brought you into this world, and I’ll take you out!”

This scene ages poorly, and not just because Bill Cosby is a repulsive rapist who should fry in hell. Although, Cosby’s off-screen behavior makes Cliff’s overt threat of physical violence against his son stand out even more.

Cosby oversimplified parenthood. Cliff Huxtable was a doctor who somehow worked normal hours. His wife was a law firm partner. They had five kids and lived in a spotless house, but we never saw a maid or a cook. The Huxtables were described as “upper middle class,” but their four-bedroom brownstone in Brooklyn Heights would’ve cost about $700,000 in 1984 (a little more than $2 million in 2025 dollars, which would get you a two-bedroom condo today). The Huxtables were probably the most overtly wealthy sitcom family on TV at the time, even though the racial wealth gap increased dramatically during the Reagan era.

Those of us who are actual parents in the real world probably have more in common with Clark Griswold — desperately trying to keep a family vacation or the Christmas holiday from falling apart — than we do with the overly smug, self-satisfied Cliff Huxtable. If you’re a parent who thinks you’re always right, you’re guaranteed a terrible relationship with your kids, who don’t exist to serve as your comedic props.

Cliff once cast his family as performers in an overly complex stage production to show Theo how tough the “real world” actually was, yet Cliff himself was a father in an idealized fantasy world.

Bill Cosby consistently set Theo up as the patsy for his simplified life lessons, yet in the “real world,” Malcolm-Jamal Warner is the one whose legacy we can actually celebrate. The son was superior to the father, at least off-screen.

Warner told The Associated Press in 2015 that he feared in “a few generations the Huxtables will have been just a fairy tale.” The show itself was a horror story for the women Cosby abused during its run. J.K. Rowling doesn’t make it easy to enjoy Harry Potter, but at least she didn’t actually play the lead character. You can watch the movies without looking at her bigoted face. It’s impossible to separate The Cosby Show from Bill Cosby. Even these Theo-centric clips are still tainted with his presence. (Cosby’s ego didn’t exactly let characters shine on their own.)

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Warner died the same month as actor Julian McMahon, who played Christian Troy on Nip/Tuck and Doctor Doom in the 2005 and 2007 Fantastic Four movies. They were both in their 50s, like me, and their deaths have proven stark reminders of mid-life mortality. Warner died suddenly: He reportedly drowned while swimming at a beach on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica near Limón. He was happy and healthy when disaster struck.

McMahon had privately fought cancer in his head and neck, which metastasized in his lungs. He was clearly frail in his final public appearances, even struggling to speak during one interview. Life can vanish, both slowly and suddenly.

Bill Cosby is still alive at 88. No one said life was fair. However, the tributes for both Warner and McMahon were effusive and unreserved. Cosby could live until he’s 100, and it won’t make people forget what he truly is — a monster who hid inside the fairy tale image of “America’s Dad.” Cliff Huxtable died long ago, but Theo Huxtable will live in our hearts forever.