If the shirt that Malcolm-Jamal Warner wears at the end of The Cosby Show episode “A Shirt Story” isn’t the single worst garment in television history, its competitors are few and far between. It’s meant to be a perfect replica of a shirt by (fictional) hot new designer Gordon Gartrell, which Warner’s Theo Huxtable intends to wear on a date with his new girlfriend Michelle. When Theo’s dad Cliff refuses to pay $95 for the genuine article, Theo’s older sister Denise (Lisa Bonet) offers to make a knockoff for only $30, assuring her brother she can get it done.
Instead, it’s a patchwork catastrophe. Every aspect of it is mismatched. On one side, the collar is huge and the sleeve is short. On the other, the collar is tiny but the sleeve is way too long. The breast pocket is just to the left of Theo’s navel. A horrified Theo, aware Michelle will be at the Huxtable brownstone any minute, declares it “the ugliest shirt I’ve ever seen!” He is arguably being too kind.
Whenever we talk about the funniest sitcom scenes of all time, a few inevitably pop up. Lucy and Ethel at the chocolate factory. Reverend Jim taking his driver’s test. Dwight Schrute’s fire drill. Theo’s reaction to the fake Gordon Gartrell shirt should be on there, too — at least as much for Malcolm-Jamal Warner’s performance as for how the show’s costume designer got every single detail perfectly wrong.
Warner was found dead on Sunday, victim of an accidental drowning in the ocean. He was only 54. He worked as an actor from age 12, when he appeared in an episode of detective drama Matt Houston, through the rest of his life; just this past spring, Fox aired his multi-episode stint on the drama Alert: Missing Persons Unit. He appeared in sitcoms, dramas, and the odd movie here and there. He was a reassuring screen presence, someone who made viewers feel like a person who knew what they were doing had just showed up.
But in life and in much-too-soon death, he will always be tied to The Cosby Show and its complicated legacy. On the one hand, it is one of the biggest hits television has ever seen — a pop-culture juggernaut and a milestone for a medium with a long and troubled history of how it presented Black characters. On the other, it was co-created by, starred, and was named after Bill Cosby, who was accused by more than 60 women of drugging and sexually assaulting them (Cosby was convicted of multiple assaults in 2018, but those convictions were later overturned on due-process grounds). Though episodes are still available for digital purchase, and rerun on a couple of cable channels, the series for the most part has been memory-holed — an understandable choice that has the unfortunate effect of also memory-holing the contributions to its success by everyone involved other than Bill Cosby.
That hits Warner’s own legacy especially hard, because Theo turned out to be the best comedic foil for Cliff. The Huxtables were loosely based on Cosby’s own children, and Cosby’s son Ennis (who also died much too young) was the family member mentioned by far the most often in Cosby’s stand-up act. The most famous moment of The Cosby Show pilot has Theo telling Cliff that he doesn’t intend to go to college, and instead just be like “regular people.” Cliff dismantles his son’s argument piece by piece, to uproarious laughter and thunderous applause by the studio audience, and it was obvious from there on that pairing Cliff with his overconfident son would be an endlessly renewable humor resource. So when you revisit most of Warner’s best moments of the series, you have to watch Cosby alongside him.
There’s ample interaction between the two in “A Shirt Story,” starting with Cliff’s dismay at the price of the real Gordon Gartrell shirt, and continuing into his delighted incredulity at seeing the mess Denise has made of things. But the moment everyone remembers is just about the Huxtable kids. Theo has put so much faith into Denise, because he loves her, and also because he’s young and naive enough to believe that if Denise states confidently that she can do something, she can. The mortification at seeing the mismatched fruits of her labor is even funnier because it all came from a sincere place.
Mostly, though, it’s Warner doing an epic meltdown over the thing. When Denise suggests the shirt might look better if Theo tucked it in more, he screams — through gritted teeth, no less — “It’s tucked into my socks!” It’s an incredible line delivery, and the kind of thing that should be beyond the gifts of a 14-year-old, even one being directed by a future Television Hall of Fame inductee like Jay Sandrich. Yet Warner nails it.
The episode actually offers a happy ending for poor beleaguered Theo. Cliff admits that he kept the real Gartrell because he knew Denise would fail at her task. Theo rushes to change into it, not realizing that Michelle and their friends are waiting in the living room. His response to being caught by the girl he wanted so badly to impress is another spectacular bit of physical comedy from Warner, but it turns out to be unnecessary: Michelle improbably thinks the knock-off is hot, and is excited to be seen out on the town with the handsome boy wearing it. It’s almost as if the creative team knew just how great Warner would be at the worst moments, and wanted to reward him by giving his alter ego a big win.
When the terrible news came in about Warner’s death, I put the episode on for the first time since before the preponderance of accusations against Cosby became too big to ignore. It wasn’t always easy to get through, because of everything that’s now associated with Cosby. But Malcolm-Jamal Warner was still magic in it. I’m glad I was able to remind myself of that. I hate that this is the reason why.
