Malcolm-Jamal Warner Was Not the Type ‘Cosby Show’ Producers Wanted to Cast
Bill Cosby had a running joke in his stand-up routine that he wanted to incorporate into his new sitcom, The Cosby Show, according to Remind Magazine. Cosby’s own son was 15 years old and 6-foot-2, which made parental lectures a challenge. In the early versions of the Cosby scripts, Theo would get in trouble and Cliff Huxtable would admonish him: “Theo! Stand up!”
When the kid stood and towered over his TV pop, Cliff would change his tune. “Theo, sit down!”
“So they were looking for that,” Malcolm-Jamal Warner revealed on Live with Kelly and Ryan back in 2023. Warner, who passed away tragically this week from an accidental drowning, knew he wasn’t what the producers had in mind. The actor was only 13 and at his full adult height, he never scraped six feet tall.
Don't Miss
But producers couldn’t find a talented kid whose physique fit the joke. “At the last minute, my agent resubmitted me, and I auditioned,” Warner remembered. “I was literally the last person they saw. I auditioned at 6:30 p.m. on Good Friday, 1984.”
The callback auditions were the following Monday. The network flew out (presumably taller) young actors from New York and Chicago, and Warner’s last-minute audition earned him a spot as well. “I slid in at the last minute,” he said.
Though The Cosby Show had to cut the height joke, the character of Theo would continue to draw from Cosby’s real-life son, Ennis. Like Theo, Ennis was a so-so student who learned that he had dyslexia in his teens. When Cosby’s TV son discovered he had dyslexia as well, it was a “turning point for Theo,” Warner later said. “That whole, ‘regular people getting Ds in school’ — that was Ennis’ real experience.”
The family on The Cosby Show celebrated the diagnosis, a weird turn of events until you understand there was an explanation for Theo’s struggles. “I’m not dumb!” laughed Warner about Theo’s realization. “People still tell me that it’s because of your show that I found out I had dyslexia.”
Ennis was murdered when he was still a young man at 27, and like Cosby's son, Warner is also gone too soon. Bill Cosby spoke to CBS News about his television son’s legacy. “He was always a great studier, and I enjoyed working with him very much,” Cosby said. “He was very professional. He always knew his part. ... He always knew his lines, and he always knew where to go.”
The two stayed in contact until the end of Warner’s life. “Malcolm calls here regularly,” Cosby told ABC News. “I enjoyed working with him very much.”
