u/SnooMarzipans5409

Too funny 🤣 That smile is too genuine 

I know this opens a Pandora’s Box, but I think it needs to be said. The Huxtables — including Cliff — are a major part of the A Different World mythos, and they deserve to be addressed properly. Honestly, even more than an “Ellington Kendall” character.

I can’t speak for all Black people, so I’ll give my perspective. I can separate Bill Cosby the man from Cliff Huxtable the character, and I can also separate Bill the activist from Bill the predator. What Cosby did was horrific — but it’s also true that he created The Cosby Show and A Different World with the intention of uplifting Black people. These shows were built to counter the narrow, stereotypical portrayals of us that dominated TV at the time. They showed Black middle‑class families, stable Black love, Black academic excellence, and the full spectrum of who we are. That impact is real, and it helped a lot of Black Boomers, Gen Xers, and early Millennials. Cliff Huxtable is part of that cultural legacy, independent of Cosby’s crimes.

If we’re separating Bill from Cliff — and focusing strictly on Cliff in the context of A Different World — then it makes no sense for a character like Ellington Kendall to never reference his grandfather. Cliff was an important Hillman alumnus. He ate, slept, and breathed Hillman. Even if the writers chose to kill off Cliff off‑screen (the same way The Conners handled Roseanne), Cliff would still matter to the story. His influence wouldn’t disappear just because the actor is no longer someone the public wants to see.

And realistically, in Ellington’s case, you couldn’t convince me he wouldn’t have adored his grandfather. Cliff was the kind of grandparent who poured into his kids and grandkids — Winnie, Nelson, Olivia, all of them. It’s completely believable that Ellington would have grown up with that same warmth, guidance, and reverence. Cliff would’ve shaped his values, his confidence, his sense of humor, his connection to Hillman — all of it. Cliff is not Bill. It’s like confusing Sylvester Stallone with Rocky — they’re not interchangeable.

I get that Cliff wasn’t a huge part of A Different World, but if you move forward with more Huxtable‑connected characters, it would feel ridiculous not to mention him at all. That’s just my take.

🎵 💃🏾

Jasmine Guy, Cree Summer & Chibuikem Uche

Michelle Doris Thomas (September 23, 1968 – December 23, 1998)[1][2] was an American actress. She played Justine Phillips on the NBC sitcom The Cosby Show (1988–1990), Myra Monkhouse on the ABC/CBS sitcom Family Matters (1993–1998), and Callie Rogers on the CBS soap opera The Young and the Restless (1998).[3]

Michelle Doris Thomas was born in Brookline, Massachusetts,[4] on September 23, 1968, to Phynjuar "Penwah" Thomas,[5] a stage actress, and musician father Dennis "Dee Tee" Thomas (1951–2021), a saxophonist and founding member of the band Kool & the Gang.[3] Thomas grew up in Montclair, New Jersey, and graduated from West Essex High School in 1987.[1][6]
As a child, she would accompany her mother to her theater rehearsals and performances.[7] Her mother was her first acting coach, and coached her throughout the course of her career.[3] A friend of her mother who had heard Thomas sing before had requested that she enter Miss Talented Teens.[8]Thomas was crowned Miss Talented Teen New Jersey at the state's Hal Jackson's Talented Teen pageant, and then in July 1984, at the age of 15, she was crowned Miss Talented Teen International in Montego Bay, Jamaica from among 35 state and national representatives.[9][10][11]

Larenz Tate (born September 8, 1975)[1][2] is an American film and television actor. He is best known for his roles as O-Dog in Menace II Society (1993), Anthony Curtis in Dead Presidents (1995), Frankie Lymon in Why Do Fools Fall In Love, and as Councilman Rashad Tate in Power (2017–20) and Power Book II: Ghost (2020–24).

Tate, who is of African American heritage, was born in Chicago, to Peggy and Larry Tate.[3] He is the youngest of three siblings; his two brothers, Larron and Lahmard, are also actors.[4][5] The family moved to California during the early 1980s.[6] Convinced by their parents to enter a drama program at the Inner City Cultural Center, the trio did not take the lessons seriously until classmate Malcolm-Jamal Warner's ascent to fame after being cast on the sitcom The Cosby Show. Subsequently, realizing that they could parlay their efforts into a tangible form of success, the siblings began to receive small roles and in 1985, Tate made his small-screen debut in an episode of The Twilight Zone.[7] Tate attended Palmdale High School, graduating in 1993.[8]