Ghost Dad

(We start off with a new version of the opening for the show involving clips from the previous year of episodes before dissolving into the Nostalgia Critic's office)

Nostalgia Critic: Hello, I'm the Nostalgia Critic. I remember it so you don't have to, and I'm a ghost. Yeah, I'm a ghost. Strangest thing. I died last week watching Ghost Dad.

(Cut to the living room as NC douses himself in gasoline while Bill Cosby sounds play in the background. NC lights a lighter and then blows up)

NC: You would've done the same. But, if there's anything this movie has taught me, it's that death is no reason to stop working. Just keep going on with your everyday life and comedic possibilities will fall in your lap!

(We cut to Malcolm Ray dressed as Gandalf the Grey doing jumping jacks)

Malcolm: Sarsparilla good that of more any got more friend hey.

NC: Hey Malcolm, while I'm doing my review, can you do that outside?

Malcolm: Why am I doing this again?

NC: I told you, it's the only way to continue seeing and hearing me as a ghost.

Malcolm: But why? There's no rhyme or reason to it.

NC: I don't know! It just is! Now go back to doing jumping jacks dressed as Gandalf the Grey while reciting the dialogue to Big Lebowski backwards. (And he puts another quarter in the Big Lebowski jar. Malcolm goes back to doing jumping jacks and reciting the previous sentence over. Tamara Chambers comes in dressed as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz wearing a sombrero)

Tamara: And why do I have to be dressed as Sexy Dorothy while wearing a sombrero? (NC sighs and puts his head in his hand) Why is there even a Sexy Dorothy costume? Who the fuck is turned on by Sexy Dorothy?

NC: I didn't make up the nonsensical rules of the afterlife. I just know that if you two stop doing that, I'll disappear, the review will be over, and both of you will be out of a job. Got it?

Tamara: This is a bunch of bullshit.

NC: A-bu-bu, in your Dorothy voice.

Tamara: Golly gee, Mr. Critic, this sure is a lot of bullshit.

NC: It's but a small price to pay to be in the world of the living. Now away with you. The dead grieve in your presence.

Tamara: I thought I'd like him better dead.

(She and Malcolm leave with him still doing jumping jacks)

NC: Dorothy voice.

Tamara: (off-screen) I thought I'd like him better dead!

NC: Yes, there's a lot of crazy rules about the afterlife that apparently we didn't know about, but that was sort of a thing in movies for awhile.

(A poster of Vampire Academy is shown, followed by the Walking Dead)

NC (voice-over): The same way vampires and zombies has kind of been popular in media recently, (posters for Ghost, Beetlejuice and Ghost Writer.) ghosts were really popular in the late 80s and early 90s. (logo of Ghostbusters) Presumably starting with the popularity of Ghostbusters. (picture of Peter, Ray and Egon) After that blockbuster, suddenly every movie had a spook, spectre or ghost in it, (Posters of Haunted Honeymoon and High Spirits) all connecting with either a quirky afterlife, a bizarre haunting, (picture of Whoopi Goldberg in Ghost) or just about anything with comedic possibilities. (Poster of 3 Ninjas) Well another thing the late 80s and early 90s liked to do was combine stuff. (On the poster of 3 Ninjas, it zooms in on a quote from Boston Globe saying "Crosses Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles with Home Alone." Now followed by a picture of Freddy vs. Jason) Yeah, because we clearly don't do that nowadays, of course. (cast picture of The Cosby Show as it zooms in on Bill Cosby) Enter Bill Cosby, who at the time had the number one TV spot with The Cosby Show for years. He was clean, he was friendly, he was a good role model, and he made everyone laugh. (Poster of Leonard Part 6) That is, on television. (We get posters of other Cosby movies like Hickey & Boggs, A Piece Of the Action, The Devil & Max Devlin, Uptown Saturday Night, Man and Boy, Mother, Juggs & Speed, I Spy Returns, ending with Let's Do It Again) His movie career continued to tank with bomb after bomb as Hollywood seemed to be hinting that unless Cosby can pull off a successful film with the next one, they were gonna yank him as a star of the big screen and keep him as the main star of the little screen for the rest of his life. What followed was a movie career dangling on the edge knocked over by a spitball of deafening silence where there should have been laughter.

NC: This is that spitball.

(Clips of the movie play)

NC (vo): Directed by Sidney Poitier. (Picture of Sidney Poitier in In the Heat of the Night) Yes, that Sidney Poitier.

Virgil Tibbs: They call me Mr. Tibbs.

NC: They'll be calling you much worse after they see this film.

NC (vo): Ghost Dad is a fascinating experiment to see if (pictures of Poitier and Cosby appear on the corners with Director and Actor under their pictures respectively) two successful people re-entering two unsuccessful fields can somehow produce a successful...not this. The answer, of course, is too painful to sit through, too painful to talk about, and too tempting not to have me be in pain over.

NC: So, let's take a look at the final nail in the coffin that really did make Cosby's movie career a ghost, this is Ghost Dad.