Slightly off topic, but wanted to interject here. When that Fat Albert movie came out in 2004, Nick at Nite did this documentary/promo with Cosby and the cast. And every time Cosby tried to talk about the original show, something just felt off to me at the time. Like he referred to the characters' clothes being from the 50s, when they're very obviously from the 70s. And then he was also kinda smugly taking credit for things in the movie that frankly weren't that amazing. Anyway, a few years later, I read a lot more about the original show and Filmation, Lou Scheimer and his daughter, the writers, animators, and other voice actors. The point is, there was a lot of talent behind that show, they just didn't have the name recognition Cosby did. So yeah, a show's reputation shouldn't be tarnished because of one figurehead.
The Fat Albert cartoon was more a creation of everyone who worked on it than Bill. I'd say the cartoon has "Smallville Syndrome" where it's supposed to be the past but looked and sounded too much like the present. I remember an interview with Lou from the first DVD saying something like "Yeah, these were based on his childhood friends, but to a certain extent." That's why the Fat Albert movie felt ...
off. Bill never wrote an episode, but tackled the movie.
But at any rate, small off topic thing. What the guy did was monstrous, and he's been joking about that and apparently doing that since he became famous. The fact that at the same time he was very charitable and trying to teach morality to kids makes this quite painful for his former fans. Considering all the good stuff he did, I'd say his fans should be the angriest at him for supporting values with one hand and date raping with the other. It's tough. There's lots of talent in every show he's been in outside of himself. But when you have episodes of sitcoms about how a special barbecue sauce makes women...you know... it's painful.
HOWEVER, I really feel that when someone did one bad or questionable thing once, there's always some overly sensitive soul that won't let them live it down. I don't see how that girl from Who's the Boss and Charmed has to carry a stigma of being in adult entertainment at some point and then becoming a mommy and doing mommy celebrity stuff (hosting preschool programming). I've heard crap about how Mike Tyson, as he assaulted a woman back when he was younger and more involved with a high aggression sport and how he has a cartoon for adults when he's been trying to better himself, and even crap about Lena Dunnham's Simpsons appearance last night because she did something as a stupid kid that stupid kids do.
Heck, anything that's even slightly adult gets crap for being associated with kid's stuff. The voice of Buzz Lightyear was a crack addict that ratted out his crack addict friends. But he made something out of himself and is now the big equal star of one of the biggest animated franchises of all time. It's like there's some disproportionate hypocrisy between what celebrities can and can't do. Yet, most celebs dabble in kid's entertainment, be it voice work for movies and cartoons or little appearances like on Sesame Street.