Bill Cosby was the reigning king of sitcoms and Roseanne Barr the up-and-comer when together they dominated the small screen in the late 1980s with their hit family shows.
Just look at them now.
“The Cosby Show” and “Roseanne” were neck and neck in ratings for the 1988-89 TV season, The Wrap reported.
“The Cosby Show” was the highest-rated series that year with a 25.6 rating, while “Roseanne” was a close second at 23.8, according to Nielson.
And a TV Guide cover from September 1989 featured both of them, proclaiming, “Roseanne’s plans to bump Cosby as America’s No. 1 series.”
Comparatively speaking, “The Big Bang Theory” and “NCIS” were the top two highest-rated shows for the 2016-17 season — with 11.5 and 11.4 ratings, respectively.
Ratings for this past season will be available next month.
Barr, 65, has been hammered by critics since comparing former Obama aide Valerie Jarrett, who is black, to an ape in a since-deleted tweet — which prompted ABC executives to cancel her top-rated reboot of “Roseanne.”
Cosby, 80, meanwhile, faces up to 30 years behind bars following his conviction last month for sexually assaulting a Temple University staffer in 2004.
He reigned as “America’s Dad” with his role as Dr. Cliff Huxtable on “The Cosby Show,” which ran eight seasons from 1984 to 1992.
Barr became a household name with her brash titular character, the matriarch of the blue-collar Conner family in the 1988-97 series. The “Roseanne” revival debuted to smash ratings in March and was picked up for a second season before it was nixed.