The Meanest Thing To Say: Little Bill and his friends are playing a game portraying pirates when their teacher, Miss Murray, introduces a new student, Michael, who has moved to New York from Florida. During recess, Little Bill and the others try to include Michael in their basketball game, but Michael is more interested in playing a ""ranking"" game, where people are supposed to say hurtful things to one another. Although the children say they refuse to participate, Michael doesn't listen and starts saying mean things to Little Bill, who stays silent. Michael threatens that he'll just keep saying insults if Little Bill doesn't ""play"" the game tomorrow, so Little Bill attemps to practice making up mean things to say by pretending to be a pirate. April overhears her brother acting out of character and tells their parents; when Big Bill learns of Michael's games, he explains how ""ranking"" used to be a popular game when he was a boy, too, and that he always won his matches by countering his

The Meanest Thing To Say / Lavatory Story

Xavier Pritchett

Gregory Hines

Phylicia Rashād

Ruby Dee

Monique Beasley

Eunice Cho

Kianna Underwood

The Zoo / My Pet Elephant

Guppies / The Magic Quilt

Just A Baby: Brenda's sister, Debra, arrives for a visit with her new baby, Jamal. Little Bill accidentally frightens the baby when he sings too loudly, and Big Bill explains how babies like soft music like lullabies. Aunt Debra gives Bill the job of telling her when Jamal has woken from a nap, but when the baby spits up, Little Bill fears ""he broke the baby."" Bobby teached Little Bill that babies sometimes make messes and shows him how to hold Jamal properly.   The Campout: Little Bill and his friend, Andrew, decide to have a pretend camp out in the back yard. They set up umbrellas to stand for their tent, and go hiking, imagining Bill's neighbor, Mrs. Shapiro, is a bear. Bobby joins in after he finishes raking the leaves and makes up some sleeping bags from old grocery sacks. When Andrew has to go home for supper, Little Bill and Bobby ask Alice the Great if they can continue the camp out by having dinner outside.

Just A Baby / The Campout

The Treasure Hunt: On a rainy day, Little Bill is bored and not sure what to do; Alice the Great suggests he find out what he likes to do best, and while looking for it to consider it a ""treasure hunt."" Little Bill goes around the house asking the other family members what their favorite thing is-- Big Bill loves listening to Jazz music, Brenda enjoys photography, while Bobby and April like to compete in chess. Later that night, while reviewing everything he learned to Alice the Great, she points out that storytelling must be Little Bill's ""thing.""

The Best Way To Play: Little Bill and his friends Andrew, Kiku, and cousin Fuschia are acting out their favorite TV show, Space Explorers, before the show comes on. As they watch the program during lunch, a commercial airs for a ""Space Explorer"" video game. Little Bill asks both Brenda and Big Bill if he can have the game, but they explain that's it's too expensive. Andrew gets the video game for his birthday, but after the kids play it for

The Treasure Hunt / The Best Way To Play

Monty's Roar: Alice the Great invites an old friend over and she brings her grandson, Monty, along to play with Little Bill. Little Bill is a little uneasy about how to act around Monty, who uses a wheelchair. The two boys quickly become fast friends after Monty mentions his love of dinosaurs and they begin to play a dinosaur game, pretending to eat the room and stomp around making squawking noises.

Natural Root Pals: When Brenda takes Little Bill along on her trip  to the hair salon, he becomes bored since he has no one to play with. Several minutes later, his classmate Dorado arrives with his mother, Valencia, and the boys amuse themselves by pretending to go on a ""space walk"" using the hair dryers as helmets. Brenda and Dorado's mother agree to schedule their hair appointments at the same time so the boys can play together.

Monty's Roar / Natural Root Pals

The Dollar: Little Bill finds a dollar on the street, but Alice the Great insists that Bill find out who owns the money before he can keep it. When no one responds to Bill's questioning ""Who lost a dollar?,"" she lets him have it and tells him they can go to his Uncle Al's store after school. At the store, Little Bill wants to buy many toys for his friends, but Uncle Al explains that the things he wants cost more that one dollar. When Uncle Al points out that four quarters make up a dollar, Bill gets an idea; he trades in the dollar for four quarters and buys his friends toys that cost 25 cents from a vending machine.

The Choice: Brenda takes the children to the grocery store and announces that the children can choose what type of cereal she buys, but they can only choose one box. Bobby, April and Little Bill each want a different type of cereal, so they hold contests to see who gets to choose. Little Bill gets the final say and decides to pick a variety box set so everybody can have th

The Dollar / The Choice

Guppies: Little is Bill is pretending to swim in his daily bath when Brenda suggests he start swimming classes with his cousin Fuschia. At the pool, Little Bill is afraid to get in the water because of its size. Brenda and Fuschia carefully ease Bill into the water by getting in slowly and showing him that he'll be safe while they are with him. By the time the Guppies class is about to start, Little Bill is happily playing in the pool.

The Magic Quilt: Little Bill can't sleep one night and asks Alice the Great to help him investigate ""the Thing"" in his closet that is keeping him awake. Alice the Great checks the closet out, and after determining ""the Thing"" must have left because of her, gives Little Bill a special 'magic quilt' with colorful patches that will help him get to sleep. She tells him to think about how the patches remind him of happy times and he won't think about the things that scare him. Little Bill quickly drifts off to sleep, and the next morning, when he mentions how

The Zoo: Miss Murray takes the class to the zoo, and Little Bill is very excited to see his favorite animals, the elephants. He asks Miss Murray if they can see the elephants first, but his teacher points out that they are going to follow the zoo map, and unfortunately, the elephants are the last exhibit. Bill waits patiently, and when they finally get to the elephant cage, the other children want to leave because the elephants are shy about coming out. Bill does his impersionation of an elephant roar and gets the attention of a baby elephant.

My Pet Elephant: After his trip to the zoo, Little Bill decides he wants a pet, and asks Brenda for permission to pick out an animal at the pet store. Brenda relents when the rest of the family, including Big Bill, beg her too. When Little Bill asks if he can have an elephant for his pet, Brenda explains that elephants are too big to live in houses. With some help from Mr. Percy, the pet store owner, Little Bill settles on a hamster and names it

Chicken Pox: Little Bill is recovering from the Chicken Pox and is disappointed that he won't be able to attend a Blue Sox baseball game with the rest of the family. Brenda tries to cheer him up by watching the game on TV, but the cable goes out, so they pretend to play the game themselves. Little Bill perks up after he receives a puzzle in the mail from his cousin Fuschia, and Miss Murray stops by with a get well card from his friends.

Shipwreck Saturday: The Glovers have decided to hold a cookout with family and friends, and Little Bill is excited to float the boat he made with Big Bill, the Moby Dick. Unfortunately, while he is sailing the boat with Kiku, an unobservant rower crashes into the toy boat and smashes it. Kiku suggests they try to fix the boat, and using some of Kiku's grandmother's origami paper, they transform the boat into the Moby Kite and join Bobby in his kite sailing.

Chicken Pox / Shipwreck Saturday

Big Kid / The Bills Go to Work

Little Bill is a television show for children that is presently on Nick Jr. The stories are based on Bill Cosby's Little Bill book series, set in Philadelphia and feature Bill Jr. learning a lesson or moral. It was developed through research and in consultation with a panel of educational consultants.

The show also aired on CBS as part of Nick Jr. on CBS, from September 16, 2000 - September 7, 2002, then as part of Nick on CBS from August 2, 2003 - September 10, 2005. The show returned with the return of Nick Jr. on CBS on September 17, 2005, and seen through September 9, 2006 when the block was replaced with The KOL Secret Slumber Party on CBS. The series went back into production in fall 2006 and a new season of 6 episodes aired on Noggin throughout April and July 2007, ending in the later month. Reruns are played on Nick Jr., on BET, as of January 7, 2008, and on Centric, as of May 1, 2010.

Sonia Manzano, best known for playing Maria Rodriguez on Sesame Street, was a frequent writer for the show.

The Meanest Thing To Say / Lavatory Story

Seasons4

Season 1 Episodes9

Cast7

Discussion

Episode Summary