Leaving aside Bill Cosby's recent run-ins the with the law, I must say I've never found him the least bit amusing. Maybe it's an American 'thing' mixing slapstick, sentimentality and someone talking like they have a mouth full of toilet paper. Who knows... But for whatever reason, he was the highest actor on American TV for years, and was one of the first true black superstars of the media age. You may wonder why these impressive credentials didn't help him develop a more lucrative movie career... Until you sit through something as terrible as 'Ghost Dad', of course.Dear oh dear, what WERE his agent and him thinking when they flicked through THIS script and decided it would be worth making? Having already starred in a string of flops at the cinema, Cosby NEEDED this, as a last throw of the dice, to be a hit. Needless to say... He came up snake eyes, and he never did have the popularity on the big screen he enjoyed on the far smaller one. Not a great loss, in my view.To start with, his character in the movie is HORRIBLE. He spends all his time at work (to the extent where he reads bedtime stories for his youngest on cassette, forgets all their birthdays and can't even remember each child's name...) so we instantly hate him off the bat. When he DOES join the regions of the undead, the director seems to make up the rules for if he can be seen in daylight, whether he can touch solid objects or not and what kind of powers he has as a spook as he goes along. There is NO consistency here... Aside from the dreadful attempts at comedy and the non-performances from all involved.And just when you think things couldn't get ANY worse... It pulls out the most pathetic deus ex machina of an ending you'll EVER likely see. How the screenwriter scribbled this crap down with a straight face I'll never know. At least he probably laughed more than the poor, poor audience. This is truly a film as dead on arrival as it's protagonist... The difference no-one would try to bring it back from the afterlife. 2/10

I thoroughly enjoyed this film. It was ingenious how they combined the screen writing with the special effects to allow the "live" people" to interact with Bill Cosby (as Elliot Hopper) in his "between" state: They could hear him, but only see him if the lights were turned down low. I found this genuinely interesting, because a low-light situation is one of the best conditions for seeing the human aura. What I liked maybe most about Ghost Dad was the pacing, which was flawless; not a single wasted or empty moment in the movie. Always there was good dialogue. Regardless of what some reviewers have to say, I did not find the movie "corny" at all. It was a perfect combination of sober and hopeful.The ending was beautiful, as Elliot's daughter, Diane (played by Kimberly Russel), has her own near death experience and he has to convince her to go back to her body. The ending is a very happy one, but I will not spoil it for you.Note: Historically, I have been very critical of movies that force us to suspend our disbelief through plots that just don't work (particularly with "invisible" people). Ghost Dad is very believable, and Cosby (and the movie) never lose focus or waste time on goofy gags or cheap dialogue. Very well done, indeed.

If you are looking for a pretty good family movie then watch Ghost Dad. Ghost Dad stars Bill Cosby. You probably will remember him from The Cosby Show. This movie came out in 1990 so it even has the tagline "America's Favorite Dad in a Spirited Comedy." You really think Bill Cosby is going to make people want to see this movie? Remember in 1986 he started in Lenoard Part 6 which currently only gets an IMDb rating of 2.2. That movie is in the bottom #100 of movies.Ghost dad is about this widowed father who is raising 3 kids. He ends up in taxi cab with a crazy driver and eventually ends up dying. Instead of really dying now is he floating around and ends up in lab of a scientist who studies the paranormal. He asks the scientist to send him back so he can finish this business deal and make sure his kids are well taken care of.Parts of this movie are really funny. Things like Bill Cosby's head popping out of a telephone receiver. I wasn't sure if this movie could be good. It seemed like a stupid idea. There were some small problems with this movie. There were some things that didn't seem believable. In the beginning of the movie the father could have died on a runaway elevator. Is that suppose to add something to the movie? They had to make the neighbor kid this rich snob who talks about all these great worldly possessions he has. Yeah, let's only show people who are well off in this movie.

I don't care what anyone else has said this is a great movie. I have seen this movie several times and Bill Cosby is funny, A single dad trying to raise 3 children until he has his accident and becomes a ghost. The adventures that Cosby goes through in this movie while he is a ghost are interesting. It is a great film for children of all ages. So, see this movie if you haven't already and I think you will be very surprised at the adventures of Cosby and the other Characters in this film.