Photo of the entire cast of The Cosby Show.

The Cosby Show was an American sitcom which first aired in 1984 starring Bill Cosby. The show ran for eight seasons on the NBC television network, until 1992.

The show was centered around the Huxtable family, an upper-middle-class family living in Brooklyn, New York, USA. Patriarch Heathcliff (an obstetrician/gynecologist) and his wife Clair (a lawyer) presided over a raucous yet loving household. In every way, they were an utterly typical American sitcom family, with the notable exception that they were African-American. The topics of the show were the usual difficulties of children growing up, a notable example being son Theo's experiences of dealing with dyslexia, based on Cosby's real-life child Ennis who was dyslexic.

The show was extremely well-regarded, winning three Emmys as well as three NAACP Image Awards and a Peabody Award. It was also notable as being highly popular with white viewers and around the world, unlike many other television shows featuring mainly African-American characters. The show has been praised for its portrayal of positive child rearing methods. For instance, in the first episode, Heathcliff confronts his son about his poor grades and Theo responds that he should accept his son's weaknesses and love him unconditionally, a typical plot idiom in family sitcoms of that time. Heathcliff, to the audience's surprised and amused approval, immediately rejects that line as a stupid cop out.

At the time of the show's original broadcast, some people criticized the show for presenting a unrealistic portrayal of an African-American family as wealthy and for its lack of addressing black-white relations. Others felt that the show was simply a portrayal of what African-Americans could potentially become. They also felt that portraying an African-American family as a normal family with normal family issues was generally a positive contribution to issues of race in the United States.

The success of the show spawned a spin-off series called A Different World, which dealt with the life of Denise, the second-eldest Huxtable daughter, at Hillman, a Fictional Historically Black College.

Ratings

The Cosby Show is one of two television shows, All in the Family being the other, that have been number 1 in the Nielsen Ratings for 5 consecutive TV seasons.

The ratings for each season, at the end of the season, were:

Cast

• Bill Cosby as Dr. Heathcliff "Cliff" Huxtable
• Phylicia Rashad as Clair Huxtable
• Sabrina Le Beauf as Sondra Huxtable-Tibideaux (Seasons 2-8, recurring role during Season 1)
• Lisa Bonet as Denise Huxtable-Kendall (Regular cast member Seasons 1-3, recurring role Seasons 4-5, regular cast member Seasons 6-7)
• Malcolm-Jamal Warner as Theodore "Theo" Huxtable
• Tempestt Bledsoe as Vanessa Huxtable
• Keshia Knight Pulliam as Rudy Huxtable
• Joseph C. Phillips as Lt. Martin Kendall (Seasons 6-7, recurring role afterwards)
• Geoffrey Owens as Elvin Tibideaux (Seasons 4-8, recurring role previously)
• Raven-Symoné as Olivia Kendall (Seasons 6-8)
• Erika Alexander as Pam Tucker (Seasons 7-8)

External links

• http://www.carseywerner.net/cosbyshow_eng.htm