The Cosby Show Premieres, Reshaping Television Representation

The Cosby Show premieres on NBC, featuring Bill Cosby as Cliff Huxtable, an OB-GYN with a lawyer wife and five children in a Brooklyn brownstone. The show becomes the top-rated program on American television for five consecutive seasons. It fundamentally changes television's portrayal of Black families but also fuels debates about whether its middle-class image obscures structural racism.