The Cosby Show is an
American television situation comedy starring
Bill Cosby, first airing on
September 20,
1984 and running for eight seasons on the
NBC television network, until
April 30,
1992. The show focused on the Huxtable family, an upper-middle class African-American family living in
Brooklyn,
New York.
According to
TV Guide, the show "was TV's biggest hit in the 1980s, and almost single-handedly revived the sitcom genre and NBC's ratings fortunes".
Originally, the show had been pitched to
ABC, which rejected it.
stated that
The Cosby Show helped to make possible a larger variety of shows based on African Americans, from
In Living Color to
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
was also one of the first successful sitcoms based on the subject matter of a standup comedian’s act, blazing a trail for other programs such as
Roseanne,
Home Improvement,
The Drew Carey Show,
Seinfeld, and
Everybody Loves Raymond.
The Cosby Show is one of only three American programs that have been #1 in the
Nielsen Ratings for five consecutive seasons, along with
All in the Family and
American Idol. The show spawned the successful spin-off
A Different World.
Having aired for 197 episodes (201 in syndication),
The Cosby Show is the third-longest running U.S. comedy with a predominantly
African-American cast, surpassed only by
The Jeffersons and
Family Matters.
