Malcolm-Jamal Warner is addressing how he feels about The Cosby Show’s impact on the industry more than 30 years after airing.
“What made it so groundbreaking was its universality,” Warner told PEOPLE in its Black History Month issue. “NBC initially saw it as a show about an upper-middle-class Black family. Mr. [Bill] Cosby diligently impressed upon them that the show was about an upper-middle-class family that happened to be Black.”
“Regardless of how some people may feel about the show now,” says Warner, “I’m still proud of the legacy and having been a part of such an iconic show that had such a profound impact on — first and foremost, Black culture — but also American culture.”
“While one of the initial criticisms of the show was that Black people didn’t live like the Huxtables, I was getting thousands of letters on the regular saying, ‘Thank you for this show. Our family is the Huxtables, my dad is a doctor, and my mom is a lawyer,'” Warner recalls. “The show shed light on the previously ignored Black middle class, which has always existed.”
He continues, “And people in Cliff and Claire’s generation were often the first in their families to ever go to college, many of them becoming doctors and lawyers, like Barack and Michelle Obama. There’s even an argument that the show laid the groundwork for having a Black President of the United States.”
From 1984 to 1992, The Cosby Show aired for eight seasons and received six Emmy Awards. Warner and a few of Cosby’s co-stars continue to have great things to say about the show and its history despite the accusations against Cosby.
“I know I can speak for all the cast when I say The Cosby Show is something that we are all still very proud of,” Warner said. “We share a unique experience that keeps us lovingly bonded no matter how much time goes between seeing or hearing from each other.”
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