jim colucci: the cosby show had proven that the family sitcom was a viable genre again. [audience laughter] lynn: i m mr. belevedere! gerrad hall: by the late 80s family sitcoms were very popular among the big three networks. gerrad hall: there was this incredible resurgence. jesse: this is great, we should be mothers. joey: ah yeah! ethan alter: families tuned into these tv shows to see an aspirational version of what family life could be. urkel: did i do that? jennifer keishin armstrong: shows like silver spoons and growing pains and all that. it s constant hugging and learning, right? [audience clapping] ethan alter: with the family sitcom at the height of its popularity, fox started moving into the television arena. cedric: fox was new, building their network. they were one of the last majors to build a network. patrick gomez: they decided they were going to use the family sitcom to do that and compete against the big three. peggy: al, look at our little girl.
popular among the big three networks. gerrad hall: there was this incredible resurgence. jesse: this is great, we should be mothers. joey: ah yeah! ethan alter: families tuned into these tv shows to see an aspirational version of what family life could be. urkel: did i do that? jennifer keishin armstrong: shows like silver spoons and growing pains and all that. it s constant hugging and learning, right? [audience clapping] ethan alter: with the family sitcom at the height of its popularity, fox started moving into the television arena. cedric: fox was new, building their network. they were one of the last majors to build a network. patrick gomez: they decided they were going to use the family sitcom to do that and compete against the big three. peggy: al, look at our little girl. we don t really have to go to a recital, do we? ethan alter: and they wound up going in a completely opposite direction. sort of the anti- in a way, the anti-family sitcom. al: now bud, apologize to your siste
it s absurd that he would die broke. - he died with nothing. you know, eddie murphy paid the funeral costs. - i think it s important that we don t forget about the great people that came before us when signing these huge deals because there were a lot of people who gave their all to the craft and died with nothing financially to show for it. - looking back on everything that you ve done, if you could change anything, what would it be? - write in my underwear. (interviewer laughing) - it s a great time to be a black comedian right now, because when you think about our past and where we ve come from. (audience clapping) the moms mabley, dick, gregory, redd foxx, they weren t getting the opportunities as black artists they re getting today. - give me your hand, rick. feel my heart. - oh, that s quite a beat there. (audience laughing) - but that has never stopped us from existing and thriving and telling our stories. - the best thing that we can do is use our platform to uplift other young
(audience laughing) - flip wilson was really huge. who didn t know geraldine? say, geraldine, is it true that blondes have more fun? - not in my neighborhood. (audience laughing) - and flip played the character so well that you thought geraldine really existed. - when that character came out, baby, the audience just went up. so before there was nutty professor, before there was shanaynay, there was geraldine, baby. - and one of flip s writers was a young richard pryor. and when he found his voice, he became the new king of comedy. (richard laughs) (audience laughing) - woo! (audience clapping)
(audience cheering) people don t know that i wasn t one of the original queens of comedy. they had taken it out a couple times, and then i got the call. we were, and still are, the highest grossing female comedy tour in history. - now you can t talk about black female comedians and not talk about wanda sykes. - being gay is not a choice. it s not a choice. (audience cheering) - wanda gets on stage completely unapologetic. i am a black woman who is a lesbian. - and if you believe that it s a choice, then you re saying that straight people are straight because they chose not to be gay. right? (audience clapping) and i m sure a lot of straight guys in here, you know, i m talking about em. sure there s, on several occasions, you know, you probably think, you know, i think i m gonna suck a (beep) today. (audience laughing) - she s like, this is me, accept it. and we have and we love it. - so to go from a point where moms mabley has to hide who she is to wanda sykes being able to be c