mara brock akil: the success of cosby resurrected the sitcom and because of that ushered in a lot of great storytelling. jacqueline coley: when the cosby show went off the air, we did have other black family sit-coms to fill that void, and one of them was the fresh prince, which was another version of aspirational black family wealth. will: i didn t know there were so many brothers living in this neighbourhood. we doing alright, huh? jacqueline coley: but fox was one of the first networks that really took risk with black sitcoms that had minority people that were very much part of the writing and the creation of it. aramide tinubu: i think it s vital that people of color write their own stories, because that s where the authenticity comes from. [baby crying] gina: he s probably tired. martin: well he should be, kept us up all night gina. we should be the ones crying! jacqueline coley: we saw black family sitcoms like martin, like the bernie mac show, those sitcoms showed,
mara brock akil: the success of cosby resurrected the sitcom and because of that ushered in a lot of great storytelling. jacqueline coley: when the cosby show went off the air, we did have other black family sit-coms to fill that void, and one of them was the fresh prince, which was another version of aspirational black family wealth. will: i didn t know there were so many brothers living in this neighbourhood. we doing alright, huh? jacqueline coley: but fox was one of the first networks that really took risk with black sitcoms that had minority people that were very much part of the writing and the creation of it. aramide tinubu: i think it s vital that people of color write their own stories, because that s where the authenticity comes from. [baby crying] gina: he s probably tired. martin: well he should be, kept us up all night gina. we should be the ones crying! jacqueline coley: we saw black family sitcoms like martin, like the bernie mac show, those sitcoms showed, parenting to
stories, because that s where the authenticity comes from. he s probably tired. well he should be, kept us up all night gina. we should be the ones crying. we saw black family sitcoms like martin, like the bernie mac show, those sitcoms showed parenting to be difficult. uncle bernie, he s too old to play with dolls. can we play something else? which was not something you saw on a show like the cosby show. chris. get in the bathroom and wipe the pee off the toilet seat. disgusting. fox network had come on and did really well with black sitcoms. and so then the wb and upn, at the time, were coming on. and they started to diversify and then grow that audience. they are able to snatch up this audience, that the other networks were really ignoring up until that point. and so these shows kind of set the stage for the diversity and the family sitcom that can