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Mr. Cosby wanted to do a show not about an upper-middle-class black family, but an upper-middle-class family that happened to be black. Though it sounds like semantics, they're very different approaches.

'Cosby' opened up so many people's vision to something that they had never seen before or really contemplated before and exposed them to things that were going on that were completely below their radar.

'The Cosby Show' - no one thought there's doctors and lawyers who are married and live in brownstones! Back then no one would have thought we would have an African-American president. They would have laughed in your face.

When 'The Cosby Show' came out, and everyone was up in arms about 'The Cosby Show' and that it was reflecting a world that didn't exist - but I knew black doctors. And I knew black lawyers. And I knew families that, you know, had a mother and a father and kids that were well-behaved.

I think Mr. Cosby has always been very much an activist and a big proponent of African-American pride. That's how 'The Cosby Show' came about. I think in his older years, he has gotten a lot more direct and vocal about it. But I think he only wants the best for all of us.

'The Cosby Show' changed America's opinion on so many different topics and opened so many people's eyes, and so you really learned immediately the power of what you were doing, that there was a power in portraying a role, and you were made aware of the effect that it could have on people, so it does raise the bar.

When I think of black television and history, I always use 'The Cosby Show' as the bar.

The Cosby years were a major part of my life, but it is the past; I don't really concentrate on it.