Serious Question: Is The Cosby essentially just Seinfield...

[IsThatBrothaMouzone?]

The Cosby show was essentially the Blue print for all the new family and normal life shows that came after it. The entertainment is not from jokes or outrageous circumstances, but instead the situations that mirrored real life. Along the the lines of you laughed, because the characters and their circumstances would remind you of your own experiences or experiences you heard of. You would empathize with the characters, because of how close to home their interactions, environment, and circumstances were to real life.

So it was not a comedy show, it was a show about family. More along the lines of something like the Walton's for our people. A wholesome show about a Black American family in place of the normal White families they normally had on primetime before then.

100%.

America was ready for Cosby during the Reagan era.

Ironically, the shift happened in the late 80s. That idyllic America everyone THOUGHT they were getting with Ronnie (early/mid 80s) turned into something quite different.

This is where shows like Roseanne come in, addressing the part of white America that saw zero benefit from trickle-down economics.

Cosby Show wasn't designed to tackle serious issues. It was more about the normal day-to-day things families deal with. Not sex, drugs and drug violence, racism etc. I don't think Theo ever had a "the talk" type episode. Different World was the vehicle used to tackle more serious subject matter. One of the reasons I loved early Fresh Prince was that it showed a family with even more $$$$ than the Huxtables, yet they somehow found time to confront serious shyt.