Cosby, Poussaint recalls, was determined to keep stereotyping and put-down humor out of the show.

It was precisely because of the sitcom format, Poussaint says, that the show did not directly confront issues of race and class.

“Imagine if one of the children comes back from school crying because someone used a racial expletive against her,” he explains. “It just wouldn’t work to try to make that into a funny situation, it would trivialize the problem.”

Cosby was very sensitive, however, to the way race was portrayed in the show. Bringing in a psychiatrist to consult on storylines was something new in the television industry—doctors were sometimes invited to consult on children’s educational programs, or in series involving mental illness, but rarely on network comedies.

Largely, Poussaint’s job was to consider the impact of stories on black children.

For instance, Poussaint recalls a time he objected to a scene that showed the youngest Huxtable daughter, Rudy, crying as her mother combed her hair. The image, Poussaint said, fed into hurtful stereotypes in the black community of good and bad hair.

The writer of the scene replied that white children also sometimes cry when their hair is brushed. Still, Poussaint said, the image was inevitably loaded with negative associations about kinky hair. The scene was eventually removed.

As resident expert on family behavior, Poussaint’s responsibility was often to keep scenes realistic.

He recalls vetoing one scene that called for Cliff Huxtable to start laughing upon coming home to find that Theo, the Huxtable son, had broken the living room coffee table. Poussaint notes that most parents would find such a situation annoying, not funny.

Like many psychiatrists who study the impact of the media on child development, Poussaint is worried by the daily influx of racial stereotypes, sex and violence children see each day on television.

“The Cosby Show,” he says, always showed an awareness of the positive potential of educational television.

“What made the show great was the feeling of a team, the feeling of almost a family that we had. There was a great spirit of flexibility and spontaneity that carried the show, that came especially from Cosby. It was a landmark that has not been equalled.”

And Poussaint says in no ways was Cliff Huxtable modelled after himself. He says the show tried to write him in to a story, but he declined.

“I prefer to not blur the roles,” he says.

—Staff writer Lindsey E. McCormack can be reached at lmccorm@fas.harvard.edu.