More importantly, its depiction of a stable, upper-middle class black family became, for a time, the number one TV programme and normalised white America's views of the African-American experience beyond the older, racist stereotypes that associated blacks with drugs and violence.
Arguably the acceptance of Cosby as Dr Huxtable into American homes, along with Oprah and her own narrative of rags to riches through hard work, paved the way for the unthinkable to become acceptable - an African-American and his family in the White House.
To Cosby came riches, then honours. In 2002, he was granted the Presidential Medal of Freedom by George W Bush. In the interval since his sitcom ended in 1992, Cosby became an activist, giving speeches in which he seemed to lay the full responsibility for the plight of poor African-Americans on their own misconduct.
A trope had emerged in the 1980s that tied the dysfunction evident in poor black families with high rates of teenage pregnancies, single-parent families with associated risks of anti-social behaviour, especially in boys. One respectable origin of this view was the widely misunderstood and misused study of black families undertaken by white sociologist Daniel Patrick Moynihan, later US senator from New York.
Cosby took up the cudgel to publicly berate black men for their alleged irresponsible sexual politics, hectoring them repeatedly for the violence and sexual predation prominent in rap lyrics. He spoke in criticism of African-Americans who put higher priorities on sports, fashion, and "acting hard" than on education, self-respect, and self-improvement. He told young black men to pull up their low-riding pants and their zippers.
It's in this context that we must view the allegations that have now come from over 40 women. The women claim that in the past three decades Cosby used drugs to intoxicate, sedate and rape them.
As the story unravels with more factual bases emerging from formerly sealed depositions, there comes an increasingly inescapable sense of schadenfreude. It feels justified at least, to think that prescribing for the morality of other people carries with it a larger degree of responsibility for one's own conduct, not a lesser.
But in view of his accomplishments the comedown is a true tragedy.
That is not the case in New Zealand in the situation that most immediately resembles the Cosby matter - a fall from grace of a man who preached morality to others.
Instead, there is a special frisson of pleasure at the dissolution of the Conservative Party in response to some yet-unidentified inappropriate behaviour of its candidate leader. When someone refers to New Zealand women as sluts, it is imperative that he, himself, be like Caesar's wife - above suspicion.
Put that together with Colin Craig's other outrageous positions - his claim John Key was "too gay", his jet contrail fantasies - and what we have, instead, is the makings of low farce.
I can still recall when Colin Craig was seriously under consideration as a possible coalition partner of National. That, too, was farce.
And when it comes to farce, no such melodrama is complete without the Prime Minister and his fascination with "tantalising" ponytails.
-Jay Kuten is an American-trained forensic psychiatrist who emigrated to New Zealand for the fly fishing. He spent 40 years comforting the afflicted and intends to spend the rest afflicting the comfortable.
