Over the course of the show’s eight year run, this moment was not always taken as a given; the son, Theo Huxtable, was for years presented as a chronic underachiever, more interested in the typical trappings of teenage boyhood—friends,

Malcolm-Jamal Warner played “The Cosby Show’s” Theo Huxtable with a charismatic mix of bravado, innocence and hysteria.

To truly comprehend how essential a big brother Theodore Huxtable was to Black Gen X boys, we must remember what prime time offered before the arrival of Bill Cosby's only son from the heralded sitcom,