15 Black Families on Television That Changed the Game

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There’s no other number one. Heathcliff—err, excuse me—Dr. Heathcliff, Claire, Denise, Rudy, Theo, Vanessa, and Sondra form like Voltron. This family, with all of the other members that orbit around and poke their bodies inside the Huxtables’ New York brownstone revolutionized TV in a grand fashion.

The parents were smart as hell—Bill Cosby played a doctor and his wife was a lawyer— and understanding. The kids all had their respective quirks and interests. You had the opportunity to watch them grow and learn from their many, many, mistakes.

This was a revolutionary television show because, although we knew damn well these were black folks, they blurred the lines enough to become America’s family. They had no stereotypical gimmicks pranced about, they just lived and we saw them live. So, this is hands down why The Cosby Show had the most revolutionary, game-changing family in the history of black television. They electric slid their way into the center of all of our hearts, but weren’t wary of being true to their social identities.

Oh, and The Cosby Show was funny. Man, was it funny.

The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air is one of those shows that can surprise you with how funny it still is. Yes, you remember it being funny, but it is as rapid fire on repeat viewings.

Will Smith’s one-liners graced the thin line of harmful fun and rude. So did Geoffrey’s. No, Geoffrey’s were just plain rude. Laughing at Hillary’s aloofness and Carlton’s shotgun blast to the face of preppiness, never gets old.

If it wasn’t for this sitcom, that smartly took a chance on a rapper in a leading role when rap was first starting to make some major, major waves as an eternal American sub-culture, there would be no Will Smith. There might have been a Fresh Prince for a little while longer, but if it weren’t for this sitcom, the man would have maybe gone bankrupt before he eventually became the biggest movie star on the planet.

Raven Baxter is a must on this list because she's everyone's favorite weirdo. She sees into the future, and this is something that every single one of us wishes (or has wished) we could do at one point. Her family was a pretty normal TV family—breadwinner dad, modest mother, the annoying little brother—then you have the psychic teen daughter who makes a stroke-like face when she was a vision. Puberty was clearly a bizarre time for her, too. And her family was there to support her every step of the way.

The Proud Family was an exceptional little cartoon for the kids. Being a cartoon allowed for the characters to do exceptionally weird and humanely impossible things—which makes for a good laugh. The best thing about The Proud Family was that it took the goofiness recognizable in say, a Tyler Perry project, and contorted it into what looks like a dumb Disney show on the surface, but is actually a show with the inherent duty of keeping parents entertained as they watch along, too.

The Jeffersons were on some real “we ain’t even supposed to be here” shit. For 11 seasons, CBS let George, Louise, son Lionel, and Florence the housekeeper be the portrait of upward mobility and the American Dream, all while offering some sharp racial commentary. The reason for such was that the characters come from the mind of Norman Lear who created All In the Family, a sitcom that pulled absolutely no punches.

What The Jeffersons had was attitude in a community and building that was a little different from home. Movin’ on up has never looked so sweet.

Family Matters was just a spin-off of Perfect Strangers, and it ended up doing way better in the long run. We’re all familiar with the canonical “Did I do that?” and Steve Urkel’s feeble attempts to be the love of Laura Winslow’s life. We also remember how he was the ultimate klutz until he turned himself into the alpha male Stefan Urquelle.

The Winslows were a relatable, blue-collar middle-class family living in Chicago. They made the absolute best of it with their lovingness. If only they could keep Urkel away. If only…

Bernie Mac is an “Original King of Comedy.” Sure, and his TV family is just as legendary. The Bernie Mac Show centered around the married but childless couple Bernie and Wanda McCullough opening their doors to Bernie’s nieces and nephew from Chicago. It has a little The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air in it, but it’s a decidedly more raw show. It had to be with the cigar-smoking, gambling comedian Bernie as the star.

Most of the show’s humor relied on Bernie’s niece, Vanessa, and her burgeoning adulthood, nephew Jordan’s odd ways and clashing portrayals of masculinity, and the naïveté and innocence of niece Bryana, better known as “Baby Girl.”

Here’s a curveball. All of the other families on this list are from sitcoms. That’s where the Black family has thrived for many years. The Palmers are here because they eat. A Black president popped up very seldomly before Barack Obama was on TV as the first Black president in real life. The most memorable president of the pre-Black president era is President David Palmer from the political thriller 24.

Palmer was such a solid president that if he were a real president, he’d have done his job better than just about every president excluding Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Washington. Maybe even Clinton. He was very good at his job. There was a bad apple in this bunch, David’s wife Sherry. She was kind of evil. Also, his son Keith went really hard in the paint for his sister Nicole once, doing something that is definitely a felony. But, what is thicker than blood?

The Palmers have that real clout, too. David’s brother, Wayne, was elected president. This makes them a special, brotherly POTUS duo.

Jamie Foxx was once the lead in a sitcom. He used to be an enormously famous standup comedian, which is what led to this gig. Foxx stars as Jamie King, a small-town Texas kid who moves to Los Angeles to pursue his dream to be an entertainer. He moves in with his gregarious aunt and uncle, Helen and Junior King. The three have a wonderful relationship, and Jamie even treats them as parental figures.

This family is great because no matter all of Jamie’s stupid decisions, they remain the owners of a hotel. Maybe that’s because Yelp wasn’t around yet.

In the Wayans-produced sitcom My Wife & Kids, Damon Wayans plays Michael Kyle, the head of the household, while legendary comedic actress Tisha Campbell-Martin plays the family matriarch, Janet. Rounding out the kids are Michael Kyle Jr. (a buffoon), Claire (the typical coming-of-age girl), and Kady (the youngest, cutest and most precocious). The award-winning sitcom dealt with relatable family issues, ranging from teen pregnancies to marital problems, which only added to its other draw: that it was hilariously entertaining.

Okay, The Parkers were loud and obnoxious, and that's exactly what we wanted and needed from Mo'Nique during her golden years as a comic. The family was but a mother-and-daughter duo of Nicole and Kimberly Parker, who gave off the air of being friends first.

The years of Kim Parker chasing her crush, the uptight professor Stanley Oglevee, was a show highlight. Parker would do anything to get her man. Yes, they tie the knot in the end, because the love bug is a real disease.

The Drummonds aren’t a completely Black family. There’s the white father and daughter, Phillip and Kimberly Drummond respectively. Then there are the Black adopted brothers Arnold and Willis Jackson. Diff’rent Strokes was a courageous sitcom. It placed a mixed family in a Park Avenue building in 1978. The star was rightfully Gary Coleman as the punchy little guy Arnold, but the true hero was certainly the nature in which the show tackled an entirely taboo subject.

This is one of the most odd circumstances for a family to end up under one roof. Tia Landry and Tamera Campbell were twins separated at birth. The two and their adoptive parents—a man and a woman—meet each other in a department store. The man, Raymond Campbell, graciously asks the woman, Lisa Landry, to move in because she doesn’t have a job.

The girls are of course polar opposites; Tia is the intelligent girl and Tamera is the ditzy one. It sounds like The Parent Trap with an “urban twist” for an “urban audience,” and that’s exactly what it is. That doesn’t mean Sister, Sister wasn’t a hit in its own right. Go home, Roger! if you think differently.

If you’re familiar with Chris Rock’s standup, the way this family acts and reacts comes as no surprise. What’s wonderful about this show is that it plays like a version of Bill Cosby’s children’s cartoon, Fat Albert. But, Everybody Hates Chris is set in Rock’s childhood in Brooklyn. Rock talks about race because he dealt with that shit every day as a kid. He’s a little rowdy because his parents were. He has so much command on stage because he was the oldest child and had to step into a parental role quite frequently.

Good Times served as a spin-off of a spin-off of a spin-off. The lineage of Good Times traces back to Maude, which traces back to All in the Family. The Evans lived in a now-demolished housing projects. What made this show special is that it dealt with their struggles with empathy and humor.

The family included the hardworking middle-class parents James and Florida, and their children: the spirited and hyper James Jr. (or J.J. as he went by); Thelma was the middle child; and the “militant midget,” Michael.