#the-cosby-show

#the-cosby-show

In Living Color was the brainchild of Keenen Ivory Wayans, supported by his brothers and a cast made up almost entirely of people of color. Americans had never seen anything like it before, and they loved it.

"The Comeback," which Kudrow created with Michael Patrick King, the "Sex and the City" impresario, premiered in 2005. The first season found Valerie attempting to revive her career in a lame new sitcom called "Room and Bored," while reality-TV cameras captured her every humiliation. What we see is the raw footage from Valerie's reality show. Kudrow's portrayal was unflinching, an early version of cringe comedy.

In the late '80s and early '90s, a group of five African American men - all famous comedians - created a body of work that shifted popular culture, altered the entertainment industry and impacted generations to come. He cites the works of vaudeville-era comedians Bert Williams and George Walker as early examples of the craft. He adds that pioneering African American playwright William Wells Brown and even famed abolitionist Frederick Douglass used comedy to critique white power structures.

For multiple generations of Americans, Johnny Carson is closely linked with the concept of home. Whether his name conjures fuzzy memories of drifting off to the quiet soundtrack of television static and a parent's laughter, or brings to mind tuning in to hear his take on the news after a long work day, many remember Carson as a nightly ritual.

Kenan Thompson's been acting for most of his life. Cast in both All That and D2: The Mighty Ducks in 1993, when he was just 15, Thompson came of age onscreen. Maybe that's why, when he joined Saturday Night Live, just ten years after he started on Nickelodeon, Thompson felt like a fully formed comedian, sure of his own voice and style and able to deliver in just about any situation. He might have been relatively young, but compared to his fellow cast members, he had more credits and (arguably) more experience.