But with an all-black cast, Nineties US teen sitcom Sister, Sister felt like it was doing something a little different.
While shows like Sister, Sister and The Fresh Prince were picked up by both network and cable stations like the BBC and Nickelodeon, Channel 4 also championed Desmond’s (1989-1994), a sitcom about a black British Guyanese family set in a Peckham barbers and, in 1995, commissioned spin-off Porkpie.
Executives had discovered a gap in the market when it came to black audiences and so suddenly network television became very black, very quickly.
Sister, Sister in particular took on issues like black history, natural hair, and even the importance of unions, yet I still found its messages comprehensible at only six or seven years old.