Bill Cosby wanted 'Cosby Show' to 'take the house back' from the kids

NEW YORK, June 17 (UPI) -- U.S. comedian, educator and author Bill Cosby says it was important to him the lead characters on "The Cosby Show" were good parents.

The classic sitcom Cosby created and starred in was about a doctor and his lawyer wife raising their five children in New York. It ran from 1984-92.

"I based the series on two important things: No. 1 ... I hated those series where the children were brighter than the parents, and those parents had to play dumb," Cosby told ABC News. "No. 2 was that I wanted to 'take the house back.'"

Cosby said if you want to entertain children "at the expense of parenting, at the expense of keeping children out of harm's way to get these laughs, to make these parents look stupid, to make kids look like they are ultra-bright but still lost, then we have a problem."

"[We] parents make it difficult," he told ABC, "because we want to be well-liked. And I'm not saying that ... you shouldn't want to be well-liked, but you also have to have some kind of judgment."