when did sandra appear on the cosby show
List of The Cosby Show characters Sondra Tibideaux (née Huxtable), the eldest daughter of Cliff and Clair, did not appear on screen until mid-way through season one. She did not exist in the pilot episode (Clair: "Why do we have four children?" Cliff: "Because we did not want five.") In her first appearance, she is a sophomore in college, and Cliff notes her to be 20 years old (episode 10), making her birth year 1964. She earned a degree from Princeton University and had intentions of pursuing a career as a lawyer, like her mother. She married her boyfriend, Elvin Tibideaux, in season four, and later gave birth to twins—a boy and a girl—named after Nelson and Winnie Mandela. More serious, earnest and responsible than the other children, Sondra fits many of the characteristics of the first born from a large family. Though she had her moments of bizarre thinking (e.g. dropping out of law school to open up a wilderness store with Elvin), she'd usually snap out of them relatively quickly. Because of her intelligence level and overachieving nature, she is looked upon by her parents proudly, but also is held to a higher standard than the rest of the children. Sondra appeared sporadically in early seasons of the series due to the character being off at college at the time.
A Different World After the first season, it came to Cosby's and the producers' attention that the series was not accurately portraying a historically black college and life on campus, so Debbie Allen, an alumna of Howard University, was hired as the chief creative force to revamp the show. During the summer of 1988, Lisa Bonet announced that she and husband Lenny Kravitz were having a baby. Allen was in favor of having a young pregnant student in the show, but Cosby said that Lisa Bonet may be pregnant but not Denise Huxtable.[8] It was felt that viewers would not accept Denise as an unwed mother, having grown to know her as a "good girl" after four seasons of The Cosby Show. Thus it was decided that Denise would drop out of Hillman, return home to her family, and eventually travel to Africa throughout the fifth season of The Cosby Show, ensuring that viewers would not see a pregnant Denise. Allen was also in favor of keeping Tomei, as she herself recalls a white student at Howard and wanted to relate that in the show and even had possible premises for her character, such as meeting Dwayne's parents and seeing the other side of racism.[8] However, Tomei left the show, and she and Marie-Alise Recasner were replaced by Cree Summer and Charnele Brown, respectively. Darryl M. Bell and Sinbad were promoted to the principal cast, and Glynn Turman and Lou Myers were added as supporting cast members. These changes led to the placement of Whitley and Dwayne at the center of a wider ensemble, dealing with more relevant issues of the day.