Bill Cosby is returning to NBC with a new sitcom, a network representative told CNN on Wednesday night. The comedian will play the patriarch of a multigenerational family. The show brings the 76-year-old comedian back to the same network where his groundbreaking 1980s sitcom "The Cosby Show" had an eight-year run.

"The Cosby Show" portrayed an upper-middle-class African-American family, and it's credited with helping revive NBC's fortunes and blazing a path for other shows featuring African-Americans. Cosby played Dr. Heathcliff Huxtable, the patriarch of that TV family. Phylicia Rashad played his wife, Clair. She would play his wife for a second time on the 1990s CBS sitcom, simply called "Cosby."