I can still remember the first time I heard the rumours about Bill Cosby. It’s tattooed in my mind because I was a grown man wearing a Fat Albert T-shirt. It was a friend’s 30^th birthday drinks and I walked from my downtown apartment in the mid-summer Auckland heat to a central-city bar. When I arrived I was a fraction high in the perspiration levels and apologised to the friend whose birthday it was who hugged me. The hug + perspiration + apology drew attention to the T-shirt and that’s when I first heard: Cosby was a serial rapist.

It couldn’t be true. Or rather, I didn’t want it to be true. I left that party – a party that took place just pre the age of everyone having smartphones – and went home, swapped out my T-shirt and fired up my laptop. The rumours were all over the internet, but little had been published by official news sources. Cosby was still “America’s Dad” and one of the single most influential figures in the history of American entertainment, popular culture and – without hyperbole – its civil rights.

It wasn’t long before things started to become a lot more public and a lot more official. The accusations were repeated by literally dozens of women who didn’t know each other. Collectively, these victims painted a devastating and disturbing picture: Cosby was a charming, powerful man who used his position to lure vulnerable, often ambitious young women. Drugs, specifically quaaludes would be used as if they were drinks to be handed out to guests. Only time and time again, Cosby’s victims would either not know what they were taking or not even know they’d taken it.

All told over 60 women have come forward and while it’s potentially the tip of the iceberg, today’s sentencing and the words of the judge – describing Cosby as a “sexually violent predator” – should leave no-one in any doubt of his guilt. As to why that sentence is so short – just three years to a possible maximum of 10 – it just goes to show how extremely hard it is to put away extremely rich and powerful men.

Still, with Cosby in his early 80s, there’s every likelihood he will die behind bars. Thoughts right now have to be with his victims; countless women whose lives were fundamentally altered, even destroyed, because of what one of the most beloved men on the planet did to them.

Which brings us to a dilemma: is the art of the serial rapist Bill Cosby still worthy and appropriate for public consumption? Most of the focus of his career retrospectives and fall from grace are on The Cosby Show. From 1984 to 1992, this family sitcom portrayed a black family in a way that had hardly been done before on primetime TV: as wealthy, happy and stable. It can’t be overstated how revolutionary this was.

But don’t let the enormity of The Cosby Show distract from the two main Cosby shows before THE Cosby Show. It can be argued that Fat Albert and I Spy were every bit as important. Fat Albert was a children’s cartoon that ran for a dozen years from 1972. Black children, strong morals and humour. White children were learning not to be afraid of black children and black children were being told that they were capable of anything.

As for I Spy, his 60s TV drama made history by portraying a black lead in an equal footing to a white person. Just the fact it was banned in many southern states shows how powerful it was.

Powerful. That word again. Bill Cosby was powerful and in so many ways, the world is a better place for his use of that power. But for so many women – more than we’ll probably ever know – their world was so much darker because of the evil he wielded.

I’ve never watched an episode of I Spy, Fat Albert or The Cosby Show since that 30^th birthday. And I’ll definitely never wear that T-shirt ever again.

Tim Roxborogh hosts Newstalk ZB’s Weekend Collective and is filling-in for Andrew Dickens this week from 12pm-4pm.