Back to Rockville: On Bill Cosby

“My wife and I have five children and the reason why we have five children is because we do not want six.” — Bill Cosby

I was 7 when my father brought home a copy of Bill Cosby’s third comedy album, “Why Is There Air?”

My parents, two Irish Catholics raised in New England, already had brought seven of their eight children into the world, and they found a lot to relate to in Cosby’s observations about children, families and marriage.

It was 1965, the year Cosby made TV history playing the role of Scotty in “I Spy” and becoming the first black American to co-star in a dramatic television series.

As it would be for his entire career, Cosby’s comedy was suitable for anyone old enough to understand its humor, whether it was about child rearing, religion or a trip to the dentist. It was devoid of profanity and crudeness. Even his routines that included sexual material and bathroom humor were clean.

His stories and routines were also free of matters concerning race. By 1965, black comics such as Dick Gregory (also a civil rights activist) were focusing almost solely on race in their routines.

Cosby, though, chose to illustrate how all families share the same joys, sorrows and frustrations.

In Ronald L. Smith’s “Cosby: The Life of a Comedy Legend,” he says, “We both see things the same way. That means we are alike, right? So I figure this way I’m doing as much for good race relations as the next guy.”

Nearly five decades after “I Spy,” Cosby is still a star. Friday night, he will perform at the Midland theater. The show was sold out months ago. People of all races still want to know what’s on the mind of the guy who, for years, was one of America’s eminent father figures.

•••

“My father established our relationship when I was 7 years old. He looked at me and said, ‘You know, I brought you in this world, and I can take you out. And it don’t make no difference to me; I’ll make another one look just like you.’ ”

“The Cosby Show” was his third television series and by far his most successful.

By the time it premiered in 1984, he had long established himself as a TV star and an advocate for children. He regularly appeared in the PBS program “The Electric Company,” had developed his own Saturday morning parable “Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids,” which would be the topic of his doctoral dissertation, and starred, often next to cute and funny children, as the spokesman for Jell-O pudding.

But his role as Cliff Huxtable launched Cosby into another orbit of superstardom.

In The New Yorker, James Wolcott called “The Cosby Show” a sitcom that “was not only a ratings monster but a model of civil discourse and traditional values at a time of gangsta rap and trash talk.”

Like his comedy material, the show avoided explicit racial themes. The Huxtables, Wolcott said, were “an upwardly mobile black family that was intact, supportive, drug-free, college-educated, and cocooned in a colorful array of comfy sweaters — living proof that the American dream included African-Americans as long as they were willing to work hard, play fair, and not provoke (white America).”

It would become the second show in TV history to remain No. 1 in the Nielsen ratings for five consecutive seasons.

The first, ironically, was “All in the Family,” which addressed racial stereotypes and bigotry head-on.

In a New York Times review in May 1985, John J. O’Connor lauded the “Cosby Show’s” ability to succeed in spite of what was going on in American culture at the time — remember, Eddie Murphy was becoming a more profane version of Richard Pryor.

“At a time when blacks were once again being considered ratings liabilities by benighted television executives, the middle-class Huxtables have become the most popular family in the United States,” O’Connor wrote.

“The Cosby Show” was a fictional portrayal of Cosby himself, the same sharp and funny observer we were laughing at 20 years earlier: a father who doesn’t necessarily know best but who developed a charming and humorous way of learning from his mistakes.

•••

“ ‘And ‘tired’ always followed ‘sick.’ Worst beating I ever got in my life, my mother said, ‘I am just sick –’ and I said, ‘and tired.’ I don’t remember anything after that.”

Cosby’s two most famous shows are bound by irony and coincidence:

“I Spy” was born the year of the Watts riots; the final episode of “The Cosby Show” aired April 30, 1992, the second day of the Rodney King riots in LA. By then the show had dropped to No. 18 in the Nielsen charts.

In Time magazine, essayist Lance Morrow mourned the juxtaposition: “Now Dr. Huxtable is gone. What are Americans to do for fathers? Cosby-Huxtable was a heartbreaking American illusion. There is no deeper need among the nation’s most deeply needy blacks than perfect fathers, Dr. Huxtables, role models for male children, grown men who will do the first, indispensable thing for children: make them safe and happy. Then teach them how to grow up, how to be intelligent and responsible and how to raise children of their own.”

Years later, Cosby’s own family life would suffer the worst.

On Jan. 16, 1997, his son, Ennis, 28, was murdered.

In a completely separate matter, two days later, Autumn Jackson was charged and later convicted of trying to extort $40 million from Cosby. Jackson alleged she was his illegitimate daughter, conceived during a brief affair with her mother, an affair Cosby admitted to.

In The New York Times several days later, Frank Rich wrote of the seismic blow dealt to the Cosby myth: “Sad as the actual event of Ennis Cosby’s murder was, it paled next to a crowd-pleasing parable delivering the implicit message that, yes, tragedy can strike even the most perfect father and the most perfect son in the most perfect family in the whole country.

“(However) the moral taught by this new drama is the flip side … and equally pleasing: The rich and famous are as sinful as we are and cannot escape punishment for their transgressions.”

In 1996, Cosby tried to resurrect his prime-time success. “Cosby” was a sitcom based on the British sitcom “One Foot in the Grave.” Cosby starred as the grumpy, unemployed 60-year-old Hilton Lucas, who annoys his wife, Phylicia Rashad, his wife in “The Cosby Show.”

The show aired for four seasons, but never cracked the Top 20.

It was a mismatch from the start: Cosby indulging in a family-man character that wasn’t really himself. In the ensuing years, he would become that guy again.

•••

“We need to talk to our youth and our young men and young women and explain why they need to value their own lives.”

In 2003, Cosby received a Bob Hope Humanitarian Award. In 2009, he received the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.

In “Comedian,” a documentary about Jerry Seinfeld post-“Seinfeld,” comedian Chris Rock talks to Seinfeld about Cosby, a scene recalled in a New Yorker review of the film:

“Chris Rock tells (Seinfeld) that Bill Cosby has the greatest set of all: two hours and 25 minutes, performed without a break, sometimes twice a day. Seinfeld finds the idea flabbergasting, and, in his amazement, he reveals his talent for ingenuous, infectious admiration — the kind he used to show on ‘Seinfeld’ for Superman or the perfect T-shirt.”

Like his friend and contemporary, the late George Carlin, Cosby has evolved into a more political and critical commentator. His harsh criticism of hip-hop and poor black Americans has earned Cosby some fervent detractors.

In his book “Is Bill Cosby Right? (or Has the Middle Class Lost Its Mind),” writer Michael Eric Dyson recalls being asked by Paula Zahn if Cosby was a race traitor.

Dyson: “I don’t consider Cosby a traitor, and I said so to Zahn. In fact, I defended his right to speak his mind in full public view. I also said that while Cosby is right to emphasize personal behavior (a lesson, by the way, that many wealthy people should bone up on), we must never lose sight of the big social forces that make it difficult for poor parents to do their best jobs and for poor children to prosper.”

In 2009, Russell Simmons, founder of the hip-hop label Def Jam, wrote a letter to Cosby, criticizing his anti-hip-hop rants, saying they unfairly associate rap and young people with violence. America’s favorite dad, he said, had lost touch with its youth.

Last month, Simmons was rebuffed when he tried to make good. Simmons told a reporter for AOL Black Voices: “I wanted to find him to apologize, to tell him I was sorry about my statements and to tell him that I loved him,” Simmons said. “Suddenly, I turned and he was behind the curtain and I said, ‘I love you,’ and he responded on some real hip-hop, ‘Get the (bleep) out my face!’ … His next move was straight-up old-school pre-b-boy hood. He walked by me and bumped me with his shoulder as I walked offstage.”

Like most people of his generation, Cosby may be off point in his assessment of not only hip-hop but contemporary music in general. His views may be skewed, but they spring from what it is people love most about the man: his deep, resolute and paternal concern for the welfare of children.

His tweets and Facebook page are filled with evidence of his concerns:

“Parents deserve more choices. I hope parents across the country will learn more about National School Choice Week. … I’ve seen the people at 4 o’clock in the morning waiting, hoping that they win a seat for their child in a better school. This is not fair.”

Friday night, the Midland will be filled with people who have drawn from his parables and observations, lessons about life.

Some of us who were children when we started listening to him are parents and spouses now and have extracted the most of his wisdom and humor.

Discovering along the way that he is as imperfect as we are only makes him seem more human and worth listening to, at least one more time.

| Timothy Finn, The Star

Comments

A wonderful piece of writing Mr. Finn. Thank you.

Posted by: The Birddog | March 31, 2011 at 03:49 PM

agree with birddog, tim. good article. review next?

Posted by: fiddler | April 02, 2011 at 06:08 AM

Thanks for this piece. Having grown up and grown middle-aged along side Cosby's career, I'd say your comments and observations are spot on.

Posted by: Hankster | April 02, 2011 at 07:53 AM

"spot on??" If you're not British, DO NOT use this term, Hankster. Makes you appear pretentious, but mostly just ridiculous. Also, although I liked Cosby's records in my younger days, seeing the last couple of times he was on Letterman was just insufferable. He went from a wonderful storyteller to a babbling old fool. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but you don't take THAT out in public.

Posted by: Luvs the Jello Puddin' | April 02, 2011 at 10:57 AM

You are NOT spot on demanding other to not use the term spot on, no one cares what you think is an ok term to use, ok dorkuagoofball?

Not to mention it is insufferable to read you use the word insufferable, it makes you seem pretentious. You have have been warned many many times to stop trying to dictate what people post on this board.

Let others post what they want to without trying to censor them.
Get it? Got it? Good.

ps
imagine some this fkn retard bashing on Bill Cosby AND telling people what to say or not say, fkn doucher.

Posted by: GGG | April 02, 2011 at 01:06 PM

Using terms like "fkn" makes ya look weak, ya puss. As for "warning" anyone about anything, who the hell are you to warn anyone about anything? Freedom of Speech, baby.....look it up, jagoff. I'll say write what I want, when I want.....and you are pretty sad, if you use terms like "spot on" in this country. It's not my opinion, it's just a fact. Oh, and as for "no one cares what you think is an ok term to use," well, apparently YOU do, ya hypocritical little bitch.

Posted by: Who is YOU? | April 02, 2011 at 09:37 PM