Cosby’s second television appearance, but he was made for the medium. He climbed onto the stool next to me that night and we got to know each other with lots of laughs flowing.
But maybe I should point out that many of those laughs had sprung from an idea that occurred to him while he was backstage in our little greenroom waiting to come out. You see, another guest that night was a master hypnotist named Dr. Michael Dean, whose own popular nightly stage show had been the talk of San Diego. And so Bill—who’s always had a great eye for anything that he could turn to comic gold—saw his chance to have some fun by briefly mentioning that he’d just been trapped for a while in our greenroom with an accomplished hypnotist. But to drive home this point, he came out and repeatedly kept falling asleep during our interview! I’d ask him a question and he’d begin to answer, then suddenly just slump down on his stool and pretend to fall into a trance. It was great fun, with Cosby allegedly passing out throughout the course of our chat. All these years later, however, I do sometimes ask myself: Had the hypnotist really cast a spell on him backstage? Did I bore him to death on the show? Or did he just fake falling asleep that night in order to get all those laughs? Whatever it was—and let’s bet on its having been brilliant ad-libbing—it made for an unforgettable appearance, and was enough to prompt anyone who saw our little talk show that night to remember the name Bill Cosby. Over time, however, that was going to be inevitable anyway.
But here’s something also worth remembering: Those were rather tense and racially divisive years in this country, yet Cosby never touched the subject in his routines. His onstage persona had nothing to do with skin color. His objective was to entertain, to be funny, to make you laugh no matter what your racial heritage. He gently forced his audience to connect only with his warmth, his playful personality, and his indisputable talent. He always wrote his own stuff—personal childhood yarns or great reimaginings of so many things we all took for granted. His wonderfully detailed and hilarious version of the old Noah’s Ark biblical story, for instance, was the centerpiece of a comedy album that became a runaway national sensation. His voice, his inflections, and his nuanced material could make the whole family laugh together—and families did, everywhere. Subsequently, color barriers dissolved a little bit more every time this happened.
And then, of course, Hollywood took special notice. NBC signed him to do a caper show called I Spy, which featured two guys—one black, one white, both equal partners—working together to solve cases. They struck gold with the fun chemistry between the wily Cosby and the dashing actor Robert Culp. I believe it was Bill’s first real acting job and he was terrific. But for the TV business, it had been a bold move—practically unheard-of in those years—this simple pairing of what could be considered impossibly diverse costars on a major prime-time program. I thought Cosby did more for race relations with that show than anyone else could have attempted in any medium. But later on, he made even more important strides in this area.
In 1984 he debuted The Cosby Show, a remarkably popular NBC sitcom focusing on an upper-middle-class African-American family—a successful doctor and wife raising five kids in bustling New York City. The Huxtable family, as they were called, had the same problems as everyone else, trying to instill key values in their kids and find day-to-day happiness in a complicated world. Oddly enough, even in the mid-eighties, this represented groundbreaking television—the depiction of an upscale black family was an altogether new concept for viewers. But week after week, year after year, it ranked as the number one, most-watched show in the Nielsen ratings. Never heavy-handed about matters of race, it provided more insight to
But maybe I should point out that many of those laughs had sprung from an idea that occurred to him while he was backstage in our little greenroom waiting to come out. You see, another guest that night was a master hypnotist named Dr. Michael Dean, whose own popular nightly stage show had been the talk of San Diego. And so Bill—who’s always had a great eye for anything that he could turn to comic gold—saw his chance to have some fun by briefly mentioning that he’d just been trapped for a while in our greenroom with an accomplished hypnotist. But to drive home this point, he came out and repeatedly kept falling asleep during our interview! I’d ask him a question and he’d begin to answer, then suddenly just slump down on his stool and pretend to fall into a trance. It was great fun, with Cosby allegedly passing out throughout the course of our chat. All these years later, however, I do sometimes ask myself: Had the hypnotist really cast a spell on him backstage? Did I bore him to death on the show? Or did he just fake falling asleep that night in order to get all those laughs? Whatever it was—and let’s bet on its having been brilliant ad-libbing—it made for an unforgettable appearance, and was enough to prompt anyone who saw our little talk show that night to remember the name Bill Cosby. Over time, however, that was going to be inevitable anyway.
But here’s something also worth remembering: Those were rather tense and racially divisive years in this country, yet Cosby never touched the subject in his routines. His onstage persona had nothing to do with skin color. His objective was to entertain, to be funny, to make you laugh no matter what your racial heritage. He gently forced his audience to connect only with his warmth, his playful personality, and his indisputable talent. He always wrote his own stuff—personal childhood yarns or great reimaginings of so many things we all took for granted. His wonderfully detailed and hilarious version of the old Noah’s Ark biblical story, for instance, was the centerpiece of a comedy album that became a runaway national sensation. His voice, his inflections, and his nuanced material could make the whole family laugh together—and families did, everywhere. Subsequently, color barriers dissolved a little bit more every time this happened.
And then, of course, Hollywood took special notice. NBC signed him to do a caper show called I Spy, which featured two guys—one black, one white, both equal partners—working together to solve cases. They struck gold with the fun chemistry between the wily Cosby and the dashing actor Robert Culp. I believe it was Bill’s first real acting job and he was terrific. But for the TV business, it had been a bold move—practically unheard-of in those years—this simple pairing of what could be considered impossibly diverse costars on a major prime-time program. I thought Cosby did more for race relations with that show than anyone else could have attempted in any medium. But later on, he made even more important strides in this area.
In 1984 he debuted The Cosby Show, a remarkably popular NBC sitcom focusing on an upper-middle-class African-American family—a successful doctor and wife raising five kids in bustling New York City. The Huxtable family, as they were called, had the same problems as everyone else, trying to instill key values in their kids and find day-to-day happiness in a complicated world. Oddly enough, even in the mid-eighties, this represented groundbreaking television—the depiction of an upscale black family was an altogether new concept for viewers. But week after week, year after year, it ranked as the number one, most-watched show in the Nielsen ratings. Never heavy-handed about matters of race, it provided more insight to
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