From Deseret News archives:
'The Cos' CDs are cause for celebration
Not so much from stand-up comics, although Steven Wright's non sequiturs have been known to get a workout.
When I was growing up in the olden days — back when we watched TV while sitting on rocks — my friends and I used to do the same thing. But in our case, it was almost always stand-up comics.
In the 1960s, a number of up-and-coming comedians were popping up on TV — from Bob Newhart to the Smothers Brothers.
My friends and I watched them, and occasionally we would regale each other with their best gags. I remember repeating bits of Newhart's telephone conversation between Abraham Lincoln and his press agent, and we'd all get into the Smothers' "Mom Always Liked You Best" routine.
Later, we'd buy their records (large vinyl platters, for those who don't know anything other than MP3s) and learn them by heart.
But there was one comic who rose above the rest, whose hilarious, inflated reminiscences of his youth were constantly being re-created by the kids in my circle. The universal truths he hilariously related in stand-up stories hit home with all of us, prompting us to re-create his comic riffs over and over.
It was "The Cos" — Bill Cosby, that is.
The first time I heard Cosby was on "The Tonight Show," when Johnny Carson had been holding court for only a few years. Carson, of course, introduced many now-legendary comedians on his show, and back then new comics were one of the primary reasons to watch.
One night — before VCRs, when I could only watch Carson on Fridays, holidays or during the summer — this young, lanky, energetic black comic comes out and starts doing a hilarious bit about growing up in "the projects" in Philadelphia.
And though I was an even younger white kid growing up in a Southern California baby-boomer white-bread suburb, I could identify with Cosby's stories about goofy kids doing goofy things together, parent-child relationships, walking home in the dark after a scary movie, giggling with my brother at night and having Dad come in and threaten to use "The Belt," etc.
And judging from Cosby's rapid rise in national popularity, a lot of other people could, too.
His earliest albums — "Bill Cosby Is a Very Funny Fellow . . . Right!" and "Wonderfulness" — must have driven my parents crazy, since I played them over and over in my room. This was before headphones.
OK, as The Cos would say, I told you that story so I could tell you this one.
