[bomp] Re: Cosby

[Sknoof@xxxxxxx]

Domenic sez:

<< There's an analogy... Bill Cosby and Soupy Sales, talent wasted in the
'70s that
coulda been raving up.  And fuck if it was their fault, they just weren't
made
for those times. >>

Gotta disagree.  I was a raving lunatic of a Cosby fan in the 60s, as a kid
-- had all his routines nearly memorized, owned every record (even the
Tetragrammaton one) etc. etc.

But at some point he made a very self-conscious and ill-advised attempt to GO
HIP.  You can hear the first example of it on the "For Russell" album (from
1968) when he's in the middle of a routine about teaching his daughters to
swim.  He starts to say he "paid a guy some good money..." and he stops
abruptly
in the middle of the word "money" and changes it to "bread."  Bullshit.  That
bugged me even as a 13-year-old kid.

And it was around 1971 when his Tonight Show appearances (and, I'll assume,
his live stand-up act as well) went completely weird.  He had apparently
decided that he was brilliant enough that he didn't have to prepare any
material --
that he could just walk out onstage and say whatever popped into his head and
it would be brilliant.  Like Lenny Bruce, I guess he thought.

Didn't work for Lenny either.

To be fair, sometimes he WAS brilliant in those circumstances.  But just as
often as not, he would be standing out there earnestly dumping inanities on a
Carson studio audience that really WANTED to laugh, but just ended up being
audibly confused.  It was torture to watch.

Ever since then, it's been the same.  When he's prepared, he's brilliant.
When he tries to wing it, OUCH!

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