Recently Heard: Revenge by Bill Cosby

[ellyssian]

Bill Cosby: Revenge

This recording is not entirely new to me, it's replacing -wait for it- vinyl. Yes. Vinyl.

I don't recall how old I was when I found a stack of Cos stuff at a yard sale for maybe five or ten cents each, but I do know how deeply the material embedded itself and helped shape and form the world as I saw it. I really enjoyed watching Justin's reactions to this, as he's heard much of it from me. The spiel on slushballs resurfaced during more than one snowball fight. When the kids would jump on me, I'd often say things like "What was that, a mosquito?" and "Someone threw a piece of paper on me." And, of course, there was talk of monsters, closets, and covers.

Listening to all of this again brought home exactly how much of his material still has an impact on me, some thirty years after I first heard it, and some forty (maybe even fifty) or more years since it was first recorded.

The Cos and his characters - including Old Weird Harold and Fat Albert - were also a part of our Saturday morning childhood. It doesn't take more than a "What you want to hit me upside the face with a snowball for?" to evoke all the images of Harold, and for Albert, all you need is that first "Hey!" of "Hey! Hey! Hey!" and you can't help but have him fill all your thoughts.

He's that big.

But mostly it's due to the brilliance of Bill Cosby.

Comments

[dangerdean.livejournal.com]

My bad. :)

[tewok.livejournal.com]

As a reasonable person, I'm not saying my spelling is correct -- just that it's my spelling.

As a solipsist, I'm saying that my spelling is right.