Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, December 18, 1994 TAG: 9412200013
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: TIM FUNK KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
By the 1980s, when those same baby boomers were having babies themselves, they again looked to Bill Cosby, who personified parenthood on NBC's ``The Cosby Show'' - the decade's most popular television program.
Now 57, Cosby is back on NBC in ``The Cosby Mysteries.'' As Guy Hanks, a retired criminalist who still ends up solving some of New York City's most puzzling cases, Cosby follows in the footprints of other former sitcom stars-turned-sleuths (including ``Matlock's'' Andy Griffith).
Airing Wednesdays at 8 p.m. , ``The Cosby Mysteries'' usually trails Fox's teen soap, ``Beverly Hills, 90210,'' in the ratings. But, as a TV icon since his Emmy-winning days in NBC's ``I Spy'' (1965-68), Cosby shouldn't be counted out.
His TV work is only one facet of Cosby's multimedia career. He performs his comedy in concert about 100 days each year. His humorous books on parents, kids, marriage and growing older are all bestsellers. Only his movie career has been a fizzle.
Cosby is said to be worth $300 million. He's donated millions to the country's historically black colleges. And he's been mentioned more than once as a potential buyer of NBC.
In a recent telephone interview, Cosby talked about his new show, TV's portrayal of African Americans, HBO's popular but filthy ``Def Comedy Jam'' and his idea for a new movie starring Bill Cosby. Here are edited excerpts:
Q: You, Dick Van Dyke, Andy Griffith and Carroll O'Connor were stars of some of the very best comedies in TV history. Now you're all back on the air solving crimes on dramatic shows. What is it about the sleuth/mystery genre that attracts you guys?
A: First of all, I'm different. My first series was ``I Spy.'' So, in a way, I've come back to where I started. ``Spy'' was blow up cars, chase men, get knocked out, knock out somebody, get caught in the locker room, and ``whodunnit'' ... I think what (also) happens is you really kind of outgrow a sitcom. Sitcoms for TV are for the younger people. Even with my TV ``Q'' (a measurement of the public's familiarity with a TV personality), if I told the network, ``I want to be in a sitcom,'' I'd have to pretty much load up with young, young, young, young folk. When ``The Cosby Show'' started, that's exactly what we did. A man with a wife and the young kids in the house.
Q: NBC gave ``The Cosby Mysteries'' a very competitive night and a very competitive time slot.
A: The funny thing is, when word came down that they were putting me on (Wednesdays), the people kept saying to me, ``You can't lose.'' And the next thing I know, man, we'd lost automatically a teen-age audience because they (Fox) have ``Beverly Hills T&A.'' I met a couple of kids on the street and they said, ``Oh! Mr. Cosby! How are you?'' I said, ``I'm just fine.'' And they said, ``What are you shooting?'' I said, ``The Cosby Mysteries.'' They said, ``Ohhhh. We can't watch you. Because, hey, Mr. Cosby, please, you've got to understand.'' You know, it was like kids saying, ``Listen, we can't sit home and listen to jazz tonight, we've got to go out to the mall.''
Q: Last year about this time, you spoke out on the portrayal of African Americans on television. You were pretty critical of what you saw, saying shows favored stereotypes such as the ``funny minstrel ... the pimp, the dealer, the struggling street kid.'' Is TV getting any better?
A: This was said at a convention. I was honored and put into the television something-or-other hall of fame. And I said to all of the producers, directors and writers who sat out there, ``If you're honoring me for what I've done, then why are you putting out these images?'' I just abhor the fact that African-American writers and Caucasian-American writers of all derivations, creeds and colors, see African Americans through a drive-by viewpoint. That is, sitting in the car, driving through this lower-lower economic neighborhood and seeing people and projecting an image into their minds of how they think. And then projecting that the audience will only accept and laugh at someone if they act this particular way.
Q: So is it getting better?
A: I haven't watched lately. But let's just look at ``Married ... With Children.'' When you first looked (at that show), they were doing everything that had to do with gas and things running out of the nose and loose bowels. Well, after awhile, man, if you do three years of this, it's impossible to keep coming back with that and still have viewers. So, in a way, time has a way of forcing a person to look someplace else for another joke. I think that if you look at ``Martin'' (starring black comic Martin Lawrence), you'll see that his writing has changed.
Q: For the better?
A: Well, I would think that, by this time, they'd just about blown out all of the gas and the whatever. He's into, what, his second, third season now? I think that things will evolve and turn into something where Martin - after practice and practice - finds that he is a funny fellow and really doesn't want to lean so much on the obvious.
Q: You started in stand-up comedy. Does it distress you that a show like HBO's ``Def Comedy Jam'' can be so popular and someone like Robert Townsend, whose act is relatively clean and positive and funny, doesn't do as well?
A: With ``Def Comedy Jam,'' you see people rocking back and forth with laughter, which means that these people are very happy about what they're doing. But that doesn't mean that the people laughing or the comedian who's doing this are correct. And I don't mean politically correct. Some of these people, this is all they will be able to do. They don't have material. There's no clever thought pattern. And the horrible thing is that it feeds into the negative imagery of a race of people who already have been put into a stereotypical position.
Q: How do you read last month's election returns?
A: I'm not a Democrat or a Republican. I'm anti-greed and anti-crook ... I think we're going to go through the next 10 years of voters kicking people out of office, putting them in, kicking other people out, putting them in. Until this country is run properly. And I certainly don't think that the voters want to see an extremist policy. Because, you know, to vote in an extremist way means you have to look at the damage you're going to do.
Q: Why is there this media and public obsession with the O.J. Simpson case?
A: There's this man who we all know to be a record-breaker in sports, and then he goes on and does commercials, and he does some movies ... All of a sudden, you hear that his ex-wife and a young man are slaughtered. And the police suspect him. As far as I'm concerned, that's an adrenaline rush. That's sort of like - I mean, that is entertainment. In real life! This is not a play, folks. This is real life. And so it's a natural to feed into.
Q: Shows like ``Law & Order'' take some of their stories from the headlines. On your show, you play a forensics expert. Forensics and DNA testing are in the spotlight in the O.J. Simpson case. Have you thought of basing an episode on that case?
A: Well, we wouldn't really have to. We've come close without it even being something from out of the headlines. Way before the O.J. Simpson situation, I had pitched this to the writers: Guy Hanks would be called as an expert witness, and another forensics (expert) would be called for the prosecution. And these two guys are taking the same blood samples and looking at them, and determining different things. Now who is correct?
Q: Everybody in my generation grew up listening to your comedy records. Fat Albert and Junior Barnes and your brother Russell. Do you still use those characters in your concert shows? If not, do you miss them?
A: No. No. I've got a performance now. And I swear, this is the best work I have done in a long, long time. It's not about Fat Albert. It's about who I was when I was going to school and what I thought about life. It starts with me in fifth grade. And I think, in part, it's about as important as ``Catcher in the Rye,'' only from a comedic standpoint ... I'm going to record and film the performance and give it to my wife for a Christmas present.
Q: Your movie career has not been up there with your TV career. Do you feel like taking another stab at it?
A: I watched Tim Allen with this ``Santa Clause'' thing. Now that's perfect for him. I guess. And the box office on it is absolutely fantastic. I watch Robin Williams. I watch Richard Pryor. And I think that most movies, you have to bring something different to the movie. But it can't be too different. For instance, the movie that I enjoyed having made the most is ``Hickey and Boggs.''
Q: With Robert Culp.
A: Yeah. Now, I love that movie. But it didn't slam the box office. And the reason a lot of people said was because they were expecting ``I Spy.'' Well, Bob and I decided that we didn't want to do ``I Spy'' up on the movie screen. The most successful movies have been the ones that I did with Sidney (Poitier). ``Uptown Saturday Night,'' ``Let's Do It Again,'' and ``A Piece of the Action.'' And people actually love those movies.
Q: One last question: Those perennial rumors about you buying NBC ...
A: Gone.
Q: Gone? Nothing to them?
A: Yeah. Destroyed.
by CNB