It’s true! <kanye>I’ma let you finish but first I have to say that Heathcliff Huxtable is the best dad of all time!</kanye> Sorry, I just couldn’t resist being a loser, dork and weirdo all in one sentence :)
Seriously though, I’ve never had a role model quite like Mr. Cosby. Every Thursday the family would gather around the warm glow of the telly and laugh along with the antics of the Huxtables. I secretly wished that my dad was the pudding man, but that never worked out. Instead I got cups of tea every 15 minutes with rusk cakes. So eventually I had to eat pudding by myself talking to a cardboard cutout of Mr. Cosby instead. Now you know why my imagination is so bountiful!
There are some of you reading this asking, “Who the pudding pop is Bill Cosby?!” and that’s ok, really, it is. One day you’ll see him featured in an Xbox game or they’ll develop a new Wii game. Or maybe a town hall meeting that’s around the corner. So for those that don’t know, here are tons of #roffles from the Huxtables and that guy, you know, what’s his name… Bill Cosby:
I still to this day have the first episode of the Cosby Show memorized. There are shoeboxes and shoeboxes filled with all the VHS tapes that we recorded each and every episode (VHS tapes are what came before DVD’s and BluRay’s: BetaMax is what I thought was going to be the future, since smaller was better… apparently not). In today’s day and age, there has yet to be a show that delivers such an education in life, love and laughter. The first episode is probably my most favorite and still have it memorized. One of my earliest lessons in life came from the following scene:
Now some background on the pudding man from the WikiPedia:
In 1972, Cosby received an MA from the University of Massachusetts and was also back in prime time with a variety series, The New Bill Cosby Show. However, this time he met with poor ratings, and the show lasted only a season. More successful was a Saturday morning show, Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, hosted by Cosby and based on his own childhood, running from 1972 to 1979, then from 1979 to 1984 as The New Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids. Some schools used the program as a teaching tool, and Cosby himself wrote his dissertation on it in order to obtain his doctorate, also from the University of Massachusetts, in Education in 1976.[7][14] Subsequently, Temple University, where Cosby had begun but never finished his undergraduate studies, would grant him his bachelor’s degree on the basis of “life experience”.
Life experience. You hear that?! My dad used to tell me that over and over, “There is no experience like life experience. Now go…” Having these two father figures in my world allowed me to develop into the confused Pakistani kid in Canada who thought he lived in New York with Theo, Rudy, Vanessa, Sandra, Denise and mom and dad :) Some things never change, I’m here in New York looking for them.
Since arriving here I’ve uncovered some conspiracy theories surrounding Mr. Bill Cosby that I would like to share with you, you can find them on this site:
And just to further my investigations, the Cosby Sweater is making a comeback! Slick up your threads with one of the most famous ugly sweaters that you could ever possible wear (with the exception of the matching reindeer sweaters at the holiday season).
There is a town hall meeting with Bill Cosby Monday October 19th (7pm EST/4pm PST) on Ustream. It’s not every day the dad of the century calls a meeting for all to attend. I’m banking on the fact that he’s got something to say. Care to join me?
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