Time to dust off that multicolored 1980s sweater and load up on the Jelly-O Pudding Pops, Mr. Bill Cosby himself is coming to the Bay Area.
The 71-year-old comedic icon, who knocked down so many walls with his ground breaking hit television series "The Bill Cosby Show," is still doing his stand up act all these years later.
Cosby first made it big in the 1960s show "I Spy," is returning to his first love of comedy and the stage. In the 1980s the unmistakable voice of "Fat Albert" ruled the television show ratings with "The Cosby Show" while paving the way for African-Americans to dream like they never had before.
Cosby, who is considered one of the 100 Greatest African Americans by Temple University scholar Molefi Kete Asante, said he knows the role his show played on the development of African Americans in this country, including getting President Barack Obama elected to the White House.
"Look at it as a big bicycle wheel with spokes," he recently told the San Jose Mercury News. "The Huxtables happened to be one of those spokes. On the other hand, the Huxtables didn't get him (Obama) into Occidental College. And they didn't get Michelle into Princeton."
The actor and father of five has been been making people laugh for more than a generation in movies, on the small screen, as a stand-up comedian, writer and a successful pitch man for Jell-O.
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"It's very strange and wonderful how people of all races still come up to me and say, 'You remind me so much of my father,'" Cosby told the Mercury News. "When I walk out on the stage in Oakland to do my thing, the audience will smile and laugh. And it doesn't matter how old you are — unless you're breast-feeding."
The comedian will play two shows at the Paramount Theatre in Oakland, 2025 Broadway, this Saturday at 5 and 8:30 p.m. Shockingly enough, tickets are still available to both shows.
Sajid Farooq still watches Nick at Nite for Cosby reruns.
