He eludes to it, but doesn't say the words...
Excellent Entertainer...
I have heard Bill Cosby utter a profanity precisely once. He was talking about cocaine, and the assertion by fans of that drug that it enhanced and amplified the personality of the user. Cosby's response: "Yeah, but what if you're an @$$hole?"
I have a sort of germ of a cultural theory -- that for any cultural phenomenon, whether it's music or politics or literature, there is a relatively safe, palatable voice that tries to nudge the door open, and another more radical one that tries to kick it in.
The lovable mop-topped Beatles had the sneering, dangerous Stones. In the early '80s, Michael Jackson was the family-friendly act, while Prince was the overtly sexual bad boy (little did we know ...). Groups like the Paul Whiteman orchestra were a nice, safe alternative to the more complicated and raw bands like Ellington's.
Martin Luther King was seen as a wide-eyed radical in the Birmingham Jail, when black clergy encouraged him to slow down, but when Malcolm X came on the scene, King became the moderate choice. Now we have Ann Coulter out on the edge, making someone like Michelle Malkin look more middlish.
Bill Cosby entered the entertainment mainstream earlier than Pryor did, at a time when the mere presence of a black man was threatening to many people. He didn't need to make a passionate stand for social change; his mere presence was an important step. Then Pryor comes along and pushes the envelope further, speaking for the younger, more hot-blooded, more angry.
The more I think about it, the more apt the analogy of Cosby and Pryor to Martin and Malcolm seems to me (with the obvious caveat that entertainment ain't politics, and plays for lower stakes). Cosby and Martin were measured, thoughful and easier for the mainstream to trust. Pryor and Malcolm were offensive, shocking, hot-headed, and both said things they later had cause to regret and retract.
Neither of them could have made the inroads they did without the other on the scene. There's a yin-yang balance in play.
Excellent Entertainer...
No doubt. I am a huge fan of both Bill Cosby and Richard Pryor, and in my dusty vinyl collection, I think I have every recording either of them released in the 1970s and '80s.