Bill Cosby Punch Smothers Tommy Smothers (Family TV Icon Decks Folk Singer over Civil Rights Slur)

New York Post ^ | April 20, 2003 | Richard Johnson

[ewing]

Bill Cosby wasn't always the affable family man that he plays on television.

Angered by taunts that he didn't do enough in the civil rights struggle, Cosby once sucker punched Tommy Smothers according to Gerald Nachmans new book.

Smothers recalls Cosby told him, 'Maybe I will give you a knock upside the head one of these days. I said, 'Yeah, go ahead and give it a try.'

A few weeks later Cosby made good on his threat when the two ran into each other at one of Hugh Hefners Playboy Mansion parties.

'I should have never turned my back on him,' Smothers said. 'He didn't have the b*lls to do it when I was looking.'

'He slipped behind Hugh Hefner and sucker punched me. He hit me right in the head with his fist.'

Smothers went down, the book reports, at which point Cosby began shouting 'Come onm I will kick your *ss!.'

[nothingnew]

"The reason you got the story wrong is because there are no pumas in America."

IIRC, the pyuma was in a cravass?

FMCDH

[farmfriend]

I've never liked Bill Cosby. Like his work but not the man. Saw interviews with him and he came across as an A$$.

[IncPen]

Have you seen what Dick Smothers Junior is up to these days?

[PJ-Comix]

Bill Cosby sounds like he needs some Anger Management. I know just the Anger Management therapist who can help. A guy named Buddy. Hee! Hee!

[sauropod]

Cosby is an unrepentant racist. So's his wife Camille.

Do a search on an op-ed she wrote not too long after their son Ennis Cosby was murdered by some creep in Calif.

[Judith Anne]

HAHA! I remember that!

[lilylangtree]

That can't be recent, huh? Must have been when these two were sowing their wild oats in their young days, right?

[bruinbirdman]

Cosby's wife hates white people.

That's Dr. Cosby to you.

yitbos

[Coyote]

I worked with Cosby a couple of times. Here's a little story. When I was in my early 20's, I was standing on the set near him and Harry Belafonte. Cosby leaned over to Belafonte, and looking me right in the eye, said out loud, and clearly for my benefit, "I don't like white women. They're so, so ANEMIC!" Then they laughed together in my direction.

Jeremiah 8:11
They dress the wound of my people
as though it were not serious.
"Peace, peace," they say,
when there is no peace.

[ricpic]

"Cosby's wife hates white people."

Does that give us the right to hate her back?

Or would it STILL be a hate crime?!

[Othniel]

Our local PBS station airs a folk concert during their pledge times. It features the Smothers Bros, Judy Collins, and a host of other lefty-folksie-balding-guitar strummers. The New Christie Minstrels made my wife and I cringe. It was sad to watch them and their audience continue to deny reality that their whimsical, Democrat give-peace-a-chance optimism doesn't work and never will, short of Jesus setting foot on earth and setting things right.

That said, in thirty years, maybe we'll see Tupac, Eminem, and a sagging Lil Kim and Pink doing a concert to raise money for PBS: "Rap Reunion: The stars do their biggest hits." And in the audience will be all these paunchy, vapid rap fans, mouthing the words as their stars spew their venom. And the rest of us normal people will wonder why they were so popular.

[OldEagle]

"Yeah, I remember when Cosby was baaaad."

Was that under the 59th Street Bridge?

[job]

and Jimmy (aka JJ aka Kid Dynomite aka Bootney Farnsworth) Walker

[Buck W.]

"Have you seen what Dick Smothers Junior is up to these days? "

Is this for real? I had no idea! Just hilarious!

[pupdog]

IIRC, the pyuma was in a cravass?

"Take the pumas out of your story."
"You kidding? I'm not going down in them cravasses!"

[Ebenezer]

"There were two: Uptown Saturday Night & Let's Do It Again."

Let me mention a third film Cosby and Poitier made together: "A Piece of the Action".

I don't know what fellow FReepers think, but there is something funny about fighting in the Playboy Mansion over civil rights.

[CarmelValleyite]

You're not the only one who liked the Smothers Bros. I did, as did many people I know/knew. For the record, I have NEVER been able to tolerate Cosby. The man is NOT funny and never was.

[CarmelValleyite]

Re "white people" -- News flash: so does Cosby!

[HHFi]

Having sat through that concert, you need to put the experience to good use by seeing Christopher Guest's new movie, "A Mighty Wind." I think it was inspired by that very show. I was rolling on the floor watching all those pompous, leftist folkies doing those horrible songs, especially their big finale, when they sang together, "Oh, a mighty wind is blowin'! It's blowin' everywhere!" Then in the second verse, they sang about "lighting up a flare, to ignite the mighty wind that's blowin' everywhere!" I was laughing so hard, tears were flowing, as I thought, "Are they singing about what I think they're singing about? If so, it's the most perfect metaphor for the gaseous '60s folk scare I've ever heard."

There's also a hilarious scene where the Folksmen (Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer) are told to "stretch," so they decide to do a slow, boring song about the Spanish Civil War, but before they do, Shearer has to pompously lecture the audience to make sure they're properly informed about the Spanish Civil War, and after sucking all the air out of the room for God knows how long, they don't have time to do the song.

[IncPen]

Yes, it's real.

_{I heard him on Howard Stern, but that's just between you and me...}