Whereas Bob Newhart updated his trademark phone schtick with a cellular prop last month at the Paramount Theatre, Bill Cosby rang up Mother’s Day at the Bass Concert Hall with the real thing. Nearly 40 years after stand-up classics “Mothers and Fathers” and To Russell, My Brother, Whom I Slept With, Cosby, 67, riffed familial via the vantage point of parent- and grandparenthood for a two-hour, PAC-shaking belly laugh, highlighted by the comic’s extended phone conversation with a front-row patron’s teenage daughter. Geriatrics at a 1-year-old’s birthday bash, an anecdote about Russell, and an end-note flashback, “Dentists,” were all delivered in burnt orange with burnt orange burps and the admonishment not to worry a guy by waiting until the last minute to fill his home away from home.
This article appears in May 13 • 2005.
