The entire world has a very different view of Bill Cosby today than they did a couple of years ago. Many people have trouble reconciling the performer with the man. It’s actually a little odd then that Saturday Night Live”s Kenan Thompson had an experience with Cosby that actually makes more sense now that the facts have come out. In his recent appearance on Late Night with Seth Meyers, Thompson spoke about a time he worked with Cosby and the utterly bizarre thing Cosby said to him.
Apparently, while filming 2004’s Fat Albert Cosby felt it was of vital importance to inform Thompson that he would become so famous because of the film that he would need to ... uh... double his normal allocation of genitalia. Your childhood memories just keep getting crushed over and over again don’t they? What was a strange experience for Thompson at the time becomes creepy in a modern context. Meyers describes it as a Usual Suspects-type experience upon realizing the truth. There is some real humor in the exchange on the late night show, however. Thompson apparently rationalized the comment at the time as “it’s football season.”
For decades, Cosby had been one of the most family-friendly comedians on the planet. As the creator of Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids on Saturday mornings and The Cosby Show on primetime TV, hearing Bill Cosby talk about how many women Thompson would be attracting, and in such vulgar terms, must have been more than a little shocking for the SNL performer. Still, we know that people are not their television personas. However, at the time, Thompson had no idea how different Cosby actually was.
Bill Cosby’s career is just short of completely over today after multiple women have accused the actor and comedian of rape. He’s had multiple projects canceled and even his previous work is being pulled off the air. A&E recently gave several of the women their own television special in order to discuss their allegations.
Of course, we'd like to point out the other thing that makes the statement so completely out of left field, is the idea that a Fat Albert movie would result in Kenan Thompson becoming such an object of desire. We like Kenan’s work and we’re sure lots of women find the guy attractive but Fat Albert isn’t exactly the volleyball scene from Top Gun. If there is a place where Cosby’s statement is appropriate, it’s not the set of a PG-rated family film based on a Saturday morning cartoon.
At this point, everybody who has ever met Bill Cosby is probably reconsidering every interaction they ever had with the man. We’re glad that Kenan Thompson is able to separate the movie he made from the man and still be proud of the work. Only time will tell if the rest of the public feels that way.
