O.K. So we don't appear completely Culp-o-centric here .... here's a posting about our other Mr. C.


I just ran across this video of the opening of "The Bill Cosby Show" with Quincy Jones' super-fun "Hicky Burr" theme song ...






The Bill Cosby Show is the series Bill went into right after I SPY ... from 1969 - 1971.
This is the series where he plays high school teacher Chet Kincaid.
(I never saw the show, did any of you?)





and here's the direct link, also ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvypTYWmFn4


You can also hear Quincy Jones' "Hicky Burr" at

http://www.last.fm/music/Quincy+Jones/_/Hicky+Burr



Well, you know how much Tatia loves I SPY "connections" - well there are lots here ...


Did you see the I SPY alumni listed in the credits in the video??


Alan Oppenheimer (a.k.a. Col. Benkovski)




and someone named Lee Weaver ....




Can anyone name which two I SPYs the above pictures are from??


And I have no idea why this stuck in my brain, but doesn't the cute bellboy from "SO LONG PATRICK HENRY" call out "Lee Weaver" when he wanted to pass a note onto Scotty???





Did I remember that right?? Must have been an inside joke .... like the "Fleet Southcott" aside Bill & Bob used in the Lucas Hilton "Cosby" episode.


And according to the TV.com site ...

"When Bill Cosby guest hosted The Tonight's Show in 1968, each night Lee Weaver was announced as a guest. But Mr. Cosby pretended to run out of time and invited him back the next night. Weaver became so angry that he trashed his dressing room."





I guess all was forgiven, because the next year Mr. Weaver was appearing on "The Bill Cosby Show" series as Brian Kincaid, Chet Kincaid's brother.

But there's more connections ... the 3 creators of "The Bill Cosby Show" were Bill, Ed Weinberger (who also created "The Cosby Show" - and was the producer and writer of "Taxi" and "The Mary Tyler Moore Show"), and Michael Zagor .

Besides being one of the creators of "The Bill Cosby Show," Mr. Zagor's, whose name should be ringing some bells, also wrote several episodes.





And the reason for the bell-ringing is that Mr. Zagor also wrote " Trial by Treehouse ," "Tonia," "A Day Called 4 Jaguar," "A Room with a Rack," "Let's Kill Karlovassi," and "Anyplace I Hang Myself Is Home" for I SPY! Great stories .....


But wait!! (as they say on the Infomercials) there's more!! In Season 2, they had a different actress play Chet Kincaid's Mom, Rose - this time they used MOM ... Scotty's "Mom" - the wonderful Beah Richards !!





... and here's even more connections between I SPY and "The Bill Cosby Show" ( and Bill's other shows) translated into "I SPY-ese." He certainly knew how to take advantage of the vast gene pool of talent associated with I SPY!!


The Bill Cosby Show (Chet Kincaid - 1969)

Wally Cox - Herbie Rimstead in "Casanova from Canarsie"
Cicely Tyson - Princess Amara in "So Long Patrick Henry & Vickie Harmon "Trial by Treehouse."
Dane Clark - Jack Gannon in "1000 Fine" & Mike Woods "Spy Business"
Rex Ingram - Dr. Bingham in "The Weight of the World"
Will Geer - Uncle Henry in "Home to Judgment"
Pedro Gonzales-Gonzales - Jaime the driver in "The Conquest of Maude Murdock"
Byron Morrow - Bentley Reed in "No Exchange"
Dale Ishimoto - Mr. Oshira in "Time of the Knife"


"The Cosby Show" (Dr. Huxtable and family - 1984)

Marge Redmond - Bernie's Mom Nettie in "Trial by Treehouse"
Leslie Uggams - "Tonia"
Sheldon Leonard
Robert Culp


"The Cosby Mysteries" (Guy Hanks - 1994)

Michael Constantine - Plotkin in "A Gift from Alexander" & Col. Halouf in "Sparrowhawk"


"Cosby" (Lucas Hilton - 1996)

John Fiedler - Andrew in "Suitable for Framing"
Michael Constantine - Plotkin in "A Gift from Alexander" & Col. Halouf in "Sparrowhawk"
Robert Culp


Any comments or more connections??


Whew! One more posting on Cosby tomorrow ....


As always,

Tatia



~ ~

I have the first season dvd released a few years ago...it's a good show, with an improvisatory quality (and no laugh track) that are no big deal now, but groundbreaking for the time...it's good to see the young lithe jazzy Cosby riffing, even if it's without a gun or Culp...it's obviously sort of the crossroads between SPY and the later COSBY SHOW, but here he's still got a bit of that young edge that so much of us like...

No need to feel ashamed.

It's good we aknoweledge both C and C.

CBN now The Family Channel aired the BCS in the 80's and I do believe one of our network affiliates here in Chicago aired this for years though it was often at odd times.

It's hard to know how often certain shows go into reruns though I've read somewhere I Spy reruns haven't been shown as much throughout the years and it's probably the same with Cosby's first sitcom.

Too bad since I was never really a fan of The Cosby Show.

Cosby began his stand up routine in either 1961 or 62 when Jack Parr was still hosting.











Also I wonder if those Episodes with Cosby guest hosting for Carson exists today?







I know that the vast majority the episodes of Carson's first 10 years on the Tonight Show were erased.







Videotape was expensive back then and I guess it just didn't make sense to save a bunch of episodes that they knew wouldn't be repeated.







It's very rare to see such shows in reruns.

I've also read that tapes from the Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson before a certain date (like maybe the early nineties) were discarded by Philistines at the network. The link below is to an entry in Mark Evanier's "newsfromme" blog and it supports this idea. It shows a short clip from a 1968 Tonight Show (with guest host Joe Garagiola) on which Lennon and McCartney discuss the formation of Apple. The video was generated by combining one person's 8 millimeter film of the broadcast with another person's audio recording. Not an ideal archival method!

http://www.newsfromme.com/archives/2009_01_10.html#016497

However the link below is to an article about Jeff Sotzing who is the nephew of Johnny Carson and the caretaker of his video legacy. Reading it, you get the impression that he has EVERYTHING (though the 4000 tapes he has would only cover about 16 years). So now I'm confused--not an unusual state of affairs. But there is some small hope that this Cosby hosted show will some day surface.

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/sotzing-uncle-john-2269712-carson-ton

Jimmy