Neatorama |
- 20 Great <i>Adventure Time</i> Crafts
- A Cute Stop Motion Short Created By An Eleven Year Old Lars Von Trier
- The 25 Best Rock Movies Ever Made
- Pizza Bed
- The Most Terrifying Teddy Bear Ever Created
- Spiders Can Catch and Devour Fish
- Slayer Of Henchmen - I'd Venture To Guess He's Not Happy
- Now THAT is a Jumbo Bag of Cheetos!
- Champion Arm Wrestler Has One--And Only One--Fantastically Developed Arm
- 34 Facts You Probably Didn’t Know About <i>The Lord Of The Rings</i> Trilogy
- Hilarious: <i>Game of Thrones</i>/<i>Brady Bunch</i> Mashup
- Would You Eat Lunch with This Chinese Billionaire for $300?
- The Rebuttal of Schrödinger's Cat
- Award-Winning Animated GIFs by Micaël Reynaud
- Who's The Coolest Movie Monster Of All Time?
- Missing Cat Returns Home Thirteen Years Later
- Man Wearing a Suit Made of Mentos Drops into a Tank of Coke
- Heaven Holds No Grudges - Blissfully Funny
- Clever Toilet Paper Ad Lets Customers Try Different Rolls
- First Moon Party
- The Teenager Who Went to Prom in a Burlap Dress
- Wonderful Friends Help a Blind and Deaf Man Experience a Live Soccer Game
- Doggy Reactions to a Human Barking
- Bonnaroo Proposal
- The Furriest Fight Of The Century - World War Cute
- What Is It? game 332
- A Sink Strainer That Won't Leave Your Fingers Filthy
- To Russell, My Brother, Whom I Slept With
| 20 Great <i>Adventure Time</i> Crafts Posted: 20 Jun 2014 05:00 AM PDT Come on, grab your friends. It's time to journey to distant lands. We get that chance with every episode of the wonderfully amusing and deep cartoon Adventure Time. Pendleton Ward's brilliant show has inspired a legion of fans to make crafts. Here are some of their best works. Pictured above is a pop-up book by endless-whispers. Here's a card that s/he made using characters from the gender-swapped episodes. Loki is an artist who specializes in modifying rubber ducks to look like pop culture figures. Here are her rubber duck versions of Jake and Finn. If you've been searching for a life-size Lady Rainicorn plush . . . well, you'll have to keep looking. But this pillow by Rewa is 7 feet long from nose to tail. Baaky, an artisan in France, makes coffee tables inspired by pop culture, including Ghostbusters and Star Wars. Here's a table that looks like Lumpy Space Princess. You can look both formal and informal at the same time while wearing Laura Alice Sainsbury's painted high heel shoes. Rock out with Finn and Jake using Renate Pommerening's painted guitar. Or, if you prefer, the quieter tones of this ukulele by Fay. The smooth, glossy finish is impressive! Many fans have made functional guitars inspired by Marceline's ax bass, including this one by Ashley Montgomery. In the gender-swapped universe, Marceline is Marshall Lee. His ax guitar is a bit different. Yaphi's replica shows this alternate version. Adventure Time is a visually imaginative show in a very different Earth, so there's a lot of material for fans to work with. Many fans create replicas of the swords on the show, including Finn's Demon Blood Sword. Here's Brian Johnson's version made of PVC board. If you're a trained blacksmith with a quality forge, you can work with a lot more than just PVC. Tony Swatton, a blacksmith famous for reproducing pop culture swords, made a fully functional replica of Scarlet, Finn's first sword. Later in the series, Finn wields a magical sword made of grass. Propmaker teratone duplicated it using plastic blinds as a source material. Bruce Carr is a professional balloon artist. With enough balloons and a lot of skill, he can create amazing sculptures. Here's one that he made depicting Princess Bubblegum. The Enchiridion is a rare, ancient magical book that provides instructions for heroes. Thanks for Adventure Time crafters, it's now widely available! Michelle Brady made this copy. If you want to go on adventures of your own, make sure that you stow your gear properly. Silk Miramere made this cloth replica of Finn's backpack. Many Adventure Time fans wear their fandom. Here's one of several dresses and skirts by Rocking Horse Design that are inspired by the show. For a formal occasion, such as a job interview or a funeral, you may need to wear a necktie. Jamie Ferraioli made three hand-painted Adventure Time ties. Etsy seller The Pin Station East sells custom hatpins, including a series that shows Adventure Time characters as Batman characters. The color is a perfect match! Art & Delirium used a laser to engrave the face of Jake into a Bic lighter. Here's Finn and Jake carved into the graphite of a pencil. Amazing! I suspect, but cannot confirm, that this sculpture was made by Dalton M. Ghetti, an artist who specializes in this field.  | ||||||||
| A Cute Stop Motion Short Created By An Eleven Year Old Lars Von Trier Posted: 20 Jun 2014 04:00 AM PDT Before experimental filmmaker Lars Von Trier had begun making horrifying miniseries like The Kingdom and The Kingdom II, compelling films like The Element Of Crime and Zentropa, and downright dirty films like Nymphomaniac he was a young man obsessed with stop motion animation. He created this cute, yet somehow still creepy, little film called Turen til Squashland when he was 11 years old, created using a paper cutout style of stop motion animation resembling a dream sequence you’d see on South Park. It’s a far cry from the darkness and depravity found in his later films, and it shows that even visionary filmmakers like Lars Von Trier have cartoon skeletons in their closets! -Via Dangerous Minds | ||||||||
| The 25 Best Rock Movies Ever Made Posted: 20 Jun 2014 03:00 AM PDT Flavorwire posted a ranked list of rock ’n’ roll movies. Go see if your favorites are there, and let us know if you have any additions to the list. Do you agree at all with the selection for #1? What would you have there instead? Anytime someone lists a ranking like this, there will be disagreements, not only about the rankings, but how one defines “rock movie” anyway. But there’s one great thing about this list we can all agree on -there are some great suggestion in the list, whether it's all-inclusive or not. Here’s what you should do: Find the highest-ranked film you’ve not yet seen, and make it your weekend entertainment. Or you might be lucky enough to find several of them to enjoy! | ||||||||
| Posted: 20 Jun 2014 02:00 AM PDT The ultimate comfort food may become ultimately comfortable if designer Claire Manganiello has her way. This is her concept for a bedding design that looks like a pizza. It is, of course, just a concept now. There is not even a pattern or materials list available. But we could probably calculate how much dough, cheese, tomato sauce, and pepperoni would be necessary to make it a reality. -via Technabob | ||||||||
| The Most Terrifying Teddy Bear Ever Created Posted: 20 Jun 2014 01:00 AM PDT (WARNING- This video contains graphic imagery that may make it hard to sleep at night, especially if you're a fan of teddy bears! Viewer discretion is advised) Toys are most definitely not just for kids anymore, haven’t been for quite some time really, but there’s a new teddy in town that has taken toys well into the realm of graphic horror and violence, a teddy more R-rated than the foulmouthed bear who starred in the movie Ted. The Peek-A-Boo Bear is an animatronic teddy bear with a creepy voice and a dark secret, one which you can’t unsee, and if you invite this fuzzy little masochist to a party you’d better cover everything you own in plastic, 'cause things are about to get messy! He was the 700th sinister teddy bear created bycustom horror toy company Undead Teds and hopefully the last one prone to committing acts of self mutilation, for the sake of the baby teddy bears out there who still have hope in their fluffy little hearts. -Via io9 | ||||||||
| Spiders Can Catch and Devour Fish Posted: 20 Jun 2014 12:00 AM PDT Spiders catching fish? It happens more than you think! Entomologist Martin Nyffeler of the University of Basel in Switzerland and ecologist Bradley J. Pusey have collected reports and images of fish-eating spiders into one study. The spiders are not necessarily closely related, and they are found eating fish on every continent except Antarctica. Spiders can use surface tension to walk on the water’s surface and wait for prey, but they don’t all use the same technique. See a slideshow of different fish-eating spiders at Scientific American. The photo shown here shows an Ancylometes spider in Ecuador and his dinner. -via Digg | ||||||||
| Slayer Of Henchmen - I'd Venture To Guess He's Not Happy Posted: 19 Jun 2014 11:00 PM PDT There is one man feared by both henchmen and those he's hired to protect alike, a guy with top secret access to everything and a license to kill, and if you know what's good for you you'll call him Mr. Samson. He drives the ladies wild with hunger, the henchmen wild with fear, and yet somehow he keeps his cool no matter what sort of ad-venture he's on. Henchmen beware- Brock is back, and starring on his own Slayer of Henchmen t-shirt by Eman!, pick one up and you might just wind up on his good side! Visit Eman!'s Facebook fan page, Tumblr and Twitter, then head on over to his NeatoShop for more bloody good designs:
Are you a professional illustrator or T-shirt designer? Let's chat! Sell your designs on the NeatoShop and get featured in front of tons of potential new fans on Neatorama! | ||||||||
| Now THAT is a Jumbo Bag of Cheetos! Posted: 19 Jun 2014 11:00 PM PDT Now THAT is a jumbo Cheetos! If you thought that something like that is uniquely American, think again: redditor Imploder's buddy's sister went to Tijuana, Mexico* to bring the largest bag of Cheetos we'd ever seen.
But the title of the world largest Cheeto still belongs to the good ol' US of A. The golf ball-sized Cheeto currently reside in Algona, Iowa. (Photo: Tom Kupfer) *If you must know, Mexico's obesity rate is now 32.8%, which is slightly higher than the 31.8% obesity rate in the United States. Mexico has overtaken the United States as the fattest country in the world. | ||||||||
| Champion Arm Wrestler Has One--And Only One--Fantastically Developed Arm Posted: 19 Jun 2014 10:00 PM PDT
Mattias "Hellboy" Schlitte of Germany has a huge Popeye-like forearm. It's ripped with muscles that he has developed after several years of rigorous training. Schlittle uses that arm to win arm wrestling competitions around the world. His left arm, in contrast, is not muscular. That's because Schlitte was born with a rare genetic disorder that increased the size of the bones in his right forearm. That forearm is a whopping 18 inches in circumference. Schlitte's career began in 2004 when he was 17 years old. He describes the experience:
Here's a funny commercial that Schlitte made for an Australian tool company. -via Break | ||||||||
| 34 Facts You Probably Didn’t Know About <i>The Lord Of The Rings</i> Trilogy Posted: 19 Jun 2014 09:00 PM PDT Ready for some trivia about The Lord of the Rings? Here’s a list that tells some of the behind-the-scenes goings-on about the three movies, plus things you may not know about Tolkien, his books, and the public’s reception of them. Have a sample:
Well, those were about the movies, weren’t they? You’ll find plenty more in the list at Buzzfeed. | ||||||||
| Hilarious: <i>Game of Thrones</i>/<i>Brady Bunch</i> Mashup Posted: 19 Jun 2014 08:00 PM PDT It's a show about a large, extended family that struggles with occasional internal conflicts, along with treachery and murder. Yes, it's The Brady Bunch. Actor and geek celebrity Wil Wheaton brings us this mashup of two popular shows for his new program, The Wil Wheaton Project (warning: auto-sound). Content warning: NSFW language. -via The Mary Sue | ||||||||
| Would You Eat Lunch with This Chinese Billionaire for $300? Posted: 19 Jun 2014 07:00 PM PDT
No, not you pay him $300 to have lunch. He pays you. It costs $330,001 to have lunch with Apple CEO Tim Cook, but not only would your lunch be free if you dine with Chinese tycoon Chen Guangbiao. He'll give you $300 to boot. Chen, a billionaire who made his money in recycling, who happens to have the world's most interesting business card (below), is quite famous for his quixotic adventures. First, he introduced his own line of canned fresh air to combat China's notorious air pollution. Now, he's making good on the claim of "Most Charismatic Philanthropist of China" as claimed by his business card, by inviting 1,000 destitute Americans living in New York to lunch via an ad placed in the New York Times earlier this week. According to South China Morning Post, Chen wanted to "spread the message in the US that there are good philanthropists in China and not all are crazy spenders on luxury goods." "At the same time, there are many wealthy Chinese billionaires but most of them gained their wealth from market speculation and colluding with government officials while destroying the environment," Chen added. "I can't bear the sight of it, because all they do is splurge on luxury goods, gambling and prostitution and very few of them sincerely live up their social responsibility" "I'm trying to stimulate them to do good." According to QZ, Chen compared himself to Lei Feng, a selfless soldier in the People's Liberation Army that became China's national hero. This controversial stunt is the latest in Chen's string of exploits (which included trying to buy The New York Times, and after failing to do so, the Wall Street Journal.) Regardless of his intention, the lunch seems to be real (Chen promised that he'd sing "We Are The World" during the meal). POLL: Would you go to lunch with this Chinese tycoon?
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| The Rebuttal of Schrödinger's Cat Posted: 19 Jun 2014 06:00 PM PDT Sarah Donner takes the role of Schrödinger's cat as she sings about the multiple states of existence. As you may well know, cats have an uncanny intuitive understanding of quantum physics. After all, Schrödinger's theoretical cat had nine theoretical lives! The music video was filmed at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory. Donner left a comment: “No physicists were harmed in the making of this video.” She is thinking outside the box, so to speak. -via The Mary Sue | ||||||||
| Award-Winning Animated GIFs by Micaël Reynaud Posted: 19 Jun 2014 05:00 PM PDT 
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| Who's The Coolest Movie Monster Of All Time? Posted: 19 Jun 2014 04:00 PM PDT Movie monsters started out huge, shrank down small enough to fit in your toilet then grew to massive proportions once again, yet no matter the size of the monster there are fans who will line up to see their latest on-screen appearance and continue to hail their choice for king of the monsters. Screen Junkies host Hal Rudnick sat down with two guys who know a whole lot about movie monsters- Roger Barr, founder of I-Mockery, and horror filmmaker Eben McGarr, to discuss the coolest movie monsters of all time. Check it out and see if any of your favorite big screen baddies made their list! -Via Laughing Squid | ||||||||
| Missing Cat Returns Home Thirteen Years Later Posted: 19 Jun 2014 03:00 PM PDT A cat named Shelby that went missing from an Australian family's home thirteen years ago returned to their front doorstep recently, with severely matted fur and a lice infestation. The mother of the family took the seventeen-year-old cat, which she thought was a stray, to her veterinarian's office for treatment. It was only then, as she sat in the office, that she wondered if the cat could possibly be Shelby. After an old photo comparison to the cat's markings and the opinion of the vet, the cat was considered to be their long-lost pet after all. Shelby's return was a happy occasion for everyone in the household — except for their other pet cat! Via Laughing Squid. | ||||||||
| Man Wearing a Suit Made of Mentos Drops into a Tank of Coke Posted: 19 Jun 2014 02:00 PM PDT When you mix Diet Coke and Mentos candies together, an explosion results. Physicist Tonya Coffee published a paper in the American Journal of Physics explaining why this happens. New Scientist summarizes Coffee's findings:
The phenomenon scales nicely. With enough Mentos and Diet Coke, you can build a rocket car. Or, like Harley Morenstein of Epic Meal Time, you can wear a full-body suit made of Mentos candy, sit over a dunk tank filled with Diet Coke, and go for a swim. -via Geekologie | ||||||||
| Heaven Holds No Grudges - Blissfully Funny Posted: 19 Jun 2014 01:00 PM PDT Heaven Holds No Grudges by mip1980 The bear and the mountain man found they were able to laugh about the entire situation when they found themselves thrust together in heaven, but putting the two back together again on Earth took the skills of an accomplished taxidermist...and a whole lotta duct tape. Everything is better in the great beyond, according to this Heaven Holds No Grudges t-shirt by mip1980, slip it on and share the laughs! Visit mip1980's Facebook fan page, Tumblr and Twitter, then head on over to his NeatoShop for more hilariously original designs:
Are you a professional illustrator or T-shirt designer? Let's chat! Sell your designs on the NeatoShop and get featured in front of tons of potential new fans on Neatorama! | ||||||||
| Clever Toilet Paper Ad Lets Customers Try Different Rolls Posted: 19 Jun 2014 01:00 PM PDT | ||||||||
| Posted: 19 Jun 2014 12:00 PM PDT Do you recall The Camp Gyno? Now HelloFlo, a company that sells menstrual supplies, is back again with a new ad about a girl’s first period, and the party her mom throws to celebrate it. Technically safe for work, but be warned that there are plenty of jokes and imagery you might not want to share with your boss or co-workers. You'll never look at Florida the same way again. -via Buzzfeed | ||||||||
| The Teenager Who Went to Prom in a Burlap Dress Posted: 19 Jun 2014 11:00 AM PDT
Prom dress made out of duct tape? That's been done ... but what about prom dress made out of potato sack? Now that's a fashion statement! Courtney Barich said no to fancy prom dress and yes to making one out of burlap - basically a glorified potato sack - in order to raise money for charity. The 18-year-old teen from Surrey, British Columbia, Canada, got inspired when looking for a prom dress and saw that the one she liked was $700. "We were driving in the car and I felt kind of selfish for how much it cost," Barich said to TODAY, "My mom said, 'You would look good in anything, even a garbage bag or a potato sack.' And the idea kind of grew from there." In her website, Barich posted a challenge: "I will give up the glitz and glam of a beautiful grad dress and I will wear a Burlap dress to grad instead, if I can get $10,000 in much needed donations to help [St. Martin De Porres Orphanage in the Philippines]". Barich and her classmates had visited the orphanage on a summer's trip, and the experience had touched her. "It was definitely an eye-opener to see all the poverty, from the houses they live in to what they eat. All the kids were walking around with no shoes," she said. "It was very sad. I came back grateful." It was a double win for Barich: she reached her goal to raise the money for charity, and thanks to a collaboration with Suman Faulkner of Lata Design, the dress came out gorgeous:
Read more about the teenager who went to prom in a burlap dress over at TODAY. | ||||||||
| Wonderful Friends Help a Blind and Deaf Man Experience a Live Soccer Game Posted: 19 Jun 2014 10:00 AM PDT Hélio Surdos's friend Carlos is deaf, blind, and a huge soccer fan. As a result of his sensory limitations, he's been largely left out of the excitement of the World Cup in Brazil. One morning, Hélio woke up with a great desire to help Carlos follow a soccer match live. So he made a scale model of a soccer field and marked lines with what appears to be a plastic clay. During a match between Brazil and Croatia, Hélio moved Carlos's hands over the board to match the movement of the ball. Regiane, an interpreter, verbally signed the gameplay into Carlos's back. As you can see, Carlos really got into the spirit of the event. The lengthy video embedded above shows how Hélio and Regiane built the board and conducted the event. The gameplay begins at 4:07. Watch a thrilling goal at 9:50 and Regiane's clever use of a vuvuzela at 10:10. -via Huffington Post | ||||||||
| Doggy Reactions to a Human Barking Posted: 19 Jun 2014 09:00 AM PDT This humorous video is made by self-described mentalist and magician Jose Ahonen and comedian Rudi Rok, the same guys who made Magic Tricks for Dogs. In it, they record the varied reactions of various dogs of breeds big and small to great dog imitations by Rok. I'd love to see my two dogs in this situation to see what they would do! Via Twisted Sifter. | ||||||||
| Posted: 19 Jun 2014 08:00 AM PDT Redditor johnfoof proposed to his girlfriend at the Bonnaroo music festival last week. He went prepared, with flyers handed out by other redditors, a guitarist to serenade her, friends to capture the moment in pictures and video, and a crowd presenting flowers to her, which distracted her long enough for him to get down on one knee. See the video of the event at Uproxx. | ||||||||
| The Furriest Fight Of The Century - World War Cute Posted: 19 Jun 2014 07:00 AM PDT What’s the most effective weapon to use while waging war, a weapon that very few people on the planet are capable of defending against? CUTE- the ultimate weapon against mankind, the power of perfectly large facial features and tiny proportions colliding in one adorable, fuzzy form. But what if cute critters used their powers of adorability against each other? You’d end up with World War Cute, an in-house war that has every cat, dog and bird up in arms, ready to go full blown nuclear against their fellow pets. Dawww, look at the little kamikaze birdy, isn't he cute?! -Via Animation Domination High-Def | ||||||||
| Posted: 19 Jun 2014 06:30 AM PDT Hey look! It's time for our collaboration with the wonderful What Is It? Blog! Do you know what the terrifying object in this picture is? It doesn't really matter if you do, because we are looking for the funniest guesses. You can win a t-shirt from the NeatoShop! But first, read the rules: If you guess the correct answer, you'll get a big pat on the back. | ||||||||
| A Sink Strainer That Won't Leave Your Fingers Filthy Posted: 19 Jun 2014 06:00 AM PDT Sink strainers are critical for keeping your pipes clean, but no one wants to empty them out because the stuff inside is just utterly disgusting. But with the Tweak, you can pick up the strainer, squish the material into a cone and then flip out the gunk inside to empty it out. The peice comes in two different sizes and a variety of colors and is so far only available on Kickstarter, where it has reached its funding goal four times over. See more pictures at Homes and Hues: The Tweak Aims to Keep Your Hands Free From Nasty Sink Slime | ||||||||
| To Russell, My Brother, Whom I Slept With Posted: 19 Jun 2014 05:00 AM PDT
January 27, 1968, wasn’t the best night for a performance. Cleveland was in the thick of a serious ice storm, making travel near impossible. The 30-year-old was about to record the most important show of his career, and no one was there to laugh. With no other options, Cosby delayed the set until it seemed the last of the stragglers had arrived. The scene that followed is a staple of comedy lore. As he took the stage, a lone woman entered the hall and walked the length of the aisle, the click-click of each step reverberating through the room. Cosby stepped up to the mike, cupped his hands around it, and boomed, “You’re late.” It brought the house down. The routine Cosby was about to perform—immortalized on the landmark album To Russell, My Brother, Whom I Slept With—represented a turning point in his career. A full 16 years before The Cosby Show debuted, the performance would serve as the blueprint for the themes that would define his work: the father as a loving disciplinarian; the siblings who could switch from screaming at one another to plotting together at the drop of a hat; the confidence that no matter what conflicts and tragedies arise, the bonds of family will hold. In To Russell, Cosby didn’t just find his voice; he tapped into something deeper. Early Work
Cosby had never seriously considered a career in comedy until college, when the part-time bartender noticed that his jokes were improving his tips. He began performing at small clubs, first in the Northeast, then around the country. By 1968, the comic had recorded five albums in five years and made waves costarring on the TV show I Spy. Cosby’s acting debut was especially remarkable. With James Bond films spinning box-office gold, I Spy was NBC’s attempt to capitalize on the action genre. The show followed two undercover agents—one was white and the other, black. The latter made it historic. The show turned Bill Cosby into the first African-American costar in a dramatic TV series, but it did it without making race a focal point of the plot. As Cosby told reporters, “People can see I’m a Negro. We don’t need to say anything else.” Offscreen Story TimeCosby’s material was evolving in other ways too. To Russell was the first of Cosby’s stand-up albums to fully embrace storytelling and characters over straight jokes. It showcased his talent for discussing his early life. And the album remains the purest distillation of what would become Cosby’s trademark style. When Cosby finally stepped onto the Cleveland stage and looked into the crowd, he was a long way from the Germantown projects where he’d started. The first words he speaks on the record show him adjusting to the grand surroundings. “Is it all right up top there? Not you guys down here—I’m talking to the $1 people up there.” Cosby was about to perform comedy magic: making an unfathomable experience feel familiar. But first he wanted to make sure everyone had a clear view. The structure of To Russell is an almost perfect look backward and forward at Cosby’s career. On the first side (originally released as a 12-inch record), Cosby tackles general subjects—sports, human nature, and his young family—over four short tracks. There’s little difference from his previous albums, though he displays an increased confidence. Cosby had worked hard at perfecting his craft, and he’d already won four straight Grammys for Best Comedy Album. Year after year, he’d beat out comedy heavyweights including Don Rickles, George Carlin, Lenny Bruce, and the Smothers Brothers. With To Russell, he’d continue his streak. It’s impressive that this album isn’t the best-known or even the most popular of the 21 Bill Cosby has released—that would be 1982’s Himself. Still, critics seem to circle around it. In 2011, Spin declared To Russell number one on its list of the 40 Greatest Comedy Albums of All Time. And it’s had a clear impact on generations of comedians who’ve listened to it as a kid. Ray Romano said it changed his perception of what comedy could be. “This guy just appealed to me, this guy just talking,” Romano said. “It wasn’t setup and punch line; it wasn’t jokes—this seemed more organic to me.” From Chris Rock to Jerry Seinfeld, there are few comics who don’t cite Bill Cosby as a hero or, at the very least, an influence. And much of that can be traced back to the second half of To Russell. Almost twice as long as any other bit Cosby recorded, the nearly 27-minute title track is as much a one-man play as it is a stand-up routine. Cosby performs the dialogue between him, his brother, and his father with nearly no commentary or asides. He masterfully sets up the apartment, a two-bedroom in Philadelphia public housing: “walls so thin you could hear a fly in the other room crawling on it.” He introduces his parents, building up his father as a huge, intimidating character before setting the scene: “the bedroom, pitch-black. There’s a small bed with two brothers in it. They’re both sleeping in what once was a crib. They’ve both outgrown the crib, the sides have been taken down. Now it is a bed.” It’s clear his family is poor, but that’s merely a small detail in the greater story Cosby sets out to tell.
At the mention of that belt, before the audience has a chance to get uncomfortable, Cosby breaks character, confiding that “we had never seen the belt, but we had heard about it. The belt was nine feet long, eight feet wide, and it had hooks on it, and it would rip the meat off your body if it ever hit you.” Cosby makes it clear that while dad might yell, he was all bark—the perfect comedic aside. Talking about being a kid and getting in trouble sounds easy. Anybody can do it because everyone’s been there, right? But Cosby’s casual tone and the universal subject matter are deceiving, hiding an incredibly nuanced act that turned the experience of a poor, black, inner-city child into something familiar. In the years to come, the depth of Cosby’s intention surrounding race would become a hidden hallmark of his work. While filming The Cosby Show, he employed a psychiatrist to ensure that his show tackled important issues without promoting negative stereotypes. He often replaced references to schools like Oberlin or Yale with Morehouse or Howard to put a spotlight on the nation’s finest black universities. And he filled the screen with references to African-American culture—from the art on the walls to the theater veterans and jazz musicians whom he worked into the plotlines—all in the hopes of subtly shifting America’s views on race. In the process, Cosby became an ambassador for something bigger than just the black experience. As Karl Rove, an unlikely spokesman for The Cosby Show, told Fox News, “It wasn’t a black family. It was America’s family.” For Bill Cosby, that carefully plotted trajectory traces back to one album. “This guy just talking” is what made To Russell a classic. More than the controversy or subject matter, what it truly showcased was a comedian hitting his stride and moving beyond what was expected of a stand-up. It was Bill Cosby proving that sometimes the funniest comedy is the simplest: a well-told story that everyone can relate to.
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View more designs by 
The industrial (for lack fo a better word) bag contains 3 kg or 6.6 lb of Cheetos.
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When Bill Cosby peeked out from behind the curtain at Cleveland’s Public Auditorium, he saw a performer’s nightmare. The 10,000-seat venue was the biggest the young comic had ever played, and minutes before showtime it was rife with empty seats.
Bill Cosby grew up in the projects of the Germantown district of Philadelphia. His family crammed into a tiny apartment, where the four Cosby boys fought for every inch of space. As the years passed, Cosby’s father, a welder, fell into a deep alcoholism. By the time Cosby was 9, his father had abandoned the family for life in the Navy. Cosby’s mom, a maid, worked hard to make ends meet, but as the eldest of the boys, Bill picked up the slack. When he wasn’t shining shoes and pocketing cash from odd jobs, he was tending to his brothers. Once asked whether he had a happy childhood, Cosby responded, “It will be—onstage.”
was another story. As the premiere approached, NBC execs openly worried about losing sponsorships and affiliate buy-ins. But when I Spy finally aired, only five affiliates refused to broadcast the series. Advertisers didn’t flinch. All of the real-life controversy surrounding Cosby seemed to have little impact on his act. At that time, Cosby was still trading in the sorts of observational humor most stand-ups were doing. His prominence made him a target, however. Within the black community, he was criticized for not confronting racial issues. The truth was, Cosby had made a conscious decision to ignore race and stick to topics that were universally relatable. But not because he wasn’t interested in challenging stereotypes. “A white person listens to my act, and he laughs, and he thinks, Yeah, that’s the way I see it too,” he said. “OK. He’s white. I’m Negro. And we both see things the same way. That must mean that we are alike. Right?”
The story he focuses on is instantly relatable: two young brothers forced to share a small space, bouncing between scheming together, lying to each other, and outright battle. When Cosby punches his younger brother in the eye, he quickly shifts from antagonist to friend, offering to rub it until it feels better. But when his brother threatens to tell their father, Cosby makes it clear: Russell fell out of the bed. Nobody hit anybody. It’s a perfect encapsulation of what it’s like to be a kid, trying to balance budding empathy with an inherent sense of selfish self-preservation—especially when it comes to avoiding the wrath of big, scary dad one room over, the same dad who threatens to “come in with the belt” if they don’t keep quiet.
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