An unworthy Cos

(Chris Britt)

(Steve Benson)

Not intending a Juxtaposition here, just two takes among several, and I think the two that place it in the best perspective at least for my thoughts.

Let's get something out of the way from the start: Yes, he's innocent until proven guilty. But there's a big difference between "He said; She said" and "He said, They said."

Anyway, I'm not here to advocate anything in the juris prudence area, though I certainly believe that, no, we shouldn't have one system for the rich and famous and another for the rest of us poor stiffs.

But that's beginning to cut both ways.

I supported Minnesota running back Adrian Peterson not for what he did but for the simple fact that it's tragically common for abused kids to become abusive parents. You need to intervene and stop the cycle, but not with a rope and the nearest tree.

I'm not sure he's being held to a higher standard because he's famous. It's more that, because he's famous, people who are supposed to observe professional standards of discretion are putting his family's business in the street.

Which is complicated by this factor: I'm aware that small-town life includes growing up with a wider spectrum of friends, so that, while my own life was pretty Ozzie-and-Harriet, I had close friends raised with "go cut a switch" as a given. And considerably worse.

Some swore they'd never be like that. Others grew up to be exactly like that.

I'm aware, too, of the other side of that thing about hometowns and perspective, which is that city people are more apt to grow up among people who are very much like themselves.

To which my response in this situation is that people who have never seen that side of the world really need to STFU and respect the professionals who do get it and who want to break the cycle. If you want to change the system, give them more resources so they can reach more families more effectively.

Only now it seems -- thanks to yet another violation of confidentiality -- that Peterson didn't say, "I realize it was wrong and I want to break the cycle" and so is being (further) punished in part for his lack of remorse. And in part to try to save Roger Goodell's job. At which point, they can both go to hell.

At least Adrian Peterson was only famous for his athletic ability and wasn't being held up as the World's Greatest Dad.

Which brings us to Mr. Pudding Pops.

Steve Benson is direct, and his two-panel Jekyll-and-Hyde take reminds me of Matt Bors' insistence that, if you dig beneath the cover of a preacher who rants about the evils of homosexuality, you'll surely find a repressed, closeted hypocrite. 

Chris Britt is more subtle, and would have been even moreso if he'd simply shown the sweater unravelling instead of spelling out the word. But his point is more about the disillusionment and less about the hypocrisy, and I think thats more to the point.

The problem I have with Cosby is not that he asked young black men to pull up their pants when he had an issue with his own. And I don't have a huge problem with him criticizing other comedians for working blue.

Nor was I ever bothered that he wasn't Dick Gregory or Godfrey Cambridge, who didn't work blue but sure worked black.

But now you're getting warm, because I'm not sure who he wanted to be and I don't think he was, either, and that may be how you hold yourself up as the World's Greatest Dad and Swellest Fella.

He shoulda stuck to being Noah and Scotty.

I was a huge fan of both. My buddy Bill and I memorized his first two albums, and I remember laughing uproariously at his stories of lying in bed listening to his father snore and timing his breath along with the old man, saying, "Come on, Dad! Breathe, so we can breathe!"

But while I could laugh over his memories of Dad's belt, there was an unpleasant edge to his later, oft-repeated gag line about his own kids, "I brought you into this world and I can take you out."

That crossed a line, and when The Cosby Show began, I felt the same way about some of his interactions with Theo. He didn't hit him with a belt, but he sure laid into him with the hostile sarcasm, and, in fact, came across as kind of a dick.

Ward Cleaver often spoke in haste and had to apologize, and even on "Father Knows Best," Jim Anderson didn't always know best, but I began to notice that any errors Cliff Huxtable ever made were either inconsequential or someone else's fault.

Unlike "The Honeymooners" or "All in the Family," not only was there no reason for this successful physician to be bitter about life, but there was no redeeming MOS at the end, because, in this sitcom, the hostile blowhard was the hero.

The day I stopped watching and got off the Cosby bandwagon altogether was the episode in which his wife, just out of law school, argued and won her first case in court.

Cliff was sitting in the back of the court for the trial, and a courtwatcher sitting next to him observed that Claire was an extremely sharp young attorney. Whereupon, without revealing that he knew her, Cliff bet the man that he could score with her.

Then, when the trial ended, he walked up to the front of the courtroom, spoke to her briefly, they hugged a moment and walked out together and he winked at the courtwatcher.

The joke being that he had fooled the guy so that he no longer saw Claire Huxtable as a smart, attractive attorney but as just an easy piece of ass.

How many women Cosby saw through that lense seems a little beside the point, but I guess we're finding out.

 

Speaking of Domestic Comedies

After 32 years of drawing "The Better Half," Randy Glasbergen is stepping away to concentrate on his other work, and King Features has decided to retire the 59-year-old strip, with the last one running Nov 30. 

He did nice work with it, but if he's not interested anymore, well ...

There is an "any man's death diminishes me" element whenever a print comic is put to rest, but I can't mount a vigorous defense of this one and assume that, if KFS felt they could, they'd have brought in a reliever from the bullpen.

 

  

And I liked Glasbergen's piece at GoComics this morning, which more reflects his personal work, so being freed of framing the mandatory daily interaction between Stanley and Harriet should give him more time to play in other setups.

This happens to also be male/female interaction, but they're on a first date, not married forever, while his other work is far more wide-ranging.

For instance, this office setting gag currently featured on his website, where you'll find other topics as well.

He's been on CSotD before and I'm sure he'll be back.

 

 

Comments

[WVFran]

"If you want to change the system, give them more resources so they can reach more families more effectively." AMEN.

[Randy Glasbergen]

I decided not to renew my contract for The Better Half because my primary business (Glasbergen Cartoon Service) requires 150% of my work time these days. KFS was my biggest single client, but as Glasbergen Cartoon Service has grown over the years, TBHalf became a smaller piece of a bigger pie. With all the controversy over "legacy strips", KFS decided it was better to fill my slots with their other features instead of getting editors to accept a new cartoonist to create The Better Half panels. (Plus I'm not dead, so I'd be pissed if someone else started drawing in my style!) You can still find "Glasbergen Cartoons" and "Thin Lines" on GoComics, plus my cartoon-of-the-day @ www.glasbergen.com