Happy Father's Day. An AMA with Bill Cosby. Ask me anything.

I feel like I'm in the doctor's office, and they put the EKG on your chest, and they're saying "you're doing fine, it's all pumping well."

Tell me, Mr. Cosby, what's the darndest thing you've ever heard a kid say?

And how does it feel to be the second greatest dad in the world? (Sorry, mine comes first)

Edit for the screenshot: shout out to Papa Kidd of the LC. Happy Father's Day. Go Vols. Enjoy the Single Barrel.

It was in Greenfield, Mass, a small town not too far from our home. And the Bart Simpson show had made quite a name for itself on TV, it was high in the ratings, and I was walking down main street in Greenfield, and a Bart Simpson-sized kid on a two-wheeler bicycle saw me, and his face turned to surprise, and he used a profanity just like one would think Bart Simpson would say. Hehe! And it was like, you know, the profanity, and he couldn't believe that Bill Cosby was right there, and it was shock, but he used the profanity, and I did a knee-jerk and I said "you watch your filthy mouth!" and he drove off. But he was yelling "I just saw Bill Cosby!"

Well, considering that yours is first, I'm very happy to congratulate him on all the bills he's paid, and for not sending me any.

If you could meet three other Bill's, who would they be?

Oh my goodness. Not fair. Bill Russell (I've already met), Bill Clinton, and Bill Shakespeare.

Would you ever consider doing a reunion episode of The Cosby Show? And also this always bothered me, why was it called The Cosby Show since your last name was Huxtable?

EDIT: Also Happy Father's Day!

No, thank you. Those people are too old now.

Brand, brand, brand! This started with my first TV show, the Cosby show. Then I had a variety show, called Cos. Then another show called the Cosby Show, and another show, and I've always argued that you see, there's this name Cosby that they know will attract an audience as opposed to the so-and-so's that will have to start all over.

Hello Bill and Happy Father's Day!

Considering that you based the character Little Bill on your son Ennis, which of Little Bill's qualities most resembles that of your son when he was a young child? Also, which Little Bill story has the most interesting background story behind it?

All of the characteristics of Little Bill include Ennis and Big Bill (I am Big Bill - my memories of around that age). The second part of your question, I think that it's important to take on the life of the child, so that you can see whether or not a children is growing in a manner that you want. And it's up to the parent to work with that. So for me, the one where the baby came, and Little Bill was told that he could not come near it or touch it and he was beginning to feel rejected- so when I go bak to the earlier part of the parenting aspect and the behavior of the child, what you see in that particular episode is that child doing these sort of "oops" things - things like staying outside and doing headstands, he knows he's making noises and doing things that the baby will wake up and he can hopefully see the child. Hopefully then he will be allowed to come in and see the child.

Hey Mr Cosby thanks for doing this, I was wondering what do you think Cliff Huxtable would be up to in today's world?

He'd be retired. And she would be retired. And right now they would be somewhere in the south of France, and he would be hiding at a bakery in the morning having two croissants and blueberry jam.

Dear Mr. Cosby,

Happy Father's Day! I'm a big fan. I grew up watching The Cosby Show and listening to my dad's vinyl copies of your stand up. He is a big fan too. I've always admired you, and I know you're a wise man.

My question is what is your best fatherly advice for someone just entering adulthood?

Also, I know you're busy, but twenty years ago my parents adopted me. This is the first year I've come up with the perfect Father's Day present - tickets to your show in November! If it's possible, could you say hi to my dad to make it extra special? His name is Rob. Thank you for doing this AMA!

The first part, and I really mean this - you are entering adulthood. I think you need to make responsibility something that's not just a word. I think you should really go to the people you love, the elders, grandparents, people you know, aunts, uncles, best uncle, best aunt, and you take that word with you. And you say to them: I'm so-and-so years old (I don't know what number in your culture you'd even call adulthood for some people - maybe for some people it's 30 years old, and they look at their room, and they can't even stand it anymore). So ask your family about the word responsibility.

Hello Rob! Sure. But what do I get in return? A hello Bill? I'm listening!

Happy Father's Day, Bill! It is my birthday and I would love a happy birthday from one of my favorite TV fathers!

Oh yeah a question, what's your favorite color?

Don't know. I think, first of all, it depends on if you're wearing it or if you see it, and sometimes my favorite color would be green, which means that we're not in a drought. Sometimes my favorite color might be brown, because we're landing safely. Sometimes my favorite color might be white, because we had a great snow, and the morning I wake up and I see it.

Happy Birthday.

In his Raw special Eddie Murphy tells a story about you calling him up and yelling at him for swearing, and I was wondering if that really happened? link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0aKNwsrtXw

That has already been cleared up many times. And I don't feel like going into it again, but even on Mr. Murphy's side, I'm sure that bygones are bygones.

Hello Bill and thank you for taking time to do this AMA. In the recent years had you ever considered running for office? And if so, was it on a local level or state level?

It would be on no level because my wife cannot survive on that salary!

What tv shows are you watching?

I haven't really been impressed with anything, because I'm 76 and 11/12ths years old. And I just don't have a feeling to want to turn on the TV. I love Link TV.

What is your best memory of your dad?

Heheheh. Let me think of a good one. Ok, here we go: I was about eight years old. And he was coming back from the stove after putting food on his plate. And he came up to the table to sit down, and I decided to see what would happen if i moved the chair out from under him. Yes. And he went down but he never touched the floor and he never spilled any of the gravy! But he did go down. And he stood up quickly, and he looked at me, hehe and he said: "Junior: you don't know what you're doing."

Loved you since I was a kid back in the 70's and think you are one of the greatest comedy minds of our times. Thank you for all the laughs.

My question: What ever happened to the Chicken Heart?

Hehehehe.

It is waiting to be animated, so that you will be able to see it and laugh even harder. Hello, hello, waiting for animators to animate the chicken heart.

What is the joke that makes you giggle every time you tell it?

None! Really. But there are thoughts that move to remembering something - for instance, my granddaughter being surprised by me, seeing me come up the stairs, and she didn't expect to see another human being. She was running out of her bedroom door, and when she saw me, she planted her left leg to stop her, and it continued to move, and I don't know what it was she was trying to say, but it came out with just sounds - and I just dropped to my knees. And I love it, every time I think of it.

Mr. Cosby, as much as I have searched, I cannot find Leonards part 1-5. Please advise?

Yes. I'll be happy to. You cannot find Leonard Part 1 because there is no Leonard Part 1. You will not find Part 2 for the same reason, same with 3, 4 or 5. And for the results of the box office, you will not see a 7. Hehe.

Where did you get all those sweaters from?

The store.

No!

I would wait, we would shoot on Thursdays, I would wait and then the woman who was a professional shopper and coordinator would then lay out what she wanted me to wear. And I would put them on. It's okay to wear clothing like that, because you are an actor, and there's the character, so you put it on. I don't remember wearing - the only ones i ever really WORE in public were the ones from Koos Van Den Akker - and he does patchwork.

Hello Mr. Cosby,

Do you prefer grilling with charcoal or do you use propane?

I don't cook barbecue. But I will recommend Montgomery Ribs in Cincinnati, the Dinosaur in Harlem, the Rendezvous in Memphis Tennessee. I had a wonderful plate from Charlie's in Philadelphia. The end.

But I will tell you this: at a given time, when I know that my blood sugar and everythin' is balanced and my cholesterol will not go past 205, I looooooove to mix Maple Syrup flavored baked beans with long-cut cole slaw. I mean just mix 'em in the same bowl, like the chocolate Jell-O pudding with the tapioca vanilla. Still looking up tapioca.

I'm gonna call my dad in about a half hour. What should I say outside of the typical "Happy Father's Day"?

Also, happy father's day to you, too!

I have no idea how old you are and how many mistake's you've made. Hehehe. Your father is probably going to accept your call. And it's up to you to find something that the two of you have never really talked about, but could enjoy talking about it. And it would probably come from something you said, or did, and the two of you were together - if you could think about something the two of you laughed about, and you bring that up, I think it'll start you rolling pretty well.

Happy Father's Day! What's your favorite book?

Here's the thing: I think you can go to age 9 and then after a while, you're going to have to read something else. But I would recommend, and I don't know how old you are, something like Pride & Prejudice. Something that will give you an idea of the way writers use words, it's very helpful and healthy, and stay with that book. And then there are others, Mark Twain and the way he writes, using our American english to describe what's in his mind.

I grew up watching Kids Say the Darndest Things with my dad. Great times. Thank you.

What was your favorite memory from your time doing that show?

There was a young fellow and his mother and father are from the Islands somewhere. And I asked him "did his mother have a name for him when she was very upset with him?" and he said it, I don't remember it specifically, but it was almost a typical mother saying your full name - middle name and everything, because that's the way my mother used to address me.

Which of your many works has personally had the biggest impact on your life?

Hehehe. Clearly if I walked into the town of Dodge City, and I walked up to the bar, and Martial Dillon came up to me as I'm leaning on the bar and said "Which one of the shows do you feel you did your best job?" and I would say "The Huxtables." The total experience. Acting, writing, it was wonderful.

Hi Mr. Cosby. What's your favorite animal?

Hehehehe. Cobra.

No!

I just don't have one.

I saw a black angus cow on my property. It had wandered from the neighbor's house. And I had a stick, and I became a shepherd.

Bill, always loved your comedy!

What's your favorite cereal? My son would like to know!

I have a doctor, who's an herbalist. And he has found pure unfooled around with wheat. He grinds it. Then he adds ground nuts. Then they're in separate packages. I take 3 tablespoons of the wheat, and bring 4 tablespoons of bottled water to a boil, put the wheat in, and the ground sesame seeds and nuts. And add it until it's very thick. Add 3 tablespoons of plain yogurt, and then a handful of fresh blubeberries.

I eat it alone because nobody likes the look of it.

Thanks for doing this AMA! What has been the most valuable lesson you have learned from the people you have worked with over the years?

When you put questions like this - and this is my answer, I really want this to go out - when you say "the most wonderful" you have to understand that a person, that you live and I don't know, unless you've hit rock bottom in your life, if anybody can really say, "This was THE MOST" - because even if someone said something that motivated you, you would then make perhaps a change in yourself, and then from that point you are going to do something positive, and then someone else is going to say something, because other doors open up. And you move forward. Then there are some things that will happen to you, and you have no clear idea of the strength and the help, sometimes - I think the best answer is: there's a wonderful, beautiful memory, so many things that were said, that I didn't recognize as important, but then, later on in life, because I did hear the saying, it visualized, and as it was happening, the information became a reality, but it wasn't something that happened or made a chance when I first heard it.

What is your favorite thing to do in your free time?

Generally I try to keep it to myself. And I would love to watch Gun Smoke. If I had free time. Uninterrupted by a phone call.

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See, here we go again! I will tell you that narcissistically speaking, nobody in my family gives or purchases and gives gifts better than I, because I take great pride in thinking about the person and generally I'm considered very very good.

Hi bill! Who is your favourite actor that you have ever worked with?

Here we go again! You can't do that to me, I've met so many. To sit on the set, in an elevator, next to Henry Fonda. To watch Frank Silvera, my acting teacher, memorize 5 pages of dialogue and I mean that, without any notification, after lunch, and all he ever said was "I can be ready, I just want to know if I can tie my tie." AMAZING. To be on the phone with Carl Malden - I didn't play in any scenes with him, but just to be able to talk to him. Christopher Plummer, on the Cosby Show. Gloria Foster. It goes on and on.

Hi Bill! I've always been a big fan of yours ever since I was a kid and I've always wanted to know, what is your favorite kind of Jell-O?

CHOCOLATE JELL-O PUDDING.

Sometimes I will mix vanilla tapioca and Jell-o chocolate together. To this day, I have never looked up the word "tapioca."

Dr. Cosby,

I wanted to tell you how much your career has meant to me. You taught me about the power of education and a good work ethic at a time when other comedians were making their living on being big dumb husbands.

What I wanted to ask was this: do you have a sense of optimism about young people? If so, where does it come from?

Thanks for everything. I'm looking forward to your show in a couple of hours!

How young? Young people. Are they 7? Are they 13? Are they 17? Young people.

Rites of passage. We owe it to our fellow human beings to help them stay out of harm's way. Many many young people have so many obstacles and they need instructions. They need wisdom. And some need bodies on them. One of the most interesting situations in parenting is to give instructions to your child that you feel are very very important, pertaining to behavior, manners, pertaining to having work finished before time so you can go back over, believing in the importance of learning and hopefully not being afraid of math, science, etcetera, and then to visit a teacher and have the teacher describe your child in a way that you will say to the teacher "That can't be my child. I didn't bring him or her up that way." Well, with a smile , I say - this is True! for the parent. You probably have given instructions counter to the problem the teacher is showing about the behavior of your child. But we must all remember the time when we were children, and mother or father would give us instructions - how to behave- and we wouldn't tell them the truth. So even as an adult, you do your best job, you think, there's always that counter-behavior. So that when you say to the teacher "That's not my child, I didn't bring them up that way" you have to remember that there's also a possibility after that kid leaves the house, the kid's on their own. And we've all done things similar to that.

Who are we, when our parents are not around?

Favorite topping on a pizza?

Crispy crust. Low sodium red sauce. Natural. Fresh basil. Goat cheese, almost burn it and cut it mediterranean style.

Put chocolate jell-o pudding mixed with tapioca on the top!

Me and my friends love hicky burr! What was it like recording and playing live with quincy jones? I've heard you tell jazz stories in interviews before, did you ever consider making music your career instead of acting?

I sure did. And there was no money in the music. Heh!

good afternoon Mr. Cosby and happy fathers day, im currently pregnant with my first child (boy) im thinking of naming him Nero phoenix what do you feel about that name?

I think that that's your child. You will call it many names in your lifetime.