Bill Cosby: 49

For those who have seen BILL COSBY: HIMSELF, this production is done basically on the same principal. Bill is taped doing his great stand up comedy in front of a live audience. Very funny, worth the watch, but HIMSELF is better.

***** out of *****

For anyone who is aging, this is SO on the mark and will keep you in stitches the whole time! Contains stories about getting Trifocals, "losing your mind" and where it goes, appetite and middle age spread, a very long drawn out story about his children and birth control as only Bill can do it.

Since Bill won't put it on DVD/Blue ray, if you no longer have a VHS player (not even this granny does) you can find it on YouTube in 7 parts. It is truly one of his funniest pieces he has ever done (well, except for Noah, and the Jello all over the floor and the monsters, which is why he got the Jello commercials after all.) LOL. Really a priceless classic! Bill Cosby at his absolute best!!

I refuse to debate whether "Himself" was better than "49". All I know is I've seen "Himself" hundreds of times on TV and can't understand why "49" has not even made it to DVD yet (as of Aug. '08). Because this one speaks specifically to the aging process, and I watched it back then when I was in my 20s, I am now 49, and can see that so much of it was true. There must be contractual hangups because last I heard, Cosby is still ratings gold and it must be someone's job to bring these older projects to DVD.

I'm sure the copy guard is intact so making a homemade DVD copy will have to wait until I can catch "49" on cable. But that's just it, I believe the same legalities that must be delaying the DVD must be preventing any airing of this project, because I certainly have been on the lookout over the years. It's a shame.