And so, and last but not least, we lost Malcolm Jamal Warner this week, and for the first time, I think ever, we've never featured two od bits, like two people who.
Wrote, you know, appreciations. I wrote one first.
Charles called me when we first got the news, and we remember Malcolm Jamal Warner nineteen seventy to twenty twenty five.
Charles wrote eulogy for a brother.
So Charles, I'll let you go first, man, talk about you know what you the memories you shared, or your feelings around the passing, the tragic passing. I would ask of Malcolm Jamal Warner.
It's kind of ironic because as you were talking about the clips coming in, I was never that hip hop kid like that growing up. I can listen to a lot of things. Matter of fact, I didn't see Printing concert, but I did see Azzie and Uh with Metallica, and before Metallica was big, they opened up for OZI and So. But Malcolm Jamal Warner, Yeah, he's right here. So Malcolm Jamal Warner when he came on The Cosby Show, this was a role that spoke to me because I lived that middle class life.
Not it wasn't in the hip hop world, and I wasn't in, but I was in the middle.
And so a lot of the things that theo Huxtable went through were the things I experienced. I grew up in a house full of women, and he in a house full of women. So I drew a kinship to theo Huxtable and and thereby Malcolm Jamal Warner Malcolm named Malcolm Jamal Warner named after Malcolm X.
And Ama Jamal uh So.
I mean, I I've I've listened to his spoken word, I've listened to I mean, I just followed him all my life. And so when he's like two years younger than me, but I again, to me, he was the brother I never had, because I don't have any brothers, and that was a guy that I was like, I just rock with him. And so when to hear him
pass it was it really hit me hard. It really was a devastating blow because I'm like, that is me, He's he was me, and so a piece of me passed along with him as he you know, even even the whole story about the rip current and how he got caught in it and out there, I've experienced that I was younger and fortunate. But you know, I came out the other side because I just I didn't have the strength to try to fight the rip current and I just got drug drugged out to the sandbar. But
it's it's a terrible loss for me. I don't I don't know about the rest of the world, but as we do our top one one hundred lists, I'm expecting the Cosby Show to be high up now, maybe even higher because of because of this relevant topic.
Here for the record, sir, the Top one hundred list at least the first seventy was completed before.
I know that.
You know, just like, just like we were working the seventy one through one hundred.
We are not working.
We are not reworking one through seventy one through seventy set.
So I will just say so.
Don't be thinking once we like, oh man, I had nothing to do with with Malcolm Jamal Warner, but I can say that.
But I already know what the top one through seventy are, right right, right right, I got you. But tell me what you were feeling when when you heard about this.
I'm just gonna go through a couple of notes that I wrote that were in the piece I called him America's son, because my memory was that.
You know, for as much what's the word to use, as.
Much flack.
And criticism, and rightfully so, that Doctor Cosby has generated over the last ten to fifteen years, people forget and again. I was making a joke earlier about certainties. You know, the album of the year, movie the year. There are a couple of certainties I can make about the nineteen eighties because I.
Lived in the nineteen eighties.
Okay, there's no album that I've seen before or since it will ever top Thriller. Okay, And there's no television show that I've ever seen before or since that will.
Top the popularity of The Cosby Show.
In the mid eighties.
It was literally, it literally was not just the number one black show on television, here's the number one one show on television for like five years.
It made an NBC credible as a network.
Yeah, they created an entire block.
Of programming around saying that.
No, this around the Cosby Show, and they called it must see Thursdays. So all that started with The Cosby Show, and theo Huxtable was a huge part of The Cosby Show, right and you go. But he was the son Yeah.
To Charles's point, he was the only boy in a family full of women, and he was modeled after Bill Cosby's about Mill Cosby's late son Ennis, So a lot of the storylines about fatherhood, a lot of the things that you know, he showed like this, this the way they showed black fatherhood on television through the relationship of doctor Cosby and Malcolm Jamar Warner.
I thought it was brilliant.
That's brilliant, Like, like, it's funny.
I have in my in my thing, there's like three or four clips right of like famous episodes, and like I think it might have been the pilot when you know he told his father he was like, you know, hey, man, you know you got of being hard on me because he was getting bad report conference.
I just want to I just.
Want to be a regular kid. Man. I come, I can't be And everybody clasps in the studio audience.
You know what, Bill Gotsey came back and went, that's the dumbest thing I ever heard.
Don't wonder you getting c's and d's in school. So you had that moment.
What was the name of the famous oh my god, the Gordian Trail shirt when when he goes his father and says, the shirt is ninety five dollars.
He said.
The only kid that should be wearing shirt that's ninety five dollars is he's on stage singing.
With There are all these classic moments, and then the other one.
I'll end with why I says two.
Remember when he had forget his.
Teacher played by Sonya Braga, who came to the house and they you know, he had she had something to give him, and they're having this pleasant evening. She's got she's looking all normal, and she invites Steele out to the living room and as this sitting there talking, she pulls her glasses out and she's putting. So there are so and I and I and and and and Trust me, if you're sitting at home and you're like, man, I can't believe Tim and Charles and Shane is letting them talk about the Cosby Show.
Cosby shit was great.
I'm sorry. I mean what I say, I'm sorry The Cosby Show. It's a fantastic show. You might not like the man whose name is on the show, but you cannot discount, like the importance of that show, what that show actually did for not just black culture, but for the culture, right, just for the culture. So I say
that that Malcolm Jamal Warner represented America's son. I was on a show in Philadelphia and they brought me on to talk about this, and I was like, I never had an opportunity to meet him, never had a chance to interview him. I learned so much about him just this week with all the clips that I've saw on YouTube, and I did. I want to finish with a poem that I saw that Tyreeese.
Row did you read about this? You read this, Shane?
Did you read of this?
The poem is called and I'm gonna read this called the Gentle Giant right, a poem attributed to our beloved brother, Malcolm Jamal Warner. And this is from a couple of days ago. He said, today we lost a gentle giant, a man who won our hearts not by force, but by quiet grace. From the very beginning, Malcolm Jamal Warner reminded us that being calm, classy, sophisticated, and soulful could carry you far in life. He was the soft spoken
strength behind a generation's most beloved show. We watched The Cosby Show and saw for the first time a world many of us had never known a black family made up of doctors, lawyers, artists and thinkers. Wow, a household
rooted in love and education, laughter and dignity. Let me see if I'm reading this and right, I must have skipped the part so it says today we mourn what feels unimaginable, a loss that cuts through nostalgia, through childhood, through what we thought would always be My sincere prayers go out to his wife, to his children, to his family, to everyone who loved him, worked beside him, and walked life with him. This tragedy hits us hard, not just because of who he was on screen, but because of
who he remained when the cameras turned off. We lost more than an actor. We lost the presence a gentle, regal, beautiful soul who walked with dignity and reminded us, especially as black boys and men, that you could be powerful without being loud, important, without being arrogant, respected, without ever demanding it. Today is we sit in that grief, and we say goodbye to a man who gave us more than entertainment. He gave us hope. He gave us another
way to exist. Rest well, Malcolm, you were everything we needed Wow.
Wow.
That was from Tyrese Gibson wrote that dedication to Malcolm Jamal Warner man. So yeah, this one hurts. And not to diminish the families, uh and friends of Chuck Mangioni, Hulk Hogan and Ozzy Osbourne, but Malcolm Jamal Warner was our community, our community rest in peace. I literally hate that we have to keep doing these and one day somebody, you know, it's so funny I was telling I think I was talking to Charles earlier today. You know, I've
been listening to Hamilton a lot. You know, in the back of my mind, I keep thinking about the closing song. You know, who lives, who dies and tells the story? Somebody has gotta tell the story. There are plenty of people who want to tell the story of Malcolm Jamal Warner and all of the folks that we lost.
But I think about it inwardly.
Like, you know, we live our lives and at some point, who's gonna Who's gonna tell our story? Man, who's gonna tell the story of Charles Kirkland Jr. Who's gonna tell the story of Shane Lewis, who tells the Tim Gordon story? So you we have to continue to keep on pressing and hope that we leave enough work behind that somebody can continue to tell our story.
Man right,