Mrs. Bill Cosby's Comedy Error

Letters
American Visions *
2101 S Street, NW
Washington, DC 20008-4011
January 21, 1995                                                                                                                                                                                           

Dear Editor:

In an otherwise wonderful and thought-provoking profile of Camille Cosby [Mrs. Bill Cosby] (AV, December/January 1995), I noticed one erroneous statement. When Mrs. Cosby said that "you don't see anything comedic about Hitler" shown on television, she completely overlooked such televised theatrical films as The Producers (1968) and History of the World--Part I (1981) (both films were directed by Mel Brooks) as well as Charlie Chaplin's 1940 comedy, The Great Dictator, in which he has a dual role--as a Jewish barber and a dictator (a Hitler lookalike named Adenoid Hynkel). She also overlooked Hogan's Heroes, the half-hour comedy series about Allied servicemen in a German POW camp, which made the Nazis look like buffoons and incompetents.                                                                                                                                            
Sincerely yours,
Charles Michael Smith

This letter was published in American Visions magazine's April/May 1995 issue.

* American Visions is a magazine devoted to African-American history and culture.