COSBY SCORES WITH THE SIMPLE THINGS OF LIFE

The recorded announcement repeatedly played over loudspeakers near the ticket windows: “No alcohol, bottles, drugs, weapons, food, cans or movie cameras will be allowed inside the amphitheater . . . have a good time.”

Groused one teen-aged patron in mock dismay: “How can we have a good time if we can’t bring any of that stuff?”

Bill Cosby answered her question when, for 100 minutes, he made funny faces, funny noises and funny talk about parenthood, married life, supersonic flight, his dog, skiing, old folks, natural childbirth, his kids and the Book of Genesis, among other things.

All this happened Friday on a cool summer’s night at the Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre, where the drawling star of NBC’s hit “The Cosby Show” delighted the multitudes.

Greeted by loud, joyous whoops and cheers, Cosby could do no wrong, save when he suddenly declared it a night, waved goodby and withdrew. He got a standing ovation but failed to return for an encore or even a bow.

When the house lights went up, signaling that his performance was indeed over, there were disappointed “awwws” aplenty and even a few good-natured boos.

But that was the evening’s only adverse reaction. With the apparent lack of effort that represents years of effort, Cosby kept making them chuckle, then laugh, then roar at his comic stock in trade--bemused exaggerations of the commonplace. Not for him the brilliant mean-streets notes of Richard Pryor, the merry word-play of George Carlin, the zany whizbang of Robin Williams. Nope, Cosby just takes the simple things of life and, in the tradition of Mark Twain, stretches them a bit.

His starting point Friday: kids and how his brood of five changed his life and that of his wife, Camille. He spoke longingly of the pre-children days when he and she could eat dinner “while it was still warm.” Now, he said, her eyes no longer dance, “they dart.”

“Jell-O Pudding!” shouted one pilgrim in the audience, doubtless to show his familiarity with Cosby’s work, at least in commercials.

Many comedians would have demolished the guy with a one-liner. Cosby managed to both snuff the guy and still remain in gentle, whimsical character. “Not yet, sir,” he said. “Now, in the 22 years I’ve been working alone . . . .”

The crowd roared. Working on a bare stage, his only props a plain wood chair and a cigar the size of a trench mortar, Cosby launched into a story about the only two great ad-libs he’s ever gotten from members of the audience in his career.

He somehow veered from that to a gut-bustingly funny tale of his supersonic back-seat ride in a jet fighter as a guest of the Air Force Thunderbirds aerobatic team.

That in turn yielded an aside on those World War II movies where the pilot looks out the cockpit and tells his co-pilot: “There it is, George, at 3 o’clock.”

“Well,” sighed Cosby, “those days are going to be gone soon ‘cause all the guys with digital watches don’t know where 3 o’clock is.”

Then he resumed his flying yarn and segued from there, as is his custom, into a series of digressions and digressions within digressions, always circling the main event--kids--but only really touching down on that near the finale of his night’s work.

The digressions included:

--How the pain of bumping into things at home always seems worse late at night when the house is dark (“I wasn’t walking that fast”).

--The observation that even though all you have to do with a TV remote device is press a button to change channels, viewers always jab it at the TV set when changing channels.

--Marital disputes (“I can go three hours on ‘that’s . . . not . . . what . . . I’m . . . saying’ ” after which his wife “can go two hours on ‘then . . . what . . . is . . . your . . . point?’ ”).

--Why he won’t let his 8-year-old watch MTV, the rock video network: (“She keeps singing ‘Give It to Me All Night Long.’ I call her over, I say, ‘Give you what all night long?’ She says, ‘I dunno.’ I say, ‘Then why do you want it all night long?’ ”).

Although Cosby is said to love improvising, it seemed that some had heard certain of his routines before, either in clubs or from one or more of his 25 comedy albums.

For the most part, Cosby turned in a masterful performance, sort of a verbal version of old pro Honi Cole’s tap-dancing a few years ago in Broadway’s “My One and Only”--impeccable timing and no wasted motion.

There were three routines that came dangerously close to being routine--his discourse on skiing, his comic look at the Garden of Eden and his show-closing account of a visit to the dentist, the last so ancient a topic it qualifies for Social Security. That he got laughs from all of it was a tribute to the man, not the material.

Interestingly, Cosby, although riding the good will and increased success created by his top-rated NBC series, didn’t even mention his show. For that matter, other than MTV, he didn’t even refer to television. Young comics for whom the tube is a major source of material would be well advised to catch his act. It’s based on what is known as real life, not the 21-inch version, and it works.