| 200 M.P.H. | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Live album by | ||||
| Released | October 1968 | |||
| Venue | Harrah's Lake Tahoe, Nevada | |||
| Genre | Stand-up comedy | |||
| Length | 36:15 | |||
| Label | Warner Bros. | |||
| Bill Cosby chronology | ||||
| ||||
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |   [1] |
200 M.P.H. (1968) is the seventh stand-up comedy album by Bill Cosby, and his ninth album overall. It was recorded live at Harrah's, Lake Tahoe, Nevada and released by Warner Bros. Records.
In 1967, Bill Cosby bought a Shelby Cobra Super Snake CSX 3303 from his friend, company founder Carroll Shelby. The car was a 1965 Cobra Competition roadster, retained by Shelby American as a PR car and then modified with the addition of two superchargers and a Ford C-6 automatic gearbox. [2] Only two such cars were built; one was retained by Shelby and the other was sold to Cosby. Side two of this album (side one on the cassette release) is a single routine that focuses on Cosby's love of sportscars and his brief ownership of the Super Snake. The title, "200 M.P.H.", refers to Shelby's boast about the car's top speed; however, Cosby became so unnerved during a test drive that he returned it immediately afterward. Shelby American sold the car to S and C Motors in San Francisco, who in turn sold it to a customer named Tony Maxey. Maxey destroyed the CSX 3303 by driving over a cliff and into the Pacific Ocean; he died from his injuries a few days later. Brian Angliss purchased the vehicle and subsequently restored it. He plans to auction the car off. [2]
In a late-night talk show appearance, Cosby briefly re-told this story and said that he had heard that Jimmy Webb (of "MacArthur Park" fame) eventually ended up with his Cobra.[ citation needed ]
While the majority of Cosby's Warner Bros. standup albums were regularly re-released on LP, and eventually issued on CD in April 1998, 200 M.P.H. was not reissued on vinyl (although it was available on cassette in the '80s). It did not see a CD release until 2005, mainly due to controversy[ citation needed ] over the main sketch's punchline: Afraid that the car was so powerful and hard to control that it would be lethal to the driver, Cosby decided to return it, saying, "Take the keys and this car, it's all paid for, and you give it to George Wallace." Wallace was a well-known pro-segregationist, and was campaigning for the presidency of the United States at the time this album was recorded.
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Mothers and Fathers" | 4:20 |
| 2. | "The Wife" | 1:48 |
| 3. | "The Grandfather" | 4:08 |
| 4. | "Dogs and Cats" | 3:01 |
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "200 M.P.H." | 22:58 |
AC Cars, originally incorporated as Auto Carriers Ltd., is a British specialist automobile manufacturer and one of the oldest independent car makers founded in Britain. As a result of bad financial conditions over the years, the company was renamed or liquidated many times until its present form.
The Shelby Cobra, sold in the United Kingdom as the AC Cobra and Shelby AC Cobra, is a American-British sports car with a Ford V8 engine, produced intermittently in both the UK and the US since 1962.
Carroll Hall Shelby was an American automotive designer, racing driver, and entrepreneur. Shelby is best known for his involvement with the AC Cobra and Mustang for Ford Motor Company, which he modified during the late 1960s and early 2000s. He established Shelby American in 1962 to manufacture and market performance vehicles. His autobiography, The Carroll Shelby Story, was published in 1967. As a race car driver, his highlight was as a co-driver of the winning 1959 24 Hours of Le Mans entry.
Warner Records Inc. is an American record label owned by Warner Music Group and headquartered in Los Angeles, California. It was founded in 1958 as the recorded music division of the American film studio Warner Bros., and was one of a group of labels owned and operated by larger parent corporations for much of its existence. The sequence of companies that controlled Warner Bros. and its allied labels evolved through a convoluted series of corporate mergers and acquisitions from the early 1960s to the early 2000s. Over this period, Warner Bros. Records grew from a struggling minor player in the music industry to one of the top record labels in the world.
Straight Records, self-identified simply as Straight, was a record label formed in 1969 to distribute productions and discoveries of Frank Zappa and his business partner/manager Herb Cohen. Straight was formed at the same time as a companion label, Bizarre Records. Straight and Bizarre were manufactured and distributed in the U.S. by the Warner Bros. Records family of labels, which also included Reprise Records. Straight recordings were distributed in the U.K. by CBS Records.
The Shelby Mustang is a high-performance variant of the Ford Mustang which was built by Shelby American from 1965 to 1968, and from 1969 to 1970 by Ford. Following the introduction of the fifth generation Ford Mustang in 2005, the Shelby nameplate was revived as a new high-performance model, this time designed and built by Ford.
Shelby Series 1 was a high-performance roadster designed by Carroll Shelby and produced by Shelby American.
The Shelby Daytona Coupe is an American sports-coupé. It is related to the Shelby Cobra roadster, loosely based on its chassis and drive-train developed and built as an advanced evolution. It was engineered and purpose built for auto racing, specifically to take on Ferrari and its 250 GTO in the GT class. The original project had six Shelby Daytona Coupes built for racing purposes between 1964 and 1965, as Carroll Shelby was reassigned to the Ford GT40 project to compete at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, again to beat Ferrari in the highest level prototype class. With the Shelby Daytona, Shelby became the first American constructor to win a title on the international scene in the FIA International Championship for GT Manufacturers in 1965. The Shelby Daytona has recently been chosen for historic preservation as a significant vehicle in the history of auto racing.
Charles Wright & the Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band is an American soul and funk band. Formed in the early 1960s, they had the most visibility from 1967 to 1973 when the band had 9 singles reach Billboard's pop and/or rhythm and blues charts, such as "Do Your Thing", "Till You Get Enough", and "Love Land". They are best known for their biggest hit on Warner Bros. Records, 1970's "Express Yourself", a song that has been sampled by rap group N.W.A and others.
David George MacDonald was an American road racing champion noted for his successes driving Corvettes and Shelby Cobras in the early 1960s. At the age of 27 he was killed in the 1964 Indianapolis 500. In his four-year racing career, MacDonald competed in 118 races with 52 victories and 75 top-three finishes.
Zappa in New York is a double live album by Frank Zappa, released internationally in March 1978. It was recorded in December 1976 at a series of concerts at the Palladium in New York City.
Shelby American, Inc. is an American high performance vehicle manufacturer founded by former race car driver Carroll Shelby. The Shelby American name has been used by several legally distinct corporations founded by Shelby since his original shop in Venice, California began operation in 1962. The current iteration is a wholly owned subsidiary of Carroll Shelby International, Inc., a holding company formed in 2003. Carroll Shelby International's other wholly owned subsidiary is Carroll Shelby Licensing, which licenses the name and trademarks associated with Shelby to other companies. Shelby American was the first automobile manufacturer in the state of Nevada. Shelby American manufactures component automobiles, including replicas of the small-block and large-block AC Cobras, the Shelby GT350 and the GT500 Super Snake. Since 2005, Shelby American has released new models each year.
8:15 12:15 is the ninth comedy album by Bill Cosby. It was his first double-disc album. It was also his first record not released strictly by Warner Bros. Records label but by Tetragrammaton Records instead.
Superformance LLC is an American automobile company that builds, designs, develops, engineers and markets sports cars, related performance components and full replicars. The company was founded as "Superformance International Inc." by Hi-Tech Automotive Ltd. in 1996. Today, Superformance has 15 authorized dealers in the United States and 6 international dealers. SPF cars are sold as "turnkey-minus replacers". In December, 2005 Hi-Tech Automotive transferred the ownership of its subsidiary, Superformance, to American Hillbank Automotive Group, which is a privately owned business of American entrepreneur Lance Stander. Hi-Tech Automotive continue to build Superformance cars at its plant in Port Elizabeth, South Africa.
The Best of Bill Cosby (1969) is the 12th album by Bill Cosby.
Apollonia 6 is the only studio album released by R&B vocal trio and Prince-protégés Apollonia 6.
DiscReet Records, self-identified simply as DiscReet, was a record label founded by Frank Zappa and his then business partner/manager Herb Cohen. The name of the label was a pun derived from disc and the Compatible Discrete 4 process of encoding quadraphonic sound signals into phonograph records.
William "Spaceman" Patterson is a guitarist and producer, who has collaborated with Miles Davis, James Brown and Frank Ocean.
Down Under (1975) is the 21st album by Bill Cosby.
Hi-Tech Automotive is a low volume car builder and design house located in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. Most of the vehicles produced are exported, notably to the US and UK. The main distributor of the cars built by Hi-Tech is Superformance. In December 2005 Hi-Tech Automotive transferred the ownership of its subsidiary, Superformance, to the Hillbank Automotive Group, which is privately owned by Lance Stander.