During his November 6 stand-up gig at all-boys' Verbum Dei High School in Watts, comedian and actor Bill Cosby had the overflow gym crowd of 1,500-plus in stitches with his arsenal of recalled childhood voices and dead-on facial expressions he's honed since the early '60s.

But the 71-year-old author and activist, who happens to hold a doctorate in education from the University of Massachusetts, also challenged adults to take parenting seriously and students to refrain from sex and attend college.

With the slightest hint of a grin, he observed, "Parenting is very tricky," standing on a black stage under the "Home of the Eagles" scoreboard. "Children lie, but in their lying they act like parents don't have any sense at all. They lie like, 'Well, she'll never go over that part of it.' And then they're surprised when you do."

Cosby, who grew up in Philadelphia, recalled how his mother knew by heart every item of clothing he had. Yet one day he stole a pair of socks from his best friend's drawer and proudly wore them until his mom marched him over to his buddy's home for an embarrassing public confession and apology.

"We have to teach our children to recognize and taste the fruits of education, of love, of respect and responsibility - and the love, right now, of being different," he declared when the laughter died down. "That's love! That's love! Just be different. Because you're going to get people coming at you: 'Boy, you think you're somebody.'

"You don't have to pick a fight with them," he advised. "Look at who's telling you you think you're somebody," he said, staring out at students in white shirts and dark ties packing the gym's floor on a Thursday evening. "You young men, there's a difference in your faces because you are here."

With regards to sex, the actor, who played Dr. Cliff Huxtable on the popular TV sitcom "The Cosby Show" from 1984 to 1992, pointed out that when children are depressed they want to feel good. And two ways they do that is by over eating and human contact.

"So you young men, I want you to just think about yourselves as fathers first, not trying to 'get some,' but as fathers first," he urged. "Because if you graduate from here and you go onto college, you've got to make the case: Are you still a fool? You've got to be a man. You've got to make a change. You've got to be there for your children. That's what love is."

The creator of the humorous educational series "Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids" also maintained that adults and kids can't possibly understand "what a family can be about with profanity flying all over the place." He stressed that swearing and cursing have no place around children and in a "home of happiness."

Moreover, Cosby exhorted young people to think about teaching as a rewarding career. "If you want to make a change in the world, teaching is a profession," he said. "You don't join this profession because you get more money for teaching third grade than you do in first. It doesn't work that way.

"But you will see changes in young men and young women when you become that person who's involved with them. And after a while, you'll see them turn."

He also asked everyone to support urban Catholic schools, which he noted were closing in many cities across the country. Keeping these academic institutions open was critical if children were going to "learn how you learn," he said.

Finally, Bill Cosby challenged students to follow the example of their new president-elect and his wife, both graduates of Harvard Law School.

"We all applaud now for our new hero," he said. "But when you look at the message that our new hero and his hero wife have laid down, it says, 'Work!' It says, 'Work!' This man did not win on affirmative action. He ran a campaign, and he stayed on the road. His wife stayed on the road.

"First they called him an elitist. Then they called him a socialist, and they don't even know what socialism is. How the hell are you going to be an 'elitist socialist?' They threw everything at him."

After awhile, in a more reflective voice, he added, "So Barack Obama is teaching you all. This is a special time. There's no excuses."