“I know very little about the peanut.”

And so marked the opening of comedian Bill Cosby’s hilarious performance at Stephens Auditorium Sunday, which kicked off a year-long celebration of Iowa State alumnus George Washington Carver.

“For a scientist to look at the peanut and do the things with it that George Washington Carver did …” Cosby continued. “He must have been very lonely.”

Cosby wooed the sold-out 3 p.m. crowd with opening material about Carver and the lifestyle of “lonely scientists.”

“How far advanced would we be if the world waited for me to do something?” Cosby asked the already roaring crowd of a composite blend of students, parents and grandparents.

The comedian continued into an hour and a half show which focused primarily on the parent-child relationship when a child goes off to college.

Cosby told stories from first person, citing his oldest daughter’s adventures and brilliantly weaving messages about the importance of family into the collection of top-notch jokes.

Beginning from the day his daughter moved out (which is “the first day your parents can clean out your nasty room”) and ending with graduation day (where he stopped abruptly on the ride home and asked his trailing daughter “where are you going?”), Cosby touched on all the right details in between.

One of the handful of highlights was Cosby’s story on how he helped his “straight C student” daughter get into a prestigious East Coast school.

Cosby recited what he told the school’s president when he asked, “Is this the Bill Cosby?” “Yes, it is the Bill Cosby. Hey, hey, hey,” he said in the unforgettable Fat Albert voice he created in the early ’80s.

He drew many jokes from his daughter’s 1.7 grade point average, including an amusing account of his mailman coming to the door with outgoing letters to Yale and other prestigious schools and telling Cosby: “Your daughter’s never going to get into these schools.”

“I gave him a $70 tip that day,” Cosby added.

Another memorable moment was the bluntly stated, but still amazingly humorous: “I have found no research that says drinking until you throw-up is intelligent.”

Entertaining himself as much as the crowd, Cosby also brought up a few of his college stories, including meeting his wife and getting married, which he cleverly defined as “punishment for practicing without a license.”

“Discussing growing old is romantic as long as you’re young,” he added, drawing enormous laughter from the crowd.

Cosby continued to feed off his family for material, including a ditty about being a kid and agreeing with his friends that they would rather “have their mothers beat us than talk to us.”

“You know your mother is upset when she introduces you to your father,” Cosby continued. “‘This is your dad and he’s going to talk to you.'”

Cosby’s routine could not have been more perfect for the occasion.

Not only did a majority of the laughs come from jokes about beginning college, but he also sent a clear, true-to-Carver message of taking charge of your life and doing something with it.

“I salute the teachers of the world,” Cosby said in his final words. “They are the proprietors of hope.”