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Hannibal Buress is clearly sick of talking about Bill Cosby. Tired of having his name linked to the disgraced former sitcom star.

And he's still somewhat surprised that a joke he told about rape allegations against Cosby seemed indirectly — or, perhaps, directly — responsible for dozens of women coming forward with stories about how they had been sexually assaulted by Cosby. And Cosby being charged with a 2004 sexual assault — charges his lawyers are trying to have dismissed.

Like all standup comedians, Buress was looking to make a name for himself. He never thought he'd do that with a bit about Cosby in an October 2014 performance in Philadelphia. It was, after all, a bit he'd been using for several months.

But this time, the bit was captured in a grainy cellphone video posted online by an audience member. And it went viral.

Buress pointed to Cosby's habit of moralizing — " 'Pull your pants up, black people, I was on TV in the '80s. I can talk down to you because I had a successful sitcom.'

"Yeah, but you raped women, Bill Cosby, so that kind of brings you down a couple notches."

Buress added that he "wanted to at least make it weird for you to watch 'Cosby Show' reruns."

In the wake of the scandal, it's hard to find those reruns.

Buress acknowledged that many people thought he was "making it up" — that the Cosby rape joke was just a joke. "Trust me, if you leave here, Google 'Bill Cosby rape.' That [expletive] has more results than 'Hannibal Buress.' "

Then that video went viral, and suddenly the women started coming forward. And it seemed the entire nation was talking about Cosby as a sexual predator.

Appearing to promote his new Netflix standup special — "Comedy Camisado," which begins streaming Friday, Feb. 5 — Buress was quick to point out, "I do a lot of other [expletive].

"It's weird that that happened like that, because I was calling a bunch of other comedians 'rapist,' and that was the only one people took seriously," he joked.

Two fellow comedians (who also have upcoming Netflix specials) jumped to Buress' defense.

"Many, many people knew him as an excellent comedian before" the Cosby joke," said John Mulaney.

"Yeah, I can speak for the comedy community," said Patton Oswalt. "Hannibal is doing fine without that. He'd be sitting there now if that had not happened, because he was on a trajectory as far as material and as far as being bulletproof as a comedian."

And Buress seems determined to put his part in this drama to rest in "Comedy Camisado." The "situation" comes up near the end of the special,

"I was just doing a joke at a show! I didn't like the media putting me at the forefront of it," Buress says. "They were sly, dissing me in the news — 'UNKNOWN comedian Hannibal Buress.'

"Who knew that an offhand joke about Cosby raping would lead to me having amazing consensual sex across the country?"

Scott D. Pierce covers television for The Salt Lake Tribune . Email him at spierce@sltrib.com; follow him on Twitter @ScottDPierce.