LE ROY, N.Y. – When he was a young lad, Bill Cosby especially liked the taste of lemon-flavored Jell-O that had been sitting in the fridge for two weeks.

“It was rubbery and chewy! Remember?” the 30-year Jell-O pitchman said Tuesday, giggles rippling through a crowd gathered for his first trip to the small-town museum dedicated to America’s most ubiquitous dessert.

“You say, oh man, there’s an old Jell-O in there. And finally, when you’re by yourself, you say I need something good and you pick it up. And it takes maybe, you know, about three or four days – in your mouth – and then it starts to melt and you say, Oooh, it’s kicking in!”

The fruit-flavored gelatin that the 66-year-old comedian has championed in scores of television and radio commercials since 1974 was concocted by a young carpenter, Pearle Bixby Wait, in this western New York village 107 years ago.

The 7-year-old Jell-O museum, which draws close to 10,000 visitors a year, highlights Jell-O’s versatility, artful marketing and enduring popularity – 13 boxes of “America’s Most Famous Dessert” are sold every second in the United States.

One corner is devoted to Cosby, who is billed as “the longest-tenured spokesman for any brand in history.”

“Before he was paid,” Jell-O was “something that Bill Cosby ate and loved,” said Cosby, holding forth on the museum steps after fourth-graders sang the Jell-O jingle and Nailah Mathews, 7, of West Bloomfield, Mich., performed a contest-winning “Jiggle and Giggle” routine.

“The Jell-O pudding people came to me and said we will pay you to eat this, and I smiled,” he said. “I said, this is a great life. … They’re going to pay me. And pay they did. And eat I did.

“I’m still eating, for different reasons now. I’m being paid but still my doctor says, this is good to have. So right on down to zero and the flat-line, I’ll be eating Jell-O.”

His favorite flavors: chocolate and tapioca.

Cosby praised Jell-O’s staying power, which seems to hinge greatly on its ability to find new forms, in salads, yogurts, snacks and alcoholic drinks. But there are limits.

“Have you seen the beautiful things they do with Jell-O?” he said. “Shredded pieces of carrots and a little mayonnaise going. Julia Child freaks out over these recipes. … I’ve had it every way. I’ve never had it with booze. I don’t like those people, putting vodka in and ruining good Jell-O.”

The museum’s attractions include playbacks of Jack Benny’s Jell-O commercials in the 1930s and EEG printouts of brain waves and their resemblance to electrical waves produced by Jell-O when wiggled.

Wait didn’t get rich off door-to-door sales of his sweet concoction, so he sold the Jell-O trademark in 1899 to the wealthiest man in town for $450. Among those who shook Cosby’s hand was the inventor’s granddaughter, Martha Lapp Tabone, a retired school teacher.

“He said “Pearle who?’ Who is she?”‘ she said, laughing.

At least Tabone always gets into the museum for free. “But usually when I tour it,” she said, “I have a dust rag in my hand.”

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