Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids is an animated series created, produced, and hosted (in live action bookends) by comedian Bill Cosby, who also lent his voice to a number of characters, including the titular one. Filmation was the production company for the series.
Fat Albert first appeared in Cosby's stand-up comedy routine "Buck Buck," as recorded on his 1967 album Revenge. The stories were based upon Cosby's tales about growing up in inner cityNorth Philadelphia.[1] In 1969, Cosby and veteran animator Ken Mundie brought Fat Albert to animation in a one-shot prime-time special entitled Hey, Hey, Hey, It's Fat Albert.
The special, which aired on NBC, was a hybrid of live-action and animation. The music for the special (and later the series) was written and performed by jazz pianist/keyboardist Herbie Hancock in 1969 and was released on the Warner Bros. album Fat Albert Rotunda.
The producers wanted NBC to bring Fat Albert to Saturday mornings, but they refused because the series was too educational. http://www.tvparty.com/satfat.html. So, Bill Cosby and a new production company, Filmation Associates, took the property to CBS.The Fat Albert Gang's character images were primarily created by the artist Randy Hollar with the assistance of one-time Disney animator Michelle McKinney, under the direction of Ken Brown.
The series, now titled Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, premiered on September 9, 1972 on CBS for a 12-year run (however, it was not in continuous production). It also spent another season in first-run syndication in 1984-1985. Several prime-time holiday specials featuring the characters were also produced. Like most animated series at the time, Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids contained a laugh track.
Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids received an Emmy nomination in 1974. Production of the series overlapped with the start of production of Cosby's live-action sitcom, The Cosby Show, which began airing in the fall of 1984.
In 2002, Fat Albert was placed at number 12 on TV Guides list of the 50 Greatest Cartoon Characters of All Time.
Characters
Fat Albert--Voiced by Bill Cosby. The main character in the series, Fat Albert is the heart and soul - and often the conscience - of the Junkyard Gang; though he is depicted as being obese and unhealthy, he remains active through his love of sports, often taking part in different games along with the rest of the gang. Fat Albert works hard to maintain integrity in the gang and with others, and plays bagpipes/accordion (made from a radiator and an airbag) in the Junkyard Band.
Mushmouth--Voiced by Bill Cosby. A chinless, linguistically-challenged simpleton who always spoke in virtual Ubbi Dubbi, tantamount to an overdose of novocaine in the mouth, according to Cosby's "Dentist" monologues. Mushmouth plays a homemade bass guitar in the Junkyard Band.
Dumb Donald--Voiced by Lou Scheimer. A lanky but dimwitted fellow; he always wears a green long-sleeved jersey three sizes too big, and a pink stocking cap covering his entire face except his eyes and mouth. In the Junkyard Band, Dumb Donald plays a trombone made out of plumbers' pipe and a morning glory horn from an old Victrola.
Bill--Voiced by Bill Cosby. A character based on Bill Cosby himself. Like the others, Bill is an all-around good athlete, but more often he spends his time trying, though not always successfully, to keep his little brother Russell out of trouble. In the Junkyard Band Bill plays homemade drums made from a discarded foot-pedal trash can using spoons for sticks.
Russell--Voiced by Jan Crawford. Bill's little brother (named after Cosby's real-life brother, whom he often talked about in his monologues) and the smallest and youngest of the Junkyard Gang. He always wears a heavy jacket, boots and winter hat regardless of the weather. Russell is a frequent antagonist and has a penchant for telling things like they are, much to his older brother's consternation. Russell plays the xylophone in the Junkyard Band (made out of empty cans and a discarded coat rack)
Weird Harold--Voiced by Gerald Edwards. A tall, skinny, beady-eyed kid who always wears a yellowish-brown dress blazer, a brown sock on one foot and a red sock on the other. Fat Albert's best friend, Harold is usually clumsy, except on the basketball court. In the Junkyard Band Weird Harold plays a harp made from bedsprings, and on occasion plays a "dressmaker dummy" in the percussion section.
Rudy Davis--Voiced by Eric Suter. A sharply-dressed smooth-talker and huckster whose smart-alecky attitude is always getting him into trouble more often than out of it. But to his credit, Rudy has a good heart and often learns his lesson. His family is implied to be financially better-off than the others as he is the only Junkyard Band member with a real musical instrument, an electric guitar.
Bucky--Voiced by Jan Crawford. As his name indicates, Bucky has a large overbite. Bucky plays a stovepipe organ in the Junkyard Band.
Recurring characters
Mrs. Bryfogel - The kids' first teacher and mentor, a matronly black woman. In the 'Brown Hornet' and 'Legal Eagle' years, the kids went to a different school where their teacher and mentor was Miss Wucher, a blond Caucasian. (Interestingly enough, both characters were voiced by the same actress, Jay Scheimer, wife of executive producer Lou Scheimer)
Mudfoot Brown - An old sage and unemployed vagrant who gives advice to the gang, often using reverse psychology to get his point across. (Also voiced by Bill Cosby.)
Stinger - The Brown Hornet's beefy sidekick whose gruff exterior masks a soft heart.
Tweeterbell - A female robot assistant to The Brown Hornet and Stinger.
Legal Eagle - Another show-within-a-show, involving a crime-fighting cartoon bird and two lazy squirrel underlings.
Margene - A white classmate and good friend of Fat Albert's. In one episode she and Albert ran for co-president of the Student Council and beat out two other candidates, both of whom were running on platforms of racism (one was black, the other Caucasian). A straight-A student, Margene occasionally got in with the wrong people but always managed to rebound; in another episode she got hooked on drugs, and yet another she got innocently involved in a violent white supremacy cult.
Educational lessons and songs
Fat Albert was honored and noted for its educational content. In every show's opening Cosby would playfully warn:
"This is Bill Cosby comin' at cha with music and fun,
and if you're not careful you may learn something before it's done."
During each episode, Fat Albert and his friends, collectively known as The Junkyard Gang, dealt with an issue or problem commonly faced by young children, ranging from stage fright, first loves ("puppy love"), medical operations, and skipping school to harder, more serious themes (though toned down somewhat for young children) including smoking, Vandalism, stealing, racism, being scammed by con artists, child abuse, drug use, and even gun violence.
At the end of most episodes (there seem to have been exceptions in the case of particularly serious themes), the gang would sing a song about the theme of the day. This sequence, similar to those seen in other Filmation shows including The Archie Show, has often been parodied. The musical sequence was dropped during the Brown Hornet/Legal Eagle years.
Despite the reputation of educational children television series for being unpopular on commercial television, the series enjoyed one of the longest runs in the history of the Saturday morning cartoon timeslot.
Revamps and renames
In 1979, the show was re-titled The New Fat Albert Show and featured a new segment titled "The Brown Hornet" detailing the adventures of a larger-than-lifeAfrican-American crime fighter in outer space whose design resembled a caricature of Bill Cosby, who also performed vocal talents on the character. The way he talked seemed cut off in the middle of his sentences
In 1984, the show was syndicated and renamed The Adventures of Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids. In those episodes, the lack of network restrictions allowed the producer to delve into previous forbidden subject matter such as when the kids have an inadvertent brush with the law and are given a terrifying Scared Straight!-style tour of an occupied maximum security prison. Another new segment was added: "Legal Eagle", a crime-fighting eagle with a pair of bumbling police squirrels. The new episodes ended in 1985.
Cultural influences
In the mid-'90s to early 2000s, Fat Albert and the Junkyard Gang were prominently displayed on clothing from urban clothier FUBU as well as other T-shirt producers.
Animaniacs featured a parody of Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids ("Obese Orson") in the episode "Back in Style", where they mocked Filmation's cheap animation techniques.
South Park featured Fat Albert swearing alot on the TV
Saturday Night Live did a comedy sketch in 1999 entitled Fat Albert: Behind the Music. In the sketch Albert, played by former castmember Tracy Morgan, recalls the downfall of the junkyard gang.
NewsRadio featured an episode ("Zoso") where Beth came up with a scheme to produce face-covering hats with eye-holes like the one Donald wore. Donald was continually confused with Mushmouth by the characters (done intentionally by the writers as a joke) in descriptions of the hat.
In 2005, Mad TV did a spoof of Fat Albert entitled "Morbidly Obese Albert".
Characters based on Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids make a cameo appearance in the first issue of the DC ComicsElseworlds series Kingdom Come as a criminal street gang, where they are apprehended by a Bat-Knight robot.
In "The Mook, the Chef, the Wife, and Her Homer", a 2006 episode of The Simpsons, the Simpson family is introduced to Fat Tony's son, Michael, while carpooling and Lisa quickly befriends the quiet boy after all of the other kids avoid him." Whilst Homer is eating at Fat Tony's mansion, he says that the Italians speak like "that kid from Fat Albert" (Mushmouth), and then imitates how Mushmouth speaks.
In a first season episode of Scrubs titled, "My Day Off", Turk makes a few jokes that J.D. thinks sound like they come from Fat Albert. Each time Turk makes one of these jokes, J.D. imagines Turk and The Junkyard Gang laughing at the joke.
In a deleted scene from Dogma, when a gang threatens to kill Jay and Silent Bob, Silent Bob ends the confrontation by singing the Fat Albert theme song.
The rapper Method Man mentions Fat Albert in his song "M.E.T.H.O.D Man."
In the Entertainment Rights listing, it states that "Series 1" (consisting of both Fat Albert and New Fat Albert) consists of 60 episodes. Therefore, there is one episode missing. It is unknown whether or not this "missing" episode refers to the one-off special from 1969. "Series 2" refers to the 80's syndicated episodes.
DVD releases
Urban Works has released several Fat Albert DVDs including all episodes of the original animated series in 3 volumes, as well as all the Fat Albert specials. Ventura Distribution released a Greatest Hits 4-disc box set and a 5-best episodes set in 2004, while the Urban Works releases came out starting in 2005, after they had obtained the distribution rights to the show. As of 2008, all of Urban Works' DVD releases are out of print.
During the movie theater scene, the screen is not seen but the music and dialogue heard in the film indicate that the movie sounds are reused from an episode of Space Academy (another Filmation show).
Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids - Fat Albert's Greatest Hits: The Ultimate Collection 4 Disc Set: (released December 14, 2004)
Genius Products has reportedly acquired the DVD rights to the Fat Albert series from Entertainment Rights and is currently planning a DVD release sometime in 2008.[2]
Other media
Gold Key Comics did a comic book adaptation of Fat Albert, which ran for 29 issues, from 1974?79.
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