"This is Bill Cosby coming at you with music and fun, and if you're not careful, you may learn something before it's done."
Bill Cosby created this
Filmation series, based on his boyhood in
Philadelphia (and, more directly, on his
Stand-Up Comedy routines of the 1960s). Cosby also appeared on camera as a
Narrator and performed some of the character voices, including Fat Albert himself. The show ran
Saturday mornings on
CBS from 1972 to 1984, followed by one additional season in first-run
syndication. In addition to a good income, Cosby also used this series to earn a Doctorate in Education, and become Dr. Cosby.
In every episode, Fat Albert and his inner-city gang became involved in some comic misadventure, either learning
a moral lesson or demonstrating a lesson for someone else. As on
The Archie Show, every
Fat Albert episode included at least one song. In later seasons, Fat Albert and his friends followed the exploits of their favorite TV superhero,
the Brown Hornet, who had adventures with morals that typically paralleled the main story. The first-run syndicated episodes had "Legal Eagle," a
Funny Animal parable told by Mudfoot to serve the same story purpose.
At Christmas 2004,
20th Century Fox released a live-action
Fat Albert Movie feature film starring Kenan Thompson
note The same Kenan Thompson who was on All That, Kenan & Kel, and currently Saturday Night Live in which the cast of the
Fat Albert cartoon step out of the TV to make a little girl's life better. It wasn't well received by critics and the box office.
In January 2013, Cosby announced on his Facebook page that a new version of
Fat Albert is being developed.
Tropes:
- Acrofatic: Fat Albert is surprisingly agile for a person of his size, being able to run extremely quickly and jump very high.
- An Aesop
- Animated Series
- Author Avatar: Bill. Curiously, he was one of the most minor characters — you'd have never guessed he was based on Cosby himself if not for the name.
- As well as the appearance, inflection, and voice actor.
- Board Game: The show had one, with cardboard tokens of the characters stuck in giant plastic sneaker feet.
- Butt Monkey: Rudy
- Catch Phrase: "Hey hey hey!"
- Christmas Special: It somehow managed to combine the Yet Another Christmas Carol and Away In A Manger plots.
- Darker and Edgier: The first-run syndicated episodes were able to get into darker material than the networks would never allow, such as "Busted" with its hard edged prison tour, and another with a murder.
- Deadpan Snarker: All characters to an extent, but Weird Harold in particular.
- Edutainment Show
- Everybody Do the Endless Loop
- Eye-Obscuring Hat: Dumb Donald subverts this trope. His knitted hat falls below his eyes, but he has made two eyeholes in the fabric to see through.
- Fat Comic Relief: Guess who?
- Good Parents: All the parents, especially Fat Albert's, are fine upstanding examples whom the kids can always turn to when needed.
- Intergenerational Friendship: Mudfoot Brown, an elderly homeless man who often imparted sage advice to the gang.
- Limited Animation
- Limited Wardrobe
- Live-Action Adaptation
- Living Crashpad: Fat Albert himself serves as one.
- Long Runners: A 12-season run on Saturday morning network TV and syndication, albeit not always with new episodes each season, a great run for an educational series.
- New Powers as the Plot Demands: In the Brown Hornet segments.
- Present Day Past: Kind of. Since the characters are supposed to represent figures from Bill Cosby's childhood (including his own youthful self), the show ought to be set in the late 1940s or early '50s. It sure looks, sounds and feels like The Seventies, though.
- Scare 'Em Straight: One 1980s syndication episode dealt with a terrifying "Scared Straight"-style tour of a prison.
- Share Phrase: Members of the group, especially Russell, will frequently say "No Class" in response to other members doing dumb things.
- Show Within a Show: The Brown Hornet (a parody of The Green Hornet) and Legal Eagle.
- Stock Footage
- Stout Strength: The title character
- Talking to Himself: Bill Cosby plays several characters, including but not limited to: Fat Albert, himself, an animated younger version of himself, Mudfoot, and the Brown Hornet. At one point, the animated Bill Cosby is on screen at the same time as live-action Bill Cosby in a very literal example of the trope.
- Team Pet: The gang originally had a pet duck as seen in the opening, but the duck was dropped for some reason.
- Thematic Theme Tune: "Naa naa naa, gonna have a good tiiiime!"
- Token White: Margene, a friend and classmate of Fat Albert. In the 1980s version, there are many more such characters.
- Trash Can Band
- The Unintelligible: Mushmouth is understandable, but just barely. Specifically, he speaks Ubbi Dubbi.
- Wham Episode: In one episode, Fat Albert befriends a Latino kid whose older brother is involved in a gang. The kid is later killed when he sees someone pull a gun on his brother and he pushes the brother out of the way, taking the bullet himself. The Scare 'Em Straight episode also qualifies.
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