Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids

Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids
"Hey hey hey!"
Genre: Comedy-drama Educational Running Time: 22 minutes Country: United States Release Date: September 9, 1972 – August 10, 1985 Created by: Bill Cosby Distributed by: NBCUniversal Television Distribution Starring: Bill Cosby Lou Scheimer Jan Crawford Gerald Edwards Eric Suter Demetra McHenry Erika Carroll Lane Vaux Seasons: 8 Episodes: 110 + 5 specials

Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids is an American animated series created, produced, and hosted (in live action segments) by comedian Bill Cosby, who also lent his voice to a number of characters, including Fat Albert himself. Filmation was the production company for the series. The show premiered in 1972 and ran until 1985 (with new episodes being produced sporadically during that time frame). The show, based on Cosby's remembrances of his childhood gang, centered on Fat Albert (known for his catchphrase "Hey hey hey!"), and his friends.

Plot

A group of urban adolescents learns a series of valuable life lessons while hanging out in their Philadephia neighborhood. Members of the group include Fat Albert, Bill, Mushmouth, Dumb Donald, Rudy, Bucky, Russell and Weird Harold. In addition to providing the voice of Fat Albert and other characters, Bill Cosby appears as himself (in live-action form) as a host of sorts at the beginning and end of episodes.

Why It Rocks

1. The show manages to teach valuable lessons without being overly preachy.
2. The animation gets better as the show goes on, especially in Seasons 7-8.
3. Likable and relatable characters, such as Fat Albert, who is a very charming and nice character, and the other main characters are also good as well.
4. Well-done voice acting, Fat Albert has a very well clear voice, and the other characters are also given voices to match their personalities better as well.
5. Clever humor.
6. Catchy theme song.
7. Sometimes tackles serious issues like racism, and there was also another episode where Fat Albert comes across a Neo-Nazi.
   • They also use some dark themes that are very well-handled and teach the audience that certain things like gang wars and stealing cars can result in serious coincidences and could spell doom for most people, such as when the gang go to the prison and they get heckled by numerous creepy prisoners who swear a lot and have done numerous crimes, and another episode shows Fernando getting into a gang war and is shot, and his brother Tito learns that fighting and revenge is not okay and can get people killed too like Tito himself like how his little brother did, making the episode very impactful and emotional too.
8. It has a laid-back tone with a massive slice-of-life feel, that most cartoons at the time lacked, since the show is very realistic and doesn't get too chaotic without some zanier moments, since many moments in this cartoon are moments in real life that happen at times and the show is so simple that it comes off as charming and endearing with several wholesome moments like Fat Albert helping a disabled child fit in with society and his friendship with Fernando being emotional and heartwarming, especially when he tells a speech at his funeral showing his care for his lost soul after he was shot by a mob gang.

Bad Quality

1. The animation can look mediocre at times, as per the standard for Filmation.

Trivia

• Ren & Stimpy creator John Kricfalusi worked on this show as a storyboard artist back in 1979.