Live action bumpers featuring Bill Cosby were set around animated episodes of Fat Albert and The Cosby Kids, a series about a group of urban adolescents growing up in a Philadelphia neighborhood. The show was based on Cosby’s 60's stand up comedy monologues about his childhood.
The episodes revolved around the daily life lessons learned by Albert and his friends. Topics ranged from social issues to personal introspection and were blended with humor and music. Among the many great characters that inhabited Fat Albert’s world were Rudy, Mushmouth, Donald, Bill, Weird Harold and Russell.
In 1979 the show was re-titled The New Fat Albert Show and featured a new segment called The Brown Hornet, a send-up of superhero cartoons starring a larger-than-life African-American crime fighter in outer space.
Bill Cosby lent his voice to many of the Fat Albert characters, playing Fat Albert, Bill, Mushmouth, Mudfoot and the Brown Hornet.
Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids enjoyed one of the longest careers in Saturday morning cartoon history, running for twelve consecutive years; a record bested only by the many incarnations of Scooby-Doo. The show initially ran on CBS from 1972-1984, but moved to NBC in syndication for one year in 1989.
"Na-na-na, gonna have a good time,
Hey, hey hey!" |
