The Fat Albert Christmas Special (1977) (TV)

User Rating:

6.0/10   

Director:

Hal Sutherland

Writers:

Bill Danch (written by) &
Jim Ryan (written by)

Release Date:

18 December 1977 (USA)

Genre:

Animation | Short

Plot:

Fat Albert, Mushmouth, Rudy, Bill and the Cosby kid gang are rehearsing their Christmas play in their junkyard clubhouse when suddenly Mr...

Plot Keywords:

Christmas

Awards:

Nominated for Primetime Emmy.

Cast

Bill Cosby	...	Fat Albert / Mushmouth / Bill / Mudfoot Brown (voice)
Jan Crawford	...	Russell (voice)
Gerald Edwards	...	Weird Harold (voice)
Eric Suter	...	Rudy (voice)
Marshall Franklin	...	Marshall
Eric Greene	...	(voice)
Kim Hamilton	...	(voice)
Julius Harris	...	(voice)
Ty Henderson	...	(voice)

Runtime:

30 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Certification:

Australia:G (DVD rating) | Australia:PG (TV rating)

Company:

Filmation Associates

Quotes:

Bill: Russell, you're like school during summer vacation.
Russell: School during summer vacation?
Bill: Yeah, no class.

Movie Connections:

Spin off from "Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids" (1972)

Thin Stuff

An odd artifact of the seventies was that Martin Luther King exposed racial attitudes that shocked us all. Coca Cola led one approach to homogenization where America at least was one world unified by the simple humanity of us all. (They did this because consultants advised that their advertising budgets would be better spent on large, universal campaigns rather than targeting discrete demographics.) Following that, we were eager for a humane black man.

Into the need stepped Bill Cosby, a good man, well spoken. A man whose humor was based on simple values, a black Peanuts drawn from a world that was inherently human. As his fame grew, we invested more and more in his good intentions and every time he delivered.

Peanuts made a Christmas special that was enormously popular. So naturally one expected Cosby to follow as soon as he could. But where Peanuts managed (at least for a while) to remain in the abstract world of what we imagined as childishness, Cosby decided his mission in life was to preach.

So he does here. There's a story and we have the characters from Cosby's early bits. But they are there only in order to cram in as many "good messages" as possible.

In its time, we needed all this. We needed reminding that men like Cosby simply existed. If you still grasp at this now, it will be out of racial immaturity. let's hope we don't need to be so reminded today.

Ted's Evaluation - 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.