The Fat Albert Christmas Special (1977 TV Movie) User Reviews

Mildly Passable

[Christmas-Reviewer · 6/10 · 24 June 2019]

Review Date 6/24/2019

I have Reviewed OVER 500 "Christmas Films and Specials". Please BEWARE Of films and specials with just one review! For instance When "It's a POSITIVE" chances are that the reviewer was involved with the production. "If its Negative" then they may have a grudge against the film for whatever reason. I am fare about these films.

Fat Albert and the gang are going to lose the clubhouse however while they are preparing the clubhouse production of "The Nativity Story" they soon become part of a modern day "Nativity Situation".

Okay story but it is family safe.

A Fat Albert Christmas Special

[raysond · 8/10 · 16 December 2010]

From the previous comment: "There hasn't been a Fat Albert series shown on television since 1989."

And whoever said it was right on. I heard that rumor too about Bill Cosby yanking off television anything to do with Fat Albert,which to this day hasn't been seen on television since the early 1990's. In 2004,a live-action version based on the hit Saturday Morning cartoon show "Fat Albert" starring Kenan Thompson was not the colossal hit that it was suppose to be at the box office,instead it was a disaster. And speaking of "Fat Albert",it hasn't been seen on Saturday Mornings since the mid-1980's. At the time of its airing "Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids"(the animated series)was one of the biggest hits to ever come out of the 1970's. Bill Cosby not only provided the voiceovers for some of the animated characters,but also was the creative force behind the scenes while serving as writer,producer,and executive in charge of production. The original animated series was a Saturday Morning tour-de-force in the 13 years that was part of CBS' Saturday Morning schedule from 1972 until 1985.

In 1977,creator and producer Bill Cosby and the animators at Filmation Productions,produced a half-hour holiday special for CBS-TV titled "A Fat Albert Christmas Special",that made its debuted in prime-time on December 18, 1977. This half-hour special,produced by Bill Cosby under the executive producers Norman Prescott and Lou Scheimer,with a storyline by Bill Danch and Jim Ryan and direction for Filmation veteran Hal Sutherland,this animated special was a cross-reference to but Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol and to an extent "A Charlie Brown Christmas",with hints of the "Grinch" in certain segments. In this new installment,which was the second of the animated "Fat Albert" specials that aired in prime-time. In this one,Tyrone,the owner of the junkyard where Fat Albert's clubhouse sits,threatens to demolish the shack as an act of nastiness while the Cosby Kids,busily working up a Christmas pageant,helps a little boy(voiced by Marshall Franklin),whose father and mother and stranded in their car on Christmas Eve,in the middle of a snowstorm,with the little boy's father desperately looking for anyone who could help them. The boy's mother is expecting a child and once the boy's father finds the nearest hospital to get help,the Cosby Kids take the boy's mother and the little boy into their clubhouse for safety,while trying to keep mean and nasty owner Tyrone at bay from demolishing the clubhouse and the junkyard. And its up to Fat Albert to save the clubhouse and the day,and in the process inside the clubhouse the kids learn the true meaning of the holidays. The ending of this is very special,and out of all the "Fat Albert" specials that were produced by Filmation for CBS during the mid-1970's and early-1980's,"A Fat Albert Christmas" was one of the best of the bunch.

Bit of trivia: The voices of Fat Albert/Mushmouth/Bill and Mudfoot were done by Bill Cosby himself. Did you know the voice of Russell was done by a woman? Voice-over actress Jan Crawford,who's voice was heard in several Filmation cartoons. Other voices,including the voice of Weird Harold was done by Gerald Edwards while the cool dude "Rudy" was voiced by Eric Suter.

Like school at 5 o'clock in the morning.

[kingfrat · 21 November 2002]

Fat Albert and those struttin' Cosby Kids get together for what is basically a re-imagining of the birth of Christ combined with 'A Christmas Carol'.

The gang is rehearsing a Christmas performance at the junkyard clubhouse when a destitute family, Father Ray (who looks like Eriq La Salle with sideburns and a porno mustache), load-baring Mother Marge and little Marshall, come a knockin' on the door, looking for somewhere to have themselves a baby.

It looks like the clubhouse is it but doom looms on the horizon thanks to cantankerous old junkyard owner, Tyrone, the hood's resident scrooge who's keen on demolishing the trespasser's hangout.

Needless to say, Fat Albert lectures, there's plenty of bleeding heart moments, the gang get into some slapstick moments, the music pumps and it everything works out OK in the end (in the true spirit of Christmas of course), all to the stirring cacophony of canned laughter (thanks to the live audience that must've sat in the studio for months as this thing was slowly animated).

Strangely, there's no Bill Cosby wrap around segments, no Brown Hornet, no Legal Eagle and although Mudfoot makes an appearance, once again he doesn't bum any change which makes us wonder if he truly is a tramp or really an eccentric millionaire merely posing as a miserable waste of humanity.

Yeah... I'd go with some classic episodes, or at least the Easter Special but if you wanna catch up with the gang and this is all you've got to work with then give it a shot. It'll put a little hot sauce on your X-mas puddin'!

The First Fat Albert Episode Shown On TV This Century

[leighabc123 · 10/10 · 3 February 2003]

This was the first Fat Albert episode shown on television this entire millenium! They haven't shown Fat Albert on television since 1989! It was great to actually see Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids on television again! And it was great to hear that line that someone says in every episode of Fat Albert...NO CLASS!

Nothing special to see here

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 8 December 2017]

"The Fat Albert Christmas Special" is as the title already states a holiday television special from 1977, so it has its 40th anniversary this year. Fat Albert is of course a character that is somewhat known, at least in the United States. The voice actor is Bill Cosby and he is still quite a star these days. His film here was nominated for an Emmy too, but lost out to another season special, namely the Grinch during Halloween I think. I personally thing the nomination may be a bit too much already as this is a film that is not good or at least hasn't aged too well. The "emotional" moments all feel a bit for the sake of it, the approach at comedy left me pretty unimpressed and the animation wasn't particularly good either. The voice acting was tolerable I think, one of the better components. As a whole, the forgettable here is far more frequent than the memorable sadly. Then again I am not a fan of the other stuff I have seen starring Fat Albert, so maybe if you like the series, then you will like this one here too. It's not a failure by any means, but for me personally the connection between Christmas and the ghetto just never worked out at all. You can skip the watch this time.

Underrated holiday treat

[RoamingTigress · 10/10 · 16 December 2016]

Every year I watch the same classics as most others do around this time of the year; A Christmas Story, It's a Wonderful Life, Charlie Brown, Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, Frosty, just to name a few. But among them, is this little gem.

Taking place in Philadelphia, Fat Albert and friends help a out of luck family when their car breaks down and offers them shelter when the mother is expecting another child. A greedy business owner, wants their clubhouse torn down. However, with the help of Fat Albert and an old friend, Mudfoot, he has a change of heart and allows the clubhouse to remain.

Although similar in some ways to a Christmas Carol, I am most reminded of the Andy Griffith special in which another old miser gets his nose out of joint with regards to another poor family. This is a charming family friendly feature that is only half an hour; not too much out of our time!

Decent Christmas Special

[Michael_Elliott · 23 November 2012]

The Fat Albert Christmas Special (1977)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Fat Albert and his gang come across a poor family who find themselves without a house, work or anything else. The mother is also about to give birth so Albert lets them use the clubhouse for a while but the rich guy in town is threatening to tear it down so the kids have to find something that will work for everyone. THE FAT ALBERT Christmas SPECIAL is a mix between A Christmas Carol (the mean rich man) and your average episode, which of course always had some sort of social message to it. I must say that this short is pretty far from what most would want to watch on Christmas and I'd even say that most parents would probably find this un-kid-friendly these days. With that said, there were a few interesting moments and I'm sure bigger fans of Fat Albert will probably be entertained with it. I thought some of the best moments were early on with the kids in the clubhouse and threatening to be thrown out by the rich man. There were a few funny jokes along the way that at least made me laugh. The animation is good for what it is and there's no doubt that the great Fat Albert voice is put to good use.

Thin Stuff

[tedg · 12 February 2006]

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.