Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids

The Cosby Kids

• Fat Albert (voiced by Bill Cosby; singing by Michael Gray)^[8] is based on Cosby's childhood friend Albert Robertson. The main character in the series, he is usually the conscience of the Junkyard Gang. Though very obese, he is athletic and enjoys playing sports. He always wears a red shirt and blue pants. Civic-minded and wise beyond his years, Fat Albert works hard to maintain integrity in the gang and with others, and is the lead singer as well as bagpipe-accordion (made from a funnel, radiator and an airbag) player in the Junkyard Band and on occasion, plays the bedspring.
• James "Mushmouth" Mush (voiced by Bill Cosby) is a slack-jawed simpleton with big lips. He always wears a red knit hat with a blue scarf and always speaks in virtual Ubbi Dubbi, tantamount to an overdose of novocaine in the mouth, which Cosby would later use in the "Dentist" monologue from his 1983 film, Himself. He plays a homemade bass guitar in the Junkyard Band.
• "Dumb" Donald Parker (voiced by Lou Scheimer) is a lanky, dimwitted fellow. He is Rudy's best friend. He always wears a green long-sleeved jersey three sizes too big, and a pink stocking knit cap covering his entire face except his eyes and mouth. In the Junkyard Band, he plays a trombone made out of plumbers' pipe and a morning glory horn from an old phonograph.
• William "Bill" Cosby (voiced by Bill Cosby) is a character based on Cosby himself and is the host of the series. Like the others, Bill is a good athlete and enjoys playing sports. However, he spends most of his time trying, often unsuccessfully, to keep his little brother Russell out of trouble. Like Fat Albert, Bill is often a voice of reason in the gang, although at times a little more stubborn. In the Junkyard Band, he plays homemade drums made from a discarded foot-pedal trash can using spoons for sticks.
• Russell Cosby (voiced by Jan Crawford) is Bill's younger brother (based on his real-life brother—whom he often talked about in his routines) and the smallest and youngest of the Junkyard Gang. He always wears a heavy blue jacket, a yellow scarf, red boots, and a dark blue Ushanka winter hat regardless of the weather. Russell has a penchant for making snide remarks and blunt observations (much to his older brother's consternation). Russell frequently criticizes Rudy, reserving his most withering insults for when Rudy is being especially cocky. His catchphrase is "no class." He plays the xylophone in the Junkyard Band (made out of empty cans and a discarded coat rack).
• Weird Harold Simmons (voiced by Gerald Edwards) is a tall, skinny, beady-eyed kid who is the tallest one of the Junkyard Gang and always wears a gold dress blazer, a brown sock on one foot and a red sock on the other, and is clumsy. In the Junkyard Band, he plays a harp made from bedsprings, and on occasion plays a "dressmaker dummy" in the percussion section. In the film adaptation, he is called "Old Weird Harold", like he was in Cosby's stand-up routines.
• Rudy Davis (voiced by Eric Suter) is a sharp-dressed, smooth talking, cocky huckster whose smart-aleck attitude frequently gets him into trouble. He is Dumb Donald's best friend. Rudy's cocky attitude and dismissive demeanor are often the catalyst for a typical plot's conflict. But inside he has a good heart and usually learns lessons from his mistakes. In the Junkyard Band, he plays a makeshift banjo, whose parts include a broomstick handle and sewing-thread spool to hold the strings. However, when shown playing apart from the others, Rudy plays an electric guitar (personalized with a big "R"). He always wears an orange flat cap, a fuchsia vest, a pink turtleneck, purple bell-bottom jeans, and boots. Rudy's personality in the Fat Albert movie is much different as he is portrayed as a kind and chivalrous gentleman who falls in love with the female lead Doris (Kyla Pratt).
• Bucky Miller (voiced by Jan Crawford), as his name indicates, has a large overbite. He is a quick and flexible athlete. Bucky plays a stovepipe organ in the Junkyard Band.

Others

• Miss Berry is the kids' first teacher and mentor. She is later replaced by Mrs. Breyfogle. In later seasons, the kids went to a different school where their teacher and mentor was Miss Wucher. All three characters were voiced by Jay Scheimer, wife of executive producer Lou Scheimer.
• Mudfoot Brown (voiced by Bill Cosby) is a wise old man and unemployed vagrant who gives advice to the gang, often using reverse psychology to get his point across. (He makes a minor appearance in the film adaptation, at the beginning and end of the film, voiced by Earl Billings—however, he is never referred to by name in the film.)
• The Brown Hornet (voiced by Bill Cosby) is the title character of a show about an African-American superhero whose cartoons were watched regularly by the gang. He is a parody of the Green Hornet.
  • Stinger (voiced by Lou Scheimer) is the Brown Hornet's beefy sidekick whose gruff exterior masks a soft heart.
  • Tweeterbell (voiced by Erika Scheimer) is a female robot assistant to the Brown Hornet and Stinger.
• Cluck – A duck that followed the gang regularly in early episodes, but stopped appearing after season 1.
• Legal Eagle (voiced by Lou Scheimer) is another show-within-a-show, involving a crime-fighting cartoon eagle.
  • Moe and Gabby (voiced by Jan Crawford & Gerald Edwards) Two lazy, klutzy squirrel underlings that work with Legal Eagle as police officers.
• Margene (voiced by Erika Scheimer) classmate/ good friend of Fat Albert's. In one episode she and Albert ran for co-president of the Student Council and beat out two other candidates, both of whom were running on platforms of racism. A straight-A student, Margene occasionally got in with the wrong people but always managed to rebound; in a different episode she got hooked on drugs, and in another she got innocently involved in a violent cult.
• 3 River Blockbusters – The Junkyard Gang's main rival when it comes to competing in sports such as baseball and football. The Blockbusters stole the championship in a competition called "buck buck" in the episode "Moving". One of them was voiced by Gerald Edwards who voiced Weird Harold and one of them was voiced by Eric Suter who voiced Rudy. They make an appearance in the film adaptation featuring totally different members and the leader, dubbed as Crips, voiced by Catero Colbert credited as Lead Teen.
• Pee Wee is a small boy who looks up to Fat Albert and the gang. While being small in stature, his best athletic skill is kicking a football at a long distance. When the bigger kids could not get anything out of a small van, Pee Wee is there to retrieve it.

Lou Scheimer, Erika Scheimer, Keith Allen, Lane Vaux, Pepe Brown, Dementra McHenry, Eric Suter, and Gerald Edwards provided additional voices.

Syndication

As of 2013, Fat Albert was seen Saturday mornings on Retro Television Network (RTV), TheCoolTV, and weekdays and Saturdays and Sundays on Bounce TV, both of which are digital networks. It can also be seen weekdays on Angel Two (ANGL2), Kids & Teens TV (KTV), and World Harvest Television. Fat Albert is also available streaming online from www.HallmarkSpiritClips.com. As of July 2015, Fat Albert was no longer on Bounce TV's lineup.^[14] Bounce TV had previously pulled the comedy series Cosby from their lineup in the wake of the Bill Cosby sexual assault allegations,^[15] but it is unclear if the cancellation of the Fat Albert episodes was related to these allegations. However, several months after bringing back reruns of The Cosby Show in December 2016, Bounce TV quietly re-added Fat Albert to its schedule in March 2017, until it was eventually removed from the schedule again in late April 2018.

Home media

During the mid-1980s, Thorn EMI Video released several volumes of Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids on VHS as part of their "Children's Matinee" line of animated programs, with each cassette typically containing three episodes. Additional volumes were released later in the decade by Video Treasures, including the three holiday specials.

In 2004, Urban Works acquired the rights to the series, subsequently releasing several Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids DVDs including a two-volume collection featuring 24 episodes, as well as all specials to coincide with the theatrical release of the feature film adaptation. Volume 1 contains two DVDs with episodes 1–12 (airdates 9/9–11/25/1972), along with a CD containing the opening theme, the closing theme, and 12 songs from each of the 12 episodes shown in vol. 1 ^[16] Volume 2 contains two discs with episodes 13–24 (airdates 12/2/1972–9/13/1975), along with a CD containing the opening theme, the closing theme, and 12 songs from each of the 12 episodes shown in vol. 2.^{[17][18][19][20]} In addition, Urban Works released a Greatest Hits four-disc box set and a five-best episodes set via Ventura Distribution.^[21][22] In 2008, Urban Works lost the distribution rights and as a result all of Urban Works' DVD releases are now out of print.

In 2008, Classic Media acquired the rights to the series and stated at the time that they intended to release the entire series on DVD.^[23] Unfortunately this never happened as they only re-released The Fat Albert Halloween Special and The Fat Albert Easter Special on DVD via distribution partner Genius Products.^[24][25]

On April 6, 2012, it was announced that Shout! Factory had acquired the rights to the series (under license from Classic Media) and planned to release a complete series box set on DVD. The DVD set was released on June 25, 2013.^[26]

On September 4, 2012, Classic Media re-released all three holiday specials together in one collection entitled The Hey Hey Hey Holiday Collection on DVD in Region 1.^[27]