Actors: Bill Cosby
Number of discs: 15
Rated: Unrated
Studio: Shout! Factory
DVD Release Date: June 25, 2013
Run Time: 2340 minutes
Our Score: 5 out of 5 stars
If you were an adult or kid in the 70-80′s then you should be aware of “Fat Albert” and the man behind the show Bill Cosby. And no I don’t mean the terrible 2004 live-action film. Bill Cobsy is one of the greatest comedians of our time. Kids these days most likely will not recognize him since he hasn’t done much in the last decade or so. Well, I remember the “Fat Albert” original animated series growning up and it is a riot. Finally, thanks to Shout! Factory we can own the complete series, which includes the best original 36 1972-75 Episodes, all 24 1979-81 episodes and all 50 1984 episodes. If you are a fan of this show and looking to take a trip down memory lane then this would be the set for you to purchase.
Official Premise: Premiering in 1972 on CBS this classic animated series was created, produced and hosted by comedian Bill Cosby, who also lent his voice to a number of characters, including Fat Albert himself. The show, based on Cosby’s remembrances of his childhood gang, focused on the lovable, oversized Albert and his friends. The show always had an educational lesson emphasized by Cosby’s live-action segments, and the gang would usually gather in their North Philadelphia junkyard to play a rock song on their cobbled-together instruments at the end of the show.
“Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids” Season 1 from 1972 contains the following 16 episodes: “Lying”, “The Runt”, “The Stranger”, “Creativity”, “Fish Out of Water”, “Moving”, “Playing Hookey”, “The Hospital”, “Begging Benny”, “The Hero”, “The Prankster”, “Four Eyes”, “The Tomboy”, “Stagefright”, “The Bully” and “Smart Kids”. Season 2 from 1973 contains the following 5 episodes: “Mister Big Timer”, “The Newcomer”, “What Does Dad Do?”, “Mom or Pop” and “How the West Was Lost”. Lastly, we get season 3 from 1975 contains 15 episodes including “Sign Off”, “The Fuzz”, 3 Ounce of Prevention, “Fat Albert Meets Dan Cupid”, “Take Two, They’re Small”, “The Animal Lover”, “Little Tough Guy”, “Smoke Gets in Your Hair”, “What Say?”, “Readin’ Ritin’, and Rudy”, “Suede Simpson”, “Little Business”, “TV or Not TV”, “The Shuttered Window” and “Junk Food”.
Next up we have “The New Fat Albert Show” season 1 from 1979 with 8 episodes, including “In My Merry Busmobile”, “The Dancer”, “Spare the Rod Bucky, Weird Harold…”, “Sweet Sorror”, “Poll Time”, “The Mainstream”, “Free Ride” and “Soft Core”. The second season from 1980 is next with 8 episodes including “Pain, Pain Go Away”, “The Rainbow”, “The Secret”, “Easy Pickins”, “Good Ol’ Dudes”, “Heads Or Trails”, “Pot Of Gold” and “The Gunslinger”. The last was season 3 from 1981 with another 8 episodes, including “Habla Espanol”, “Two By Two”, “Barking Dog”, “Water Are You Waiting For?”, “The Father”, “Double Cross”, “Little Girl Found” and “Watch That First Step”
The last series included for this show is “Bill Cosby’s Fat Albert” from 1984 with another 50 episodes including “Have a Heart”, “Watch Thy Neighborhood”, “Cosby’s Classics”, “Justice Good as Ever”, “Rebop For Bebop”, “Sinister Stranger”, “Handwriting On the Wall”, “Busted”, “It All Ads Up”, “Never Say Never”, “Don’t Call Us”, “The Runner”, “Video Mania”, “You Gotta Have Art”, “Long Live the Queen”, ”The Joker”, “Second Chance”, “Kiss and Tell”, “Teenage Mom”, “Film Follies”, “Harvest Moon”, “Read Baby Read”, “The Whisky Kid”, “Millionaire Madness”, “Call of the Wild”, “Funny Business”, “Three Strikes and You’re In”, “What’s the ID?”, “Rules Is Cool”, “The Birds, the Bees, and Dumb Donald”, “Double Or Nothing”, “Hot Wheels”, “No Place Like Home”, “Not So Loud”, “The Jinx”, “You Don’t Say”, “Amiss With Amish”, “Gang Wars”, “Computer Caper”, “We All Scream For Ice Cream”, “Superdudes”, “Painting the Town”, Rudy and the Beast”, “Wheeler”, “Faking the Grade”, “Write On”, “Cable Caper”, “Say Uncle”, “No News Is Good News” and “Attitude of Gratitude”.
For episodes that range from 30-40 years old, these episodes looks damn good. They are presented in full frame and are well represented by Shout! Factory. If you didn’t think that 110 episodes were enough to leave you satisfied, there is still more in the special features. “Hey, Hey, Hey . . . It’s The Story Of Fat Albert” is solid hour long documentary on the show and it’s legacy. There are audio commentary tracks with Show Creator Bill Cosby, Storyboard Artists Michael Swanigan And Tom Tataranowicz, Writer Robby London And Host Wally Wingert, which are definitely worth checking out. Lastly there is a Still Gallery included, as well as DVD-ROM content with Script And Storyboards.
