If but for a twist of fate, Bill Cosby could've stayed at NBC with Fat Albert & The Cosby Kids. However, the network wasn't interested at the time in a show that had the goal of educating its audience at its core.
In 1971, as we've documented, Cosby began working on PBS' Electric Company, and had also shot the live-action-animated hybrid special, Aesop's Fables, to start his association with CBS. As noted when we reviewed Aesop, it was a collaboration between Filmation & Lorimar. Cosby had also completed a second special for Filmation, but it took two years before it saw the light of day.
In May 1973, eight months after Fat Albert launched on CBS, the gang moved over to NBC for one night, as NBC held the rights to The Weird Harold Special, or, as it was known on the screen, Bill Cosby vs. Fat Albert. They went with Weird Harold, thinking viewers might be fooled into thinking it was something different. As it was, it was never shown again on network television, due to the simple fact that with the series itself airing on CBS, it was bad form for the gang to suddenly appear on a rival network, even if it was for one night, coming as it did four years after the Ken Mundie-produced Hey, Hey, Hey, It's Fat Albert! had aired on NBC.
The plot is a simple one. The guys are racing homemade go-carts down the dangerous Dead Man's Hill. Cosby not only voices his younger self, Mushmouth, & Fat Albert, but also his father and a convict. I believe that is character actor Henry Silva as the judge.
It's said this episode ultimately surfaced when the series moved to syndication in 1984. Today, however, is the first time I've seen it.
Rating: A.
8 comments:
First time for me too. You can definitely tell this was the first time the staff got to animate these guys. As with Aesop's Fables, the animation in this is quite well-done as well, though I'm sure they had a decent budget to work with, plus not a lot of recycled footage to deal with like in the TV show.
So this gave them a template to work from when the series launched. Cool.
I'm sure it did, at least in how to make these guys appear more appealing for the type of animation they were doing at the time. The lines are obviously simpler to deal with, yet they got some good designs out of the caricatures.
Much better than Ken Mundie's work.
And certainly a step up from their depiction as an illustration for Bill Cosby's album "When I Was A Kid".
https://www.discogs.com/Bill-Cosby-When-I-Was-A-Kid/master/122146
In your opinion, could the series have continued past the 1984-5 season (syndicated year)?
That is an interesting question. Who knows, I suppose if Bill Cosby was up to doing more, perhaps. I'm sure Filmation (or their owner at the time, Group W) thought they had enough episodes already to syndicate. Within a few years, the series landed on USA Network's "Cartoon Express" block.
https://youtu.be/lQ21ebQDlWU?t=4m5s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWAdF3s9wM0
Yes, I remember, but it was but for a short time.
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