Hey, Hey, Hey, It's Fat Albert (partially lost NBC animated special; 1969)

A newspaper ad, showing The Cosby Kids in their original designs.

Status: Partially Found (Footage) Found (Audio)

Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids is an animated TV series which aired from September 9th, 1972, to August 10th, 1985. It has 114 episodes counting specials.

Before the series premiered, there was a primetime special called Hey, Hey, Hey, It's Fat Albert, which was shown on November 12th, 1969, and aired on NBC. It was rebroadcasted twice, but presumably never saw a home release.

Plot

It follows The Cosby Kids performing stand-up sketches from Bill Cosby's routines, much like in the actual show.

The plot would have centred on Fat Albert being made fun of by his friends because of his weight, and so he distances himself from them. The other kids would then dispute an (American) football game against rivals, and Fat Albert would then arrive, using his weight to help his friends to win the game.

Production

Mundie and a team of animators worked 18-hour days for six months to meet NBC's deadline. The animators drew directly onto cels with grease pencils, coloring each cel themselves. The cels were then photographed.

Live footage from Philadelphia was inserted as background. Said Filmation's Lou Scheimer: "It did not work. It was a strange-looking thing. And it did not have any of the values that we wanted to do ultimately in the show." While the series became popular, the special has not been released since.

Crew

Produced by: Harry J. Gittes.

Executive Producers: Roy Silver, Bruce Campbell.

Directed by: Ken Mundie

Animators: Bob Bachman, Dick Drew, Lillian Evans, Bill Hajee, Amby Paliwoda, Len Rogers, Leo D Sullivan, Stan Green, Floyd Norman.

Writers: Ed. Wienberger, Jack Mendelson, Bill Cosby.

Composed by: Herbie Hancock.

Availability

The Paley Center for Media holds a copy of the special in their collection, and it is available for viewing at their locations in New York and Los Angeles.^[1]

At first, the only footage of the special that has publicly resurfaced was a blurry red-tinted clip from animator Leo Sullivan's collection. It seems it comes from near the end of the special, where Fat Albert arrives at a football game that his friends are playing against rivals, and so he is using his huge weight to dogpile the opponents.

Clearer footage resurfaced, depicting the visuals in neater quality. Fat Albert is notably depicted as seemingly being able to expand his body at will.

On February 20th, 2024, Lost Media Wiki user M. acrylic Uploaded the full audio from the special, obtained from a reel-to-reel recording.

Gallery

Images

A page of a TV Guide page showing more original designs, and more info on the special. It seems there is more than this just this page, so there may be more info on the special.
Group shot featuring the main characters of the special.
Original design of the Fat Albert character.
Fat Albert as he appears near the end, using his - now extremely increased - weight at a football game.
The Cosby Kids lifting Fat Albert.
Characters cel, football players from near the end.
Animation cel of the Cosby Kids.

A background painting cel that was wrongly attributed to the special, but actually is from the Clerow Wilson and the Miracle of P.S. 14 TV special.
Another background painting cel from Clerow Wilson and the Miracle of P.S. 14 wrongly attributed to the Fat Albert special.
Another background painting cel from Clerow Wilson and the Miracle of P.S. 14, the creators allegedly were inspired by the original Fat Albert special.