I grew up on Bill Cosby’s records. I loved the little world that Coz created of his annoying brother Rudy, Old Weird Harold, Fat Albert, street football, his father the scary giant, Fat Albert’s car, Buck-Buck, the go-kart race…I could go own and own and own. (Not a typo…I’m channelling Zell.)
Despite all my fondness for the records, I never really liked the Cosby Kids animated show. The animation was repetitive, the songs annoying and the show wasn’t that funny. Still, it obviously has a big following all its own and that’s great.
And now we have a movie. Is it a movie based on Cosby’s memories, a pseudo-semibiographical comedy set in the era that Bill grew up? No. Is it a straight comedy, as though someone came to Cosby and asked him to write a 90 minute, live action version of the TV show? No.
Believe it or not, in Fat Albert: The Movie, Fat Albert and the gang are pulled out of a television into the real world. They are live action, but they can’t take off their clothes because there’s nothing underneath the surfaces that the animators drew.
And now they have to somehow adapt to the real world.
And Fat Albert raps.
And…oh, I think you get the idea.
Look, maybe it’ll be really funny. Cosby’s part looks hilarious. But I wish it was possible to make these nostalgiac movies without being ironic and self-referential. It worked for Brady Bunch, a concept that just couldn’t work any other way, but it’s rather the exception that proves the rule.
Eh, what do I know? I really loved The Coneheads for taking its original concept seriously, and I’m about the only one who liked it.