Shark Bytes

I catch old shows on this one station...I'm hooked. It's fun and cool. I don't know why some people find it necesary to put down the animation and artwork...at least they were HAND DRAWN, unlike today. The lessons are always good (AUGH! Singing! But it's not a big deal). Legal Eagle and the Brown Hornet did not make it jump. This show, as far as I know, NEVER jumped.

I prefer Bugs Bunny cartoons. Fat Albetrt jumped from cocneption. Bill Cosby's jazz greats died of drugs (see Cosby show entry!) Long olive the li=ks of Glen Miller and Les Brown and Bing Crosby!

Great cartoon show... loved the episode where they introduce Rudy to the gang. The episode where Russell got hooked on crack and jacked the corner bag lady for her SS check was especially good. Two thumbs up!!

The one funny Legal Eagle cartoon that was shown on DVD featured four hooligans who reminded me of Nelson, Dolph, Jimbo and Kearney from The Simpsons! Those four got their just desserts in the end, just as the four on The Simpsons do when they rob the Kwik-E-Mart.

The only way Fat Albert will JTS is if FOX is allowed to make Fat Albert 2, in which the plot deals with Marsh Supermarkets, an Indianapolis grocery store chain, attempting to sell its own brand of generic cigarettes using the Fat Albert brand name, prompting the Big Orange dude and his gang to hire a lawyer to sue Marsh for trademark infringement.

Growing up on the south side of Chicago in the 70's, racism was a very serious problem. Chicago was more segregated than Belfast, Ireland at the time! It was extremely dangerous to go into the wrong neighborhood, and probably still is. I have seen good and bad people in all races , religions, etc. FAT ALBERT was a fun show to watch as a young boy, but having to run for my life a few times made it hard for me to see these characters as acceptable.

What year were white kids first became regulars on the show?

Great show that was entertaining, funny, and taught values to kids.

And if you're not careful you may learn something before it's done. Yeah we might learn how some kid from an impoverished inner city ghetto can grow up to weigh as much as Star Jones, Rosie O’Donnell, Kirstie Alley and “Oprah Christ Superstar” combined!! Only in America folks HEY HEY HEY!!

I'm surprised nobody's yet mentioned the exits of the Mushmouth and Bill characters in the later seasons. Though, that it and of itself isn't necessarily the REASON for the jump, their absences coincided with the show becoming preachy, having too much Brown Hornet and too much singing.

Fat Albert did not live in Northeast Philly, he lived in North Philly, which doesn't sound like a big difference but anyone "from Philly" would know that it is. Bill Cosby set the show in the part of Philly here he grew up -- North Philly. And both areas have "good" and "bad" parts. Duh.

Fat Albert was a great show :] I'm from Philly, and they did not live in the ghetto. They lived in north east philadelphia, like the "good" part of Philly. I should know this, because i grew up there, and fat alberts enviroment was very much like mine. never jumped!!!!!!!!!!

The singing shouldn't be on here, because that started from the beginning. Brown Hornet was an interesting new idea. I liked on the first episode how his ship propelled itself by sticking out a mechanical foot that kicked it like a football. The singing by that time (also popular from the Archies, the Hardy's, Josie, Jacksons, Osmonds Partridge Family, and even the second season of Scooby) had fallen out of style by then. What I didn't like was when they expanded it beyond new episodes by retrofitting some older episodes with the segments, replacing the songs. I vaguely remember Legal Eagle, but it did seem lame. Then, you had the syndicated version, in which the openings, and closing segments, and all of Bill's spots in between were redone (He had a neater looking afro, and a black shirt with white outline). The movie was a nice try, but the drawings looked wack, and they had those Disneyesque teeth like Aladdin's genie and the newer Lucky Charms commercials. And they pushed the premise of "lessons" too far, with "I must have been sent here to you in the real world to teach you something".

This was a great show. Bill Cosby gave kids a show where they could LEARN something rather than talk down to them like the CRAP they have kids watching now that will turn their brains to mush. Sure, Brown Hornet, and Ugh, Legal Eagle were lame as hell, but those two factors don't even leave a dent. Hey, Hey Hey!

Let's set the record straight. First and foremost Fat Albert was ONLY about teaching a life lesson every show. The song was only meant to reinforce that same lesson. This was due, in part, to the fact that the federal government decided that, at least, some of children's shows should have some redeeming aspect. Television has been evolving since 1947. Advertisers pay the bills and advertisers want to sell products. In the begining, advertising was part of ALL programming, right up to a dancing pack of cigarettes appearing on the nightly newscast. As T.V. evolved, the government felt that the public was not smart enough to understand the difference between programming and advertising, so restrictions were implemented to separate ads from show. In the 50's and 60's all cereals had cartoon spokespersons who had their own shows. Where do you think Sugar Bear came from? In addition to that, there were commercial tie ins to "regular" shows, Where do you think that the prize in Cap'n Crunch came from? It was usually a direct link to a cartoon that was popular. Anyway, Congress stopped cereals and other products from having their own shows, outlawed cigarette advertising and put truth in advertising laws into effect. Then we came full circle and the infomercial and infotainment were born, but that is another subject. In the seventies, a void was createdbecause nobody knew what to do with the new restrictions. It was during this period that Mac Donald's came to the front with their Saturday morning kid friendly characters. Fat Albert was meant to fill the second half of this concept by actually teaching a moral rather than sell a product. Up to this point, only Davey and Goliath did that, and they were adverting for the Lutheran Church. School House Rock also came about at this same time for this same purpose. Fat Albert was a comedy routine from Bill Cosby's old stand up act. It was about fond memories of childhood, so, yes, Bill is Bill Cosby and Russell is Russell Cosby, Bill's brother. Weird Harold, Fat Albert and the rest of the gang are all based on real people growing up poor in Philadelphia in the 1940's and 50's. The whole format disintegrated when Mattel figured out that the cereal co restrictions didn't apply to them and that is where The Transformers and other program length commercials came in and ruined saturday mornings forever.