Sunday, December 22, 2013

Lying



Hey, Hey, Hey! Buy This DVD Today!
Those of us who grew up in the seventies will always have fond memories of watching the Fat Albert cartoons on CBS-TV; this budget-priced DVD collection features the first dozen episodes as aired in the fall of 1972. Bill Cosby hosted each show and also provided a few of the characters' voices, but his greatest contribution to the series may have been his insistence on high-quality writing in collaboration with professional educators. Fewer episodes were produced as a result, but the attention to quality made the shows surprisingly durable over seven years of reruns on Saturday morning TV.

Cosby had tremendous respect for young children, and his segments in the series demonstrate his gift for being able to talk to children without talking down to them. Like a good teacher, Cosby addressed his young viewers not as immature troublemakers, but as the young adults they would one day become. His presence was more than just a gimmick to keep animation costs down; he actually gave...

Hey Hey Hey this Set is OK!
This time, they got it right on putting FA&TCK on DVD!

This has the good stuff from the Golden era. Great stories interwoven with stuff from Cosby's classic routines, the wonderful songs of the Junkyard Band and the voice of Micheal Gray (note to FA novices-the Junkyard Band was the Cosby Kids band that provided the cool music for the show-and an additional CD of the songs to boot!) memorable characters (Begging Benny, Scrap Iron Yates, Dumb Donald's cousin Betty, Lying Edward, etc.)

"Moving," what I consider to the their all-time best episode, is included here. In 30 minutes, Albert and crew play out Bill Cosby's classic BUCK BUCK and GO CARTS routines within the context of the story, as well as a really beautiful song called "Friends" that holds up well years later.

"Fish Out of Water" has the gang meeting some white kids at a summer camp (surprisingly, the difference in the character's race as a source of their antagonism is deftly underplayed). But...

Great to see these again, but NOT entirely original...
I always enjoyed watching "Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids" when I was young. Not only was it funny and imaginative (some of Rudy and Russell's slams on each other were hysterical), but each episode always contained a good moral lesson and great music to boot! This 2-disc DVD set contains the first 12 episodes broadcast on CBS in 1972. I'm not sure how the publisher went about acquiring the films to transfer to DVD, though. Some of the episodes clock in at around 19:30 and contain the original opening and closing sequences, while others clock in around 21:30 and appear to be the 1984 syndicated versions (with the 80's style "FILMATION Presents" tag and an older Bill Cosby with shorter hair in the intro.) I don't know if the syndicated versions had footage added to them later, or if the original versions presented here are cut. Because of all that, something does not totally jive with the way this set is presented. However, it is a great buy for fans of the show or for anyone who...

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