Hey, Hey, Hey, It’s Fat Albert: Bill Cosby’s Junk-yard Paradise

Yıl 2023, Sayı: 2, 37 - 43, 23.01.2023

David Livingstone

Öz

The children’s television programme Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids was, along with Sesame Street, a pioneer project blending entertainment with edifying educational content. Launched in the early 1970s, this animated show, mixed with live scenes involving Bill Cosby’s commentary, opened up a whole new world to child viewers. Set in inner city Philadelphia, with many of the scenes in a junk yard, the programme not only acquainted the child viewers with African-American culture, music and language, but also provided useful lessons on a range of still very much relevant topics: racism, sexism, bullying, teasing, etc. This paper will primarily focus on the first set of series which ran in the first half of the 1970s, which corresponds to the author’s own exposure to the show.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, Children’s Television, Bill Cosby, African-American Representation

Kaynakça

• Cosby, William Henry, “An Integration Of The Visual Media Via ‘Fat Albert And The Cosby Kids’ Into The Elementary School Curriculum As A Teaching Aid And Vehicle To Achieve Increased Learning.” (1976). Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest. AAI7706369. https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI7706369 Cosby, Bill. “Four Eyes.” YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kj5WqGxOr4U Cosby, Bill. “How the West Was Lost.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zA-1K9680Y Cosby, Bill. “Opening Sequence.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiWEyUMm5Lo Cosby, Bill. “Revenge.” www.youtube.com/watch?v=42yGK7pvgVc
• Cosby Bill. “The Stranger.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXhrUzSs2Q4 Cosby, Bill. “The Tom Boy.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Du0em2IfexM
• Hamblin, James. “The Origin of Fat Albert: How Bill Cosby Did Obesity Right.” The Atlantic, 27 September 2012. www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/09/the-origin-of-fat-albert-how-bill-cosby-did-obesity-right/262817/ Hicks, L. Wayne. “Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids”. http://www.tvparty.com/satfat.html
• Kamp, David. Sunny Days: The Children’s Television Revolution That Changed America. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2020.