Fat Albert

Plot synopsis:
The film opens with a traditionally animated sequence featuring Fat Albert performing the original series' theme song "Gonna Have a Good Time".
In real life, Doris Robertson is a depressed teenager still recovering from the death of her grandfather, and she is ignoring her foster sister Lauri's efforts to bring her a social life. Upon learning that her parents will be away for a two-day business trip to the Poconos, Doris sadly lets a tear hit her TV remote, as Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids is on. The tear opens up a portal between the cartoon world and the real world and Fat Albert jumps out of the TV, knowing she has a problem. Then, Rudy, Dumb Donald, Mushmouth, Bucky, and Old Weird Harold jump out as well; Bill tells Russell to stay put and cover for them. Doris insists she is fine, but the gang knows otherwise and the show ends and they have to wait until the next day's show to come back. They follow Doris to school and are amazed by the new technology like pop cans, cell phones, and laptops.
Albert notices Lauri and falls in love with her. Reggie, an annoying schoolmate with an obsessive crush on Lauri, challenges Albert to a track race that Albert wins. In another attempt to help Doris, the gang persuades some cheerleaders to invite them all to an outdoor party. With some reluctance, Doris agrees to attend then went to a shopping mall. While at the party, Lauri dances with Albert. Reggie desperately attempts to make her jealous by dancing with Doris. When Lauri does not notice him, he tries to kiss Doris. Doris is offended and causes a scene. Albert warns the boy to stay away from Doris. The next day, Doris goes to school, but asks the gang to go to the park instead of following her. Harold, normally clumsy, joins in a basketball game and is able to play perfectly. Mushmouth, who cannot talk normally, is taught how to speak by a little girl. Donald goes to the library and is able to read and remove his pink face-covering hat.
When Doris takes them home, only three of the gang members, Bucky, Harold and Donald (whose eyes float in the TV without the hat on) jump into the TV, Breaking News interrupts the show before the other four can enter. Albert and Bill have an argument in private about going back. The gang takes Doris and Lauri to a fair on a junk-made car, Rudy; meanwhile, has fallen in love with Doris and ask her if she would go out with him if he was a real person and she said yes. Searching for guidance, Fat Albert literally meets his maker, Bill Cosby and tells him of the dilemma. Mr. Cosby tells him that his character is based on Doris' grandfather Albert Robertson which explains Doris' confusion over why Fat Albert seems so familiar to her. Mr. Cosby warns Fat Albert that he has to return to the cartoon world, or he will turn into celluloid dust (as indicated by the faded color of their clothes). Devastated, Albert tries to tell Lauri that he has to leave, but she thinks that he is just being insensitive. The next day, Rudy, Bill, and Mushmouth jump back into the TV (with Mushmouth starting to speak unclear again). Albert waits and go to the track meet, where Doris and Lauri are competing, encourages Doris to a victory. Reggie, who witnessed that the gang is from the TV, attempts to threaten Albert, but he pushes him aside. Albert rushes to the girls' home on a borrowed skateboard. He says goodbye to Doris and Lauri (who now believes that Albert is from the TV) and jumps back into the TV.
Sometime later, Mr. Cosby and his friends (who were in his routines, then were characters in the show) stand in front of their old friend Albert Robertson's grave. As the camera pans on each of the men, images of their counterparts are seen. Doris watches them. The old men race away; they are still kids at heart, the same kids from the TV show that they helped Bill Cosby inspire.
Before the end credits start, Fat Albert is trying to leap out of the movie screen, points out that people in the audience need help and he even tells someone in the back of the theater that he/she needs to come back and finish watching the credits. The boys pull Albert back inside and the end credits resume, beginning with the blend of both the animated characters' voices and the live-action characters singing the Fat Albert Theme Song.

Tags: romantic, fantasy

Review:
Dumb Donald, Mush Mouth, Fat Albert were all on target and delivered more to love in their human form.I also appreciated the movie's ability to laugh at itself.
They didn't need to sleep, eat, or go to the bathroom...because hey hey hey, they're cartoon characters.Lastly, the connection to the girl's grandfather Al was a lovely tie-in and the scene at the cemetery where the grown up Cosby gang paid tribute to their friend was sentimental without being sappy.Can I pick apart small things about the movie?
However, this movie provided my family and myself with such good feelings, smiles, and conversation afterwards that there is no need to bother.Compare this with other kids movies that are chock full of scatological humor and impending sexuality and you will see that Fat Albert stands far and above.This movie was funny, thoughtful, and brought back many a wonderful memory.
The characters were flat, the story was "normal chaos that has been done in nearly every other film", and the class of the television program Fat Albert was diminished by cheap thrills and over-budgeting.
While the ending tried to bring a tear to your eye, I was already crying at the utter lack of appreciation that this film carried and influenced the youth of our nation.To say that this film was horrible would be too kind of a word, to quote a line from the film "(Fat Albert is) like school on Saturday: no class" would again, probably be giving it too much credit.
There wasn't anything that could stop Fat Albert from helping another lost soul, and somehow in this film adaptation, none of these old feels could be remembered.
When it first started I had this feeling that Albert would be called to help Doris with her problem, causing him to be a secondary character (like her own Jiminie Cricket), but instead what happened is that Thompson's camera excitement stole the performance away from Doris while creating a film centered around Albert.
one of the most original and brightest cartoons of it's time deserved a lot more than this poorly-written, unimaginative effort - the characters were more two-dimensional than their original cartoon counterparts!The acting was OK, it was the script that was the real disaster - where was Fat Albert to help out with *that* particular problem ?the 'plight' of Doris and her sister barely raised enough concern in the audience to sustain a half-hour cartoon, let alone a feature film - with the long list of issues and concerns facing adolescents these days, the producers chose the softest possible interpretation of what Fat Albert was all about - kids sticking together and helping each out when problems arise - the 'problems' facing Doris were barely worth addressing - even the problems in the cartoon-within-the-movie ('Danielle' running away and leaving school) where more pressing ...The whole 'cartoon's come to life' scenario was pretty lame - either do a full feature cartoon or make a movie about the characters as if they were real people - combining the cartoon world with the real world just didn't work in the hands of these writers - they could barely muster a single gag in what was supposedly a light-hearted comedy ffs ...the characters were tampered with in a most displeasing way - Rudy was robbed of his original personality to be made more 'P.C.' - the makers of the original cartoon gave Rudy a cocky, smart-ass attitude to balance out the saccharine righteousness of Fat Albert and Bill Cosby - the gang didn't need anymore 'nice guys', and there could have been a lot of fun to be had with Rudy's character had he retained his original 'edge'.
only the tiniest reference was made to the Brown Hornet - surely something more imaginative could have been written with such an integral and fun character ?Fat Albert the Movie was a by-the-numbers waste of celluloid and cellulite ....
Now it's 2004 and Doris come home from school after having a bad day she turns on Fat Albert and begins to cry and Fat Albert the cartoon hears her cry and jumps out of cartoon land and into reality to help Doris with her problem and the Cosby kids follow him.
This girl, incidentally, is the half-sister of the girl the gang has come to help, and she is incredibly hot, a cross between Jennifer Lopez and Halle Berry, always wearing sexy clothes and looking great but of course, she is a sweetheart.There are some brief scenes of how the gang is amazed at modern technology (they do come from the 70's after all, although that decade is never directly mentioned) but thankfully the film doesn't waste time on many gags like that.
But above and beyond the field is the dude who plays Fat Albert, seemingly a perfect choice, a great performance where he's obviously having fun.The film is a great family film and there are no silly "adult jokes" that will fly over the kid's heads, it's all good clean fun.
The camera always seems to manage to catch her perfect body and tight, trim figure, and While she is there to keep dad watching and paying attention, everyone else will enjoy the film, although especially if dad watched Fat Albert 30 years ago, there's no reason why he can't enjoy it for what it is too.The ending is a great heart-tugger and not the predictable ending you may have expected.
The film does try to be a little bit "today" by making Fat Albert and the gang sing and dance to a hip-hop version of their theme song ("Gonna Have A Good Time") as they take over a hip-hop party, but even that is done so well you really won't mind.This is an extremely enjoyable film with laughs galore.
Probably the biggest laughs were when Fat Albert races the bad guy on the school track (a take on how fast he always managed to run in the cartoon), and every time Mushmouth says something.
I never watched "Fat Albert" as a kid, but I concluded that I would watch the movie based upon the cartoon's reputation.
Had I known that Fat Albert and the gang would lunge through the television from cartoon town to real life, I wouldn't have even watched the opening credits.It was a feel good story with a good message, but it was terribly done.
I just bought the original series DVD's before this movie came out and looked forward to seeing it.I sat through 45 minutes and realized that nothing made any sense, there was barely any story, and the characters were not even close to what Cosby put out in the 70's This movie was badly written, poorly acted and painful to watch.I feel very sorry for anyone who paid 8 dollars to see this junker.Cosby should be ashamed that he actually made a movie worse than Ghost Dad and Leonard Part VI.Fat Albert could have been edited to 15 minutes long and still got the point across, instead it dragged on for what seemed an eternity..
Through some sort of unexplained fluke of magic, Fat Albert and his "gang" leap out of a TV screen to come to the aid of a young girl who is having trouble fitting in with the kids at school.
As is his wont, Fat Albert - whose guttural "heyheyhey" became his official character trademark - dispenses chicken soup sentiment and fortune cookie wisdom as he goes about the business of solving everyone's problems.Bill Cosby, who was the creator of the original "Fat Albert," has co-written (along with Charles Kipps) a screenplay that is so well-intentioned, so inoffensive and so white-bread bland in its attitude and demeanor that the movie seems to be evaporating even as you're watching it (much as the kids gradually fade away - though it is strangely imperceptible to the viewer - as their time in the real world runs out).
Thus, the comic tension that should be derived from that juxtaposition of two vastly different worlds never materializes, and we sit in backside-numbing soreness waiting for the movie to end.Keenan Thompson (from "SNL") brings a certain amount of sweetness and energy to the title character, but the screenwriters and director Joel Zwick have given him zero material of quality to work with.
"Fat Albert" may be fine for undiscriminating and undemanding preschool audiences - though most of them probably won't have any real familiarity with or affection for the original reference point - but it is far too juvenile to be of any interest to the people who grew up watching it on TV..
Even though, the film is not the best work that can be done with Mr. Cosby's creative characters, it does capture the essence of what "Fat Albert" is all about.
For the parent, it was seeing the Fat Albert I watched as a kid, with the same moralistic values that are so often left out/compromised these days, even in "G" rated movies.
I really appreciated that they stayed true to the cartoon and gave me a little "history" (true?) as well.Also, the film was well cast and it was gratifying seeing the "gang" develop and adapt in the "Real world" in ways that made them better--and I didn't even know I was rooting for it!The kids all found it entertaining, especially the *still!* coolness of Fat Albert and the *updated* music.Besides, gotta love Kyla Pratt and Kenan!!We will gladly add this to our collection!.
(It reminded me of the old "Honeymooners" episode where Ed Norton was dressed up like a fat man to scam a company out of some dough and Ralph Cramden told him his face didn't look fat.) Fat Albert simple didn't look real or believable, albeit he played a cartoon character who came to real life.That deal where they started to fade wasn't appealing at all.
OK, maybe if you are a little kid this movie might be good but if you are an adult hoping to capture some magic of the old TV series forget it.Where did it go wrong?
Just have them be kids of the same school and have a regular Fat Albert storyline would of been so much better.I also don't understand why all the characters but Russell were included in the 'real world'.
I recently bought the "Ultimate Collection" DVD and I must say that the 2004 live-action movie is very much in spirit with the cartoon.Cosby, who has in recent months come under fire from both whites and blacks for his comments about the state of the black community, shoves all those comments back in their faces by, for once (in a very long time), showing black people in a truly positive light - where we aren't shown as thugs, hustlers, pimps, or generally, a******s.And what people missed about Cosby's comments is that even though they were a little too general, the sad thing is he was basically correct in his charges that the black youth in this country are in trouble.
And perhaps with "Fat Albert," some dignity has been restored to the community.When Doris (Kyla Pratt of Disney's hit animated show "The Proud Family") is not invited to a party with all the rest of the cool kids, she goes home and turns on the television to an episode of "Fat Albert." Albert (Kenan Thompson in live form) and the rest of the Cosby Kids are magically transported to the real world when Doris' tears open up a portal into their animated world.So then begins a unique (and awkward) friendship as Fat Albert seeks to sort out Doris' problems and then finding a way for them to return to their world."Fat Albert," despite its shamefully low rating on IMDb, is a very fun movie to watch and the words "good-hearted" don't even begin to describe just HOW much fun it is.The main surprise here is Kenan Thompson, who as I last remember it, had a bit part on "All That," but that was way back in 1997.
Kyla Pratt is another revelation, giving a real performance as the troubled and left-out Doris.Bill Cosby need not fret about the community's rage towards his truthful comments, since his beloved "Fat Albert" is sure to make a big splash on the video after-market.10/10.
I've seen a lot of bad movies lately (Catwoman, Raising Helen, The Forgotten, The Grudge, Troy to name a few), but this one takes the cake.A few times during the film, I felt like yelling "All right.
Kenan Thompson stars as Fat Albert in this great family film.
I would like to see Fat Albert as a movie with a plot and not having anyone come out of the TV.
After all this time, I've finally seen the entire film, knowing it wasn't popular, and that it was more for kids, so it didn't surprise me when I found it to be a tad dull, even though I don't abhor it like many others seem to.Doris is an antisocial teenager in Philadelphia who hasn't been so happy since the death of her grandfather.
Fat Albert sees that Doris has a problem, and is determined to help her solve it, so he comes out of the TV into the real world, and most of the others soon follow!
I just saw Fat Albert and I laughed and I cried.I am once again impressed with Bill Cosby.While this movie is probably targeted as a children's film it has much to offer to adults.
The Fat Albert movie is a breath of fresh air from what the media feeds our kids with these days.This film teaches the positive value that if you try you can succeed.
I grew up with Fat Albert but don't think you had to know him to enjoy this movie.
I especially enjoyed it because it brought back childhood memories of my siblings and I watching 'Fat Albert' on Saturday Mornings and memorizing the song that the gang sings at the end of the program.
I see it as a medium for Bill Cosby to say: No this is not a cartoon world where a scripted character can just solve the social and emotional problems of those around him, but does that mean we all have to treat everything with negativity, criticism, and cynical views.I'd be pushing what I have taken personally from this movie and what I think others should if I go any further.Watch the movie.
I liked how kindhearted Mushmouth was, but he seemed to be abused a bit for laughs...and I really didn't want to hear him talk straight.Bill - Bill, being such a "normal" guy to begin with, seemed pretty much right-on here, and spends much of the movie helping Fat Albert.Bucky - Bucky seemed a little too argumentative at first, but got a little goofier and fun-loving as time went on.Weird Harold - Harold doesn't come across so much as weird, just clumsy and awkward in his advanced height.Dumb Donald - I have never thought that Donald was as dumb as his name suggests, but the movie seems to make a point of it.
I am a veteran Cosby and Fat Albert Gang enjoyer so I went in wanting to enjoy this film.
I was a fan of the original Fat Albert cartoon when I was a kid.
Also, the little kid from the gang gets left behind when the others go into the "real world." That is too bad because he always had great lines such as "Thanksgiving at school, No Class Turkey." Still these are minor problems and the girl that they are trying to help is very well played, as is her foster sister who falls in love with Fat Albert.
So if you want to have a good time for 90 minutes, then watch Fat Albert.
Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids are cartoon characters on a daily television show.
There are some funny scenes in the movie, especial with the Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids.
Lot's of fun - we love FAT ALBERT - very refreshing to see a film with family values and not a lot of bad words - violence etc.
I watched this with my -year old and she enjoyed it as much as I did and she has no idea who Fat Albert is.
Recently they did the same thing with the Bad News Bears.Fat Albert could have been a great 20 something movie that many people would have gone to see.
Has Fat Albert and The Cosby Kids helped solved problems each week.
Until now, Has the movie centers around Doris(Kylie Pratt) is watching a Fat Albert episode, and she is upset after a bad day at school.
The cartoon character Fat Albert hears her cries and jumps out of Cartoon land and into reality, and his friends(AKA The Cosby Kids) follow him, in hopes to help Doris with her problem.
But when you have a silly, simple show like Fat Albert, you don't expect everything to be exactly the same (which is one of the reasons why I'm both looking forward to and dreading the Simpsons movie).
But other than that, Fat Albert is a fun family movie.
I was never a Fat Albert fan growing up, never liked the cartoon, but was anxious to see the new film if for the only reason that I wanted to see Bill Cosby back in action because I am a fan of his.
Unfortunately Albert and the Cosby Kids find themselves fading in the real world, and on top of it all Albert has fallen in love with Doris' foster sister Lauri.The best thing I can say about Fat Albert is this story is so pure and fun.
Kenan Thompson embodies the personality of Fat Albert and his buddies look every bit like reality cartoon characters.
It was so cool to see Bill Cosby and his real life brother with other guys portraying older versions of the Cosby kids at the end of the Fat Albert movie.