Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids

Origins and history

Characters

The Cosby Kids

• Fat Albert Robertson is based on Cosby's childhood friend Albert Robertson. The main character in the series, he is usually the conscience of the Junkyard Gang. Though very obese, he is athletic and enjoys playing sports. He always wears a burnt orange shirt and blue pants. Civic-minded and wise beyond his years, Fat Albert works hard to maintain integrity in the gang and with others, and is the lead singer as well as a bagpipe-accordion player in the Junkyard Band and on occasion, plays the bedspring.
• James "Mushmouth" Mush is a slack-jawed simpleton with big lips. He always wears a red knit hat with a blue scarf and always speaks in virtual Ubbi Dubbi, tantamount to an overdose of novocaine in the mouth, which Cosby would later use in the "Dentist" monologue from his 1983 film, Himself. Mushmouth plays a homemade electric bass guitar in the Junkyard Band.
• "Dumb" Donald Parker is a lanky, dimwitted fellow. He is Rudy's best friend. He always wears a green long-sleeved jersey three sizes too big, and a pink stocking knit cap covering his entire face except his eyes and his mouth. In the Junkyard Band, he plays a trombone made out of plumbers' pipe and a morning glory horn from an old phonograph. In the Fat Albert film and while in the real world, Donald takes off his knit cap and learns that he has a handsome face.
• William "Bill" Cosby is a character based on Bill Cosby himself and he is the host of the series. Like the others, Bill Cosby is a good athlete and enjoys playing sports. However, he spends most of his time trying, often unsuccessfully, to keep his little brother Russell out of trouble. Like Fat Albert, Bill Cosby is often a voice of reason in the gang, although at times a little more stubborn. In the Junkyard Band, he plays a set of homemade drums made from a discarded foot-pedal trash can/garbage can using two metal spoons for drumsticks.
• Russell Cosby is Bill's younger brother and the smallest and youngest of the Junkyard Gang. He always wears a heavy blue winter jacket, a yellow winter scarf, red winter boots, and a dark blue Ushanka winter hat regardless of the weather. Russell has a penchant for making snide remarks and blunt observations. Russell frequently criticizes Rudy, reserving his most withering insults for when Rudy is being especially cocky. His catchphrase is "no class". He plays the xylophone in the Junkyard Band.
• "Old Weird" Harold Simmons is a tall, skinny, beady-eyed kid who is the tallest one of the Junkyard Gang and always wears a gold dress blazer, a brown sock on 1 foot and a red sock on the other foot, and he is clumsy. In the Junkyard Band, he plays a harp made from bedsprings, and on occasion plays a "dressmaker dummy" in the percussion section. In the film adaptation, he is called "Old Weird Harold", as he was in Bill Cosby's stand-up routines.
• Rudy Davis is a sharp-dressed, smooth-talking, cocky huckster whose smart-aleck attitude frequently gets him into trouble. He is Dumb Donald's best friend. Rudy's cocky attitude and dismissive demeanor are often the catalyst for a typical plot's conflict. But inside he has a good heart and usually learns lessons from his mistakes. In the Junkyard Band, he plays a makeshift banjo, whose parts include a broomstick handle and sewing-thread spool to hold the strings. However, when shown playing apart from the others, Rudy plays an electric guitar. He always wears an orange flat cap, a fuchsia vest, a pink turtleneck/sweater, purple bell-bottom jeans, and boots. Rudy's personality in the Fat Albert movie is much different as he is portrayed as a kind and chivalrous gentleman who falls in love with the female lead Doris.
• Bucky Miller, as his name indicates, has a large overbite. He is a quick and flexible athlete. Bucky plays a stovepipe organ in the Junkyard Band.

  Others

• Miss Berry is the kids' first school teacher and mentor. She is later replaced by Mrs. Breyfogle. In later seasons, the kids went into a different school where their school teacher and mentor was Miss Wucher. All three characters were voiced by Jay Scheimer, wife of executive producer Lou Scheimer.
• Mudfoot Brown is a wise old man and unemployed vagrant who gives advice to the gang, often using reverse psychology to get his point across. He has a talent for telling tall tales. He makes a minor appearance in the film adaptation at the beginning and end of the film, voiced by Earl Billings. However, he is never referred to by name in the film.
• The Brown Hornet is the title character of a show about an African-American superhero whose cartoons were watched regularly by the gang. He is a parody of the Green Hornet.
• * Stinger is the Brown Hornet's beefy sidekick whose gruff exterior masks a soft heart.
• * Tweeterbell is a female robot assistant to the Brown Hornet and Stinger.
• Cluck is a domestic duck that followed the gang regularly in early episodes, but stopped appearing after season 1.
• Legal Eagle is another show-within-a-show, involving a crime-fighting cartoon bald eagle.
• * Moe and Gabby are two lazy, klutzy tree squirrel underlings that work with Legal Eagle as police officers.
• Margene is a classmate and good friend of Fat Albert's. In one episode she and Albert ran for co-president of the Student Council and beat out two other candidates, both of whom were running on platforms of racism. A straight-A student, Margene occasionally got in with the wrong people but always managed to rebound; in a different episode she got hooked on drugs, and in another she got innocently involved in a violent cult.
• The 3 River Blockbusters are the Junkyard Gang's main rivals when it comes to competing in sports such as baseball and football. The Blockbusters stole the championship in a competition called "buck buck" in the episode "Moving". One of them was voiced by Gerald Edwards, and another was voiced by Eric Suter. They make an appearance in the film adaptation, which features totally different members, with the leader, dubbed as Crips, voiced by Catero Colbert and credited as "Lead Teen".
• Pee Wee is a small boy who looks up to Fat Albert and the gang. While being small in stature, his best athletic skill is kicking a football at a long distance. When the bigger kids could not get anything out of a small van, Pee Wee is there to retrieve it.