Fat Albert Ahead of His Time
It’s funny what you see when you re-watch cartoons when you’re older. I was watching Fat Albert the Greatest Hits Collection. There was an episode called “Poll Time” and it was about voting. There were two people running for class president, one black and the other white. During their campaign, both were targeting their specific race and encouraging their potential voters to vote for them because of the color of their skin. Vote for me because I’m black/white and you want someone as class president that looks like you, was the reasoning for both candidates. But Fat Albert didn’t fall for it and saw through the both of them and their tactics. I won’t ruin the ending, but that episode got it’s point across that you shouldn’t vote for someone on race alone.
I looked up the year for that episode on Amazon and it was done in 1972. I wasn’t even born, so I’m sure the focus was on fighting racism. But with the diverse group battling for the 2008 election, I just thought it was funny that they were running for class office. I try not to vote on race or gender, but right now the top two candidates are an African-American and a woman. I have mixed feelings about both. Barack doesn’t give me enough information and substance on his goals for the country and Hillary is just too politicianish (I know that’s not a word) for me. It is going to be interesting to see what happens because every time I see them I think of the movie “Head of State” by Chris Rock. Either way, I think the Democrats have something to prove so it’s going to be a good presidential race no matter which candidate gets the nomination.
If you get a chance to rent it, let me know what you think. A lot of the topics that Bill Cosby covered with that cartoon are still relevant today. He covered some interesting topics. Funny I didn’t realize that when I was younger. My brother and I just like to hear the opening song. Hey, Hey, Hey!Technorati Tags: Fat Albert, 2008 elections, bill cosby, politics
July 24th, 2007 at 2:43 pm
And I’m gonna sing a song for youuuuuuuu!
July 24th, 2007 at 3:22 pm
There was a time when the color of a canidate skin for a black canidate was an important strategy. We had to unite to show our power of the ballott, it still shoud be a key consideration if that canidate’s views are similar to yours. Fat Albert was ahead of his time
July 24th, 2007 at 5:13 pm
I’ve been back and forth on the whole thing millions of times and the whole thing stinks IMO. I doubt we’ll ever see a candidate for president who is willing to sacrifice the wants and needs of themselves or the elite for what is going to positively impact the general American populace.
July 24th, 2007 at 5:48 pm
Guys, thanks for the comments. I don’t think it is possible for candidates to do the best thing for the general public (which does stink). As many promises are made during an election, how many really become law? With all the politicians from your party breathing down your neck offering their opinion, the promises made to the people during an election fall to the wayside. Love it or hate it, that’s democracy for you.
I have a post that I’m going to release next week that may be of interest to you all. I’ll let you all know more about it in the podcast scheduled for this Sunday.
July 24th, 2007 at 8:54 pm
Theo, the laws either fall to the wayside or get extremely watered down. That’s just the nature of politics. Politicians have too many different interests to appeal to. And throw in that they too are watered down (due to how politics has been turned into marketing campaigns) and you have very little substance. Not much to get it excited about in my opinion.
…and this is gonna show you a thing or twooooo.”
July 24th, 2007 at 11:39 pm
Marketing campaign is a good way to describe the process. You don’t know what you get until they are already in office.
“…We’re having fun now with Bill and all the gang. Learnin’ from each other while we do our thang…”
July 25th, 2007 at 1:30 am
O.K. I’ll finish it off..
“Nah, nah, nah, gonna have a good time…Hey, Hey, Hey!”
I have a few years on you Theo and I remember Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids being the first Black cartoon on T.V. That was ground breaking and earth shattering stuff back in the day. Coz has alwas been an outstanding values teacher right up to the present day. All the people compaining about him supposedly being Mr. Holier-than-thou with his public comments on African American behavior these last few years need to buy the greatest hits collection too and remember what Albert and crew were singing about in that Philadelphia junk yard.
July 25th, 2007 at 10:57 am
I haven’t kept up w/ any recent comments from the Coz but I actually agreed with a lot of his initial comments when he went into his rant. I think he irritated a lot of people but sometimes irritation leads to scratching which leads to revealing new vibrant skin.
July 25th, 2007 at 11:09 am
Marty, thanks for finishing out the song. Now that I’ve re-watched almost all of them, that is one cartoon I want my son to watch. They covered a lot of topics that adults and kids have to hear.
Darrell, I agreed with Cosby also. People hate criticism and the truth can hurt. Fixing a lot of the issues in the community starts in the home. The more excuses we make, the less gets done because…
Excuses are tools of incompetence used to build monuments of nothingness, those who specialize in them, are seldom good at anything else and will never reach their full potential *note the minor changes*.
July 25th, 2007 at 5:59 pm
TJ…based on a recent flurry of emails to my Inbox that minor change is more than necessary to prevent any contradictions.
August 1st, 2007 at 10:06 pm
It’s a shame that Fat Albert never had a bigger presence in syndication. My son, who is 5, loves Fat Albert. Cartoons today (and regular TV for that matter) don’t touch a fraction of the subjects that Fat Albert and Mr. Cosby addressed back in the day.