Bill Cosby meets his alter ego in the living flesh.

In Fat Albert, a young girl’s teardrop somehow creates a rift in reality that allows the animated Fat Albert and most of his gang to travel from their cartoon junkyard into the “real” world…transforming them into “real” live-action kids! (Russell remains in animated form to keep an eye on their trash-strewn turf back home.) How the “old school” Cosby kids react and adjust to the new millennium - and to become flesh-and-blood humans — provides the basis for much of this film’s humor.

Fat Albert features approximately 12 minutes of all-new animation, directed by Bert Klein and produced by Susan Szwerman and John Bush. Although given a six-month production schedule, the actual animation was done in only two and a half months, by some of Hollywood’s most talented and dedicated animators. The footage was entirely produced at Sherman Oaks’ Warner Bros. Animation, through the remainder of its post-Looney Tunes: Back In Action feature animation department. “I am very proud that all of the rough animation was done in the states,” Bert remarks.

Storyboards for the animated sequences were concocted by Klein, James (Jamie) Lopez, Tony DeRosa and Robert Lence. Bert recalls, “Tony DeRosa — supervising animator on practically all of the Disney features during the ‘90s — was key in the storyboards and kept us all in stitches with his dead-on Bill Cosby impressions. We would get together at lunchtime and watch old Disney animation from the ‘40s to geek out and get inspired.”

Since the original Filmation Fat Albert character designs (created by Alberto DeMello) remain the property of Hallmark Entertainment, new versions needed to be designed. That task fell to James Lopez and Tony DeRosa - who also served as supervising animators. Bert explains that “The designs of the characters in the movie boils down to the personal style of Jaimie Lopez, who was a supervising animator at Disney Feature Animation for 10 years.

One of Jaimie’s key mentors was Bruce (Bebe’s Kids) Smith and it shows in his work. I worked with Bruce as well when I was at Disney.”

Their challenge was to keep the character designs simple, with aspects of the live-action actors portraying them — but easily identifiable as the same characters from the 1970s. (And aren’t we more than a bit relieved to know that the lead character hasn’t been updated to “Phat Albert”?)

Ed Ghertner was the animation’s layout supervisor. Additional layouts were drawn by Gary Mouri and Fred Craig.

Fat Albert‘s animation crew (in addition to director Klein and supervisors Lopez and DeRosa) included James Baker, Julian Chaney, Crystal Chesney, Adam Dykstra, Eric Goldberg, Chris Hubbard, Ron Husband, Todd Jacobsen, Emily Juliano, Jaimie Oliff, Kevin Petrilak, Phil Pignotti, Dave Pimentel, Beth Sleven, Chris Sonenburg, Bob Tyler (who also worked on the original Filmation version of Fat Albert), Bill Waldman, Dean Wellins and Andreas Wessel-Therhorn. This team of talented cartoonists have given Fat Albert and company an inner life, attitude, energy and, well, weight that was barely hinted at in their original animated incarnation. The only obvious concession to the original Filmation series is Fat Albert’s habit of pointing directly at the audience with a dramatically foreshortened index finger.

The sequences’ special effects were animated by Gordon Baker (who was previously nominated for an Oscar on his work on Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas.) Key animation cleanup was performed by Tracy Lee and Taik Lee. Steve Mills and Dave Scarpiti were the scene planners. Jason Tucker and Julie Rogers were the animation editors.