From the “Fat Albert” series.
What was that hat that he wore? It looked like a lampshade with holes for eyes cut out. Was that a popular style in (Philly?) back then?
I’ve often wondered this myself. For the longest time I thought it was a physical deformity until my brother told me it was a hat. Whatever. The only pictures of Dumb Donald I could find were here and here. At this site’s faqs, they say “What is that thing on Dumb Donald’s head? A hat. A stupid looking hat.”
I have no idea if real people ever wore such a foolish-looking thing, but it wouldn’t surprise me. After all, real people (I’m being charitable) do wear baggy-pants.
What, ain’t y’all ever heard of a balaclava?
Isn’t that the guy that talked funny?
Heyba, Alba, Iba gahba goba tuba schooba.
Nope. That was Mushmouth. Although, he did, too, wear a hat, which somehow just sat on the back of his head.
That was Mush-Mouth. IIRC, he and Dumb Donald are different characters.
Check out this weeks Chris Rock on HBO to see a funny looking hat. Chris does a ‘man on the street’ interview in Harlem and one guys hat does look a lot like a lampshade.
I saw that! I’m glad someone else thought it looked like a lampshade! It was like Chris Rock’s hat but more lamp-looking.
So far as Dumb Donald goes, when I was little, I always thought it was bubblegum! Well, it was pink and he was a guy! It wasn’t until I was much, much older that someone told me it was supposed to be a hat.
I remember that hat. I always thought it was some kind of wierd ski mask, and I always wondered why he wore it all day, every day.
I thought it was some kind of weird-ass clamshell or something, probably until years after I stopped watching the show.
Wasn’t the whole Fat Albert gang based on Bill Cosby’s real childhood friends?
I always thought so because in one of his routines he talks about Fat Albert, who always said “Hey, Hey, Hey”. And he has a brother called Rudy. And the only normal one in the gang is young Bill.
That’s what I’d always figured, anyways. So let us ask Mr Cosby himself what the heckadoody that hat was on Dumb Donald’s head. Anyone got his number? Maybe he has ICQ.
And why did Rudy always talk like he had a cold, and was in a dufflecoat and flap-eared hat all the time, even in summer??
Wow, I can’t believe I let that show slip into the gray cracks. Thanks Mjollnir for bringing it back! I gotta side with the funky ski-cap. Never gave too much thought about it, but then again I was already desensitized by Bazooka Joe’s funky turtleneck. Anyway, FWIW, I think Cosby’s brother’s name was Russell. I say this because one of my favorite childhood albums was To Russell My Brother Whom I Slept With. Funny stuff. You can find some of his older routines on Napster.
I had all of Cosby’s albums when I was a kid. (Note to the Young People here: comedy albums were considered hip in the 1960s and early '70s.)
Russell was definitely the young brother (“YOU were not BORN here; you were BROUGHT here by the POLICE.”). Fat Albert and Old Weird Harold appeared in at least one of the sketches on the records. I think Harold was Bill’s cohort the time they stole a Frankenstein statue and used it to scare kids in the neighborhood. Albert appeared in that one and also the classic “Buck Buck” routine.
The other characters on the cartoon were probably made up by the usual team of hacks when Cosby sold the rights.
Response to the OP: I doubt today you could get away with creating an urban black adolescent cartoon character who goes around wearing a ski mask at all times.
Cosby had some of the best lines
“The Giant…has money.”
“Black snakes under the bed?”
“Special class - We’re going to the zoo today, yup, yup!”
My favorite was from “900 cop cars” about the homemade car race down the hill.
[paraphrase]
“…we stole 497 baby buggy wheels.
(pause)
Old Weird Harold had a Continental.”
[/paraphrase]
Still amuses me to this day.
[ul]
[li]DAD! Breath, so we can breath![/li][li](to Adam and Eve) Alright that’s it - Everybody out of the pool![/li][li]I started out life as a child….[/li][/ul]
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.
What’s a cubit?
" . . . and the little one was riding on top of the big one, yelling, ‘Faster, faster, you fool, you fool!’"
If it wasn’t for my dad’s Carlin, Cosby and Cheech & Chong albums, I wouldn’t be the man I am today. I was justing listening to “AM/FM” and “Class Clown” yesterday, as a matter of fact.