Tag Archives: African American Cartoon Characters

Opening Night 70′s Party – January 27, 2012

I went back to ToonSeum for the opening night 70′s themed party over the weekend. The opening event was held in conjunction with the area gallery crawl in downtown Pittsburgh, so both the art and cartoon lovers came out.

I got six.
That’s all there is.
Six time one is six, one times six
He got six.
I put mine with his and we got twelve
Six time two is twelve, two times six
I got six, you got six,
She got six.
We got eighteen altogether.
If we can get ‘em all together.
Six time three is eighteen, three times six

Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids the animated series was created, produced, and hosted by comedian Bill Cosby, who also lent his voice to a number of characters, including Fat Albert himself. Filmation was the production company for the series. The show premiered on September 9, 1972 and ran until 1985. The show, based on Bill Cosby’s remembrances of his childhood gang, focused on the lovable, oversized Albert, with his signature rumbling exclamation “Hey hey hey!”, and his friends.

Fat Albert and The Cosby Kids was a long-standing Saturday morning cartoon that featured a group of Black adolescents growing up in a Philadelphia neighborhood. It had various “show-within-a-show” elements throughout its production run, and one of those elements was a segment called The Brown Hornet, which first appeared on September 1, 1979 when the series itself was re-titled The New Fat Albert Show.

Who is this super hero?
Sarge? No.
Rosemary, the telephone operator? No.
Penry, the mild-mannered janitor? Could Be!
Hong Kong Phooey, Number One Superguy
Hong Kong Phooey, quicker than the human eye
He’s got style…
He’s got style, a groovy style
And a car that just won’t stop.
When the going gets rough he’s super tough
With the Hong Kong Phooey Chop! Heeyaah!
Hong Kong Phooey, Number-one Super Guy
Hong Kong Phooey
Quicker than the human eye
Hong Kong Phooey, Fanriffic!

Harlem Globetrotters (called Harlem Globe Trotters in the opening titles) was a Saturday morning cartoon produced by Hanna-Barbera and CBS Productions, featuring animated versions of players from the basketball team, Harlem Globetrotters. Broadcast from September 12, 1970 to September 2, 1972 on CBS for 22 episodes, and later re-run on NBC as The Go-Go Globetrotters, the show featured cartoon versions of George “Meadowlark” Lemon, Freddie “Curly” Neal, Hubert “Geese” Ausbie, J.C. “Gip” Gipson, Bobby Joe Mason, and Pablo Robertson, alongside their fictional bus driver and manager Granny, and Dribbles, their dog mascot.

I Am the Greatest: The Adventures of Muhammad Ali was an animated series featuring heavyweight boxing legend Muhammad Ali. The short-lived series was broadcast Saturday mornings on NBC, starting on September 10, 1977. The series was cancelled after 13 episodes, by January 1978.

“Red, yellow, black or white…
White, yellow, black or red…
It’s up to Kid Power, Kid Power!
All the color’s in your head”

First appearing in “Aquaman” (vol. 1) #35 in 1967, Black Manta was created by Bob Haney and Nick Cardy, and has since become the Sea King’s primary foe. What might make Black Manta unique is that he’s probably the most well-known Black supervillain in comics and among the general public, thanks to the character’s other-media appearances (particularly on “Super Friends).

One thing that was really cool about the 70’s was the fact that there were Black cartoons on TV. I love cartoons and every Saturday morning you would find me right in front of the tube watching Fat Albert and The Cosby Kids, The Go Go Globetrotters and my favorite, The Jackson 5ive.

Black Vulcan was created to add more cultural diversity to the All New Super Friends Hour.

A Christmas Carol and the Nativity story bringing together the most uber-Christmas tale you could ever tell. It has everything: A mean old Scrooge, a Christmas pageant, presents, cute kids, Santa, a puppy, a down and out family in dire need of Christmas cheer and an assortment of Fat Albert style funky Christmas tunes!

Rickety Rocket was a segment in The Plastic Man Comedy Adventure Show, about an artificially intelligent space ship created by a group of four Black kid geniuses who run a detective agency and solve mysteries in the future.

The Hardy Boys cartoon featured the first postive Black character in a Saturday morning cartoon series, who was also the first Black male character in a Saturday morning cartoon series – Peter Jones. He was the drummer in the band. He was voiced by Byron Kane.

Captain Caveman’s first and second seasons were originally broadcast as segments on the package shows Scooby’s All-Star Laff-A-Lympics and Scooby’s All-Stars from 1977 to 1979. The third season featured Captain Caveman and the Teen Angles in their own half-hour time slot in 1980.

Astrea was the first Black female superhero featured in a Saturday Morning Cartoon series, the Space Sentinels. Roman mythological figures Hercules and Mercury were joined by Astrea, one of the most respected and esteemed goddesses of the Greek and Roman world to form a superhero team to protect mankind.

Chris and Christy Cross are Micro Woman and Super Stretch, a fictional, shape-shifting, husband and wife crime fighting team. They were the first Black Superhero duo to appear in a Saturday Morning Cartoon.

The character Fat Albert first appeared in Bill Cosby’s stand-up comedy routine “Buck Buck,” as recorded on his 1967 album Revenge. The stories were based upon Cosby’s tales about growing up in inner city North Philadelphia. In 1969, Cosby and veteran animator Ken Mundie brought Fat Albert to animation in a one-shot prime-time special entitled Hey, Hey, Hey, It’s Fat Albert. The special, which aired on NBC, was a hybrid of live-action and animation.

In April 1972, Gold Key Comics launched a comic adaptation of the Harlem Globetrotters animated series; their first comic book appearance was in issue #8 of Gold Key’s Hanna-Barbera Fun-In, published in July 1971.

Who could forget the days of Cheech and Chong. Up In Smoke and all the rest of their comedy reflected their hippie and drug based roots. Among their more famous routines was Basketball Jones, a song which was sung in falsetto by Cheech Marin, playing the title character Tyrone (as in “tie-your-own”) Shoelaces.