The Weird Harold Special (found animated "Fat Albert" special; 1973)
St. Louis TV Digest magazine cover shows a still of the special.
Status: Found
Date found: 10 Apr 2018
Found by: Colm Reddy
The Weird Harold Special was an animated one-shot broadcast by NBC Television at 7:30 PM on May 4, 1973.
For all intents and purposes, it was simply an episode of the already-popular Fat Albert & The Cosby Kids animated series, which premiered in September of 1972. It thus featured the regular animation and voices of those characters.
However, the main show was broadcast on CBS on Saturday Mornings. One possibility was that NBC, which had broadcast prior animated Fat Albert special Hey, Hey, Hey, It's Fat Albert, had rights to this plot and episode, or that it was a lost proto-pilot for the regular series.
Premise
The episode itself also followed a similar motif to the regular series.
In it, Weird Harold and Fat Albert plan a potentially dangerous go-cart race (said carts made in their junkyard hangout) down treacherous Deadman's Hill.
Promptly hitting a police squad car after an out-of-control slapstick race, the kids find themselves arrested and in trouble with their parents.
Availability
While not listed with the regular Fat Albert episodes, this special seems to have been repackaged as an episode when the series hit syndication. Whether it could also be released on DVD is not known.
In any case, the special was never broadcast again as The Weird Harold Special. Oddly, scenes from this special were included as drawings on the popular Fat Albert lunchbox available during the show's heyday.
However, on 10 April 2018, YouTuber Colm Reddy found the special and updated it to YouTube.