The Brown Hornet

The Brown Hornet is a show-within-a-show (or more accurately, a cartoon-within-a-cartoon) which is a spin-off on the Filmation animated series Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids from 1979 to approximately 1984. The Brown Hornet was a show that Fat Albert's gang watched on a barely working television in their clubhouse. Originally the Brown Hornet was presented on a radio program by Cosby as an African-American version of the Green Hornet. During the cartoon the character was re-imagined as a caped and masked space hero.

The Brown Hornet was a golden-garbed black superhero who traveled the universe and always seemed to thwart the evil-doers and teach viewers a valuable lesson in the process. In each opening, the mighty Hornet and his two trusty masked sidekicks, his big and bumbling pink-clad pal Stinger and their squeaky little white robot Tweeterbell, were facing certain doom aboard their hornet-shaped spaceship until the fearless hero used one of his many amazing superpowers to save them all, usually with a simple snap of his white-gloved fingers. Their victory would be fleeting, however, as the episode would often end with a new threat emerging.

In the Fat Albert episode entitled "Video Mania", Weird Harold is seen playing a Brown Hornet arcade cabinet at a video arcade. In another episode, Fat Albert and his friends make their own Brown Hornet movie to submit to a film festival. The Brown Hornet also features prominently in The Fat Albert Easter Special (1982) where the Brown Hornet teaches Fat Albert and his friends the spirit of giving and rejuvenation.