In the 60s, when I was in high school, a friend of mine had some record albums of Bill Cosby's comedy. Routines. He had just risen to fame at the time with a co-starring role on I Spy. Before that, he was well known for his standup comedy, and his routines had been recorded and released on vinyl LPs. I remember listening to some of them with my friends and laughing our asses off. (Of course, this was long before he was generally known to be a disgusting, sleazy sex pest, so to us he was just a really funny comic.)
I can't remember a lot of details now, but I remember him telling funny stories about his boyhood pals, including Fat Albert and Old Weird Harold. So I was very familiar with those characters years before they got turned into a cartoon show, as were many other people at the time.
The point of all this is just to say that if people find Fat Albert to be out of step with today's sensibilities, that's because he is literally a relic of a bygone era!
P.S. There's a street in my town called Harold St. I drive down that street fairly often, and my personal nickname for it is Old Weird Harold St. I just can't help it. The first time I saw that street sign, Old Weird Harold immediately popped into my head, and it's been Old Weird Harold St. to me ever since! 
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