Foremost among the problems with "Fat Albert" is that Albert isn't really fat.

		'Fat Albert' Rating: PG for momentary language. Starring: Kenan Thompson, Kyla Pratt. Director: Joel Zwick.

Kenan Thompson ("All That," "SNL") has been stuffed like a turkey to fill out the Saturday morning cartoon hero's mighty red sweater. But a quick look at the old Albert tells us that Kenan lacks a key attribute for the part: a fat head! To go with the body.

He could also use a comic touch that's a bit more broad. Taking his cue from creator Bill Cosby, whom he idolizes, Thompson plays Albert not for laughs, but as if he's trying to win the Good Samaritan Award.

The person in need is Doris (Kyla Pratt), a high school wallflower who feels shunned by the popular kids. While watching the "Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids" cartoon, she drops a tear on the remote. It's a magical one, because Fat Albert, in the throes of a junkyard game of buck-buck, takes notice and proceeds to climb through the TV set. Moments later, seven of the Cosby Kids are in the living room of her mom's North Philly apartment, leaving little Russell to fend for himself back in the cartoon world.

Now, everywhere she goes, to school, to parties, to track meets, Doris has a Cosby Kids posse along to help her make friends and impart important life lessons. Like a black Brady Bunch, they encounter a strange, futuristic society with cell phones, computers, hip-hop and fashions that look nothing like their own.

Scenes start to take on the feel of short videos, with Fat Albert dancing, rapping, racing and being an all-around lovable guy, in part to outdo the mean-spirited Reggie (Omari Grandberry, late of B2K), for the affections of Doris' attractive foster sister Lauri (Dania Ramirez). Sadly, he doesn't even want to be Fat Albert anymore; he wants to be Big Al.

The Cosby Kids, free of the animators, find that they can also liberate themselves from the things that make them funny: Weird Harold doesn't have to be so weird, for instance, Dumb Donald doesn't have to wear that dumb hat, and Mushmouth doesn't have to say, "Hey-ba, Fa-ba, Al-bert."

They'd all be happy to stay in Doris' world and continue to become real people, but their day-glo colors are starting to fade and the TV junkyard calls.

"Fat Albert," directed by Joel Zwick ("My Big Fat Greek Wedding"), is a clean, good-natured and all-too-well-meaning movie, true to the politics of Cosby, who co-wrote the screenplay and makes a short cameo. How they threw all these wacky characters together with hardly a shred of humor is as mysterious as them crawling through the screen.

Watching "Fat Albert," I couldn't help wondering, Hey ... hey ... hey ..., where is Anthony Anderson?! You know, the guy who actually made it possible to get to the end of "Kangaroo Jack." He is funny. He is Fat Albert.