Charles (Chuck) Kensinger

I know that Bill Cosby has been disgraced for the crimes he has been convicted of. As a kid, I listened to his albums and watched him on television. I predate some of you enough that I remember him in the sixties when he first talked about Fat Albert, Russell, Weird Harold, and Dumb Donald.

You don’t remember these friends of Bill? You might have seen them on “Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids” in the seventies and eighties. Dumb Donald was the one who wore the stupid-looking stocking cap that covered his entire face. Many comedians use characters that are not intelligent.

This is a common tactic with writers of books and scripts. Tim Allen’s Tim the Toolman character in his stand-up comedy routines became the situation comedy “Home Improvement.” Allen played the bumbling, often imbecilic host of a local cable television show called “Tool Time.” His sponsor was Binford Tools; all of this is from the minds of Mr. Allen and his writers.

The point I want to make here is that we all have our times when we are not highly intelligent. Al Borland is Tim’s assistant on his tool episodes. Al is a qualified contractor and extinguishes his boss when he sets himself on fire, rescues him when he glues his head to a table, or helps him repair the house that he blew up with a clapper device.

The problem is that, like this pair, we all need someone to help us. Al may be an excellent carpenter and contractor, but he is boring, hence the name Borland, and a failure in relationships. Sometimes Tim sabotages his own marriage and must go to his neighbor, Wilson Wilson Jr., for advice.

With all his knowledge, we soon learn that Wilson also has his own flaws. He is not intelligent about everything, either. “Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids,” “Home Improvement,” and Tim Allen’s second series, “Last Man Standing,” all serve to educate us that we are all good at some things and really dumb at others.

Albert is obese, Russell is too timid and lets his older brother and others bully him, and Harold has his strange yet funny and endearing moments; these are what made that cartoon a classic, which became a live-action movie in 2004. Television and movies have many critics, but they can add to our knowledge and experience if we pay attention.

Think about what you watch and analyze what it can teach you. When “The Neighborhood” was first aired, we viewed it, and even though I thought Calvin Butler and his new friend Dave were both idiots in their own ways, they have spent the last few years teaching me more about friendship and race relations than most of us can grasp on our own.

In one of the early episodes, Marty, Calvin’s youngest son, makes a statement that blacks cannot be racists because they are racial. As you watch these shows, you see that Cedric the Entertainer and the cast and crew are pointing out to their audience that none of us knows as much as we think we do. To some extent, we are all Dumb Donalds.

©Copyright 2026 by Charles Kensinger