An open casting call was held in both New York and Los Angeles in hopes to cast an unknown kid actor for the role of Fat Albert. After the exhaustive search in both cities proved futile, the producers offered the part to Kenan Thompson.
Forest Whitaker was the original director of the film, but left the project over creative differences.
Some of the characters in the movie take their names from Bill Cosby's old sketches, such as his girlfriend's name of Doris, his running track at Temple and high jumping, and the "Buck, Buck" sketch that opens the cartoon part of the movie.
Denise Richards filmed a cameo as a store saleswoman and was seen in the original trailer but her scene was deleted from the final cut.
Pre-production began in 1993. Tracy Coley was originally cast as Fat Albert. But production stalled as no studio was interested in it. Production picked up again in 2001 and Omar Benson Miller was cast as Fat Albert. But the project stalled again.
Raven-Symoné: as the voice of Danielle. Raven's first TV role was Olivia Kendall on The Cosby Show (1984).