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Rudy
RudyDavisRender

Name

Rudolph “Rudy” Davis

Voiced by

Eric Suter (classic series)

Portrayed by

Shedrack Anderson III (film)

Mother

Mrs. Davis

Father

James Davis

Rudolph "Rudy" Davis is a member of the Junkyard Gang. He usually serves as the primary source of comic relief and character friction in the series.

In the Junkyard Band, he plays a makeshift banjo, whose parts included a broomstick handle and sewing-thread spool to hold the strings. But when shown playing apart from the others, Rudy played an electric guitar (stylized with a big letter "R"), making him the only member of the band to play a real musical instrument.

Personality[]

Rudy fancied himself a smooth-talking huckster, although his smart-alecky attitude more often got him into trouble than out of it. His cocky and dismissive attitude often served as the catalyst for a typical plot's conflict, but his outward cockiness masked a decent heart, and he usually learned lessons from his mistakes. In the Easter special, case in point, after getting Mudfoot injured because of a prank he was playing on someone else that went awry, Rudy, not telling anyone else, took up a hazardous job in order to help pay off Mudfoot's mounting debts. In "Water You Waiting For" he almost immediately panicked when his prank almost gets Russel drowned, then apologizes to him and sheds a tear of joy when Russel recovers. In "Pot of Gold", when a fellow student named Patty gets high on marijuana, Rudy is just as tempted to try it himself. However, when he sees her dancing in the middle of the street, he and Fat Albert quickly manage to save her from getting hit. At least twice, he expressed sympathy for fellow students going through a divorce.

Rudy's family is stated to be the most affluent of all the members of the Junkyard Gang, but Rudy never boasted about it, except in the season 1 episode "Creativity", when he first got his new electric guitar and brags about how he's going to become a superstar and make a lot of money. His background is never again brought up on subsequent occasions.

In the 2004 live-action film, Rudy’s personality was different and now acts like a well-mannered, kind-hearted gentleman. This is most likely due to a culmination of his character development over the course of the series. Or inattention on the part of the writers.

Appearance[]

Rudy is a slender, teenage African-American boy. He is the sharpest dresser of the Junkyard Gang, always wearing his signature orange scally cap with a pink disco-like outfit.

In the film, his appearance remained mostly unchanged, with the exception of his shoes being pink instead of red like in the original series, as well as his sweater vest being changed from red to purple.

Trivia[]

  • Rudy shared a name with Rudith "Rudy" Huxtable (Keshia Knight-Pulliam), a character on another one of Bill Cosby's series, The Cosby Show. However, this Rudy is male, while Rudy on The Cosby Show is a female.
  • As seen in the last part of the film, Rudy was based on one of Bill Cosby's friends as he was seen with the rest of the gang paying respects to the real Fat Albert who passed away. He even wore a hat similar to his character.
  • Rudy is shown to have many hidden talents such as speaking french.

Gallery[]

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