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Josie and the Pussycats (TV series)
Encyclopedia
Josie and the Pussycats is an American
animated television series, based upon the Archie Comics
comic book series of the same name
created by Dan DeCarlo
.
Produced for Saturday morning television
by Hanna-Barbera Productions
, sixteen episodes of Josie and the Pussycats aired on CBS during the 1970-71 television season, and were rerun during the 1971-72 season. In 1972, the show was re-conceptualized as Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space, sixteen episodes of which aired on CBS during the 1972-73 season and were rerun the following season.
CBS reran the original episodes, replacing the Outer Space shows in January of 1974. Beginning in September of 1974, ABC aired reruns of the original series for that entire year. To make it a third network,Josie and the Pussycats was then rerun on NBC
Saturday mornings during the 1975-76 television season. This brought its national Saturday morning TV run on three networks to six years.
Josie and the Pussycats featured an all-girl pop music
band that toured the world with their entourage, getting mixed up in strange adventures, spy capers, and mysteries. On the small-screen
, the group consisted of level-headed lead singer and guitarist Josie, intelligent tambourinist Valerie, and air-headed blonde drummer Melody. Other characters included their shady manager Alexander Cabot III, his conniving sister Alexandra, her cat Sebastian, and muscular roadie Alan M.
The show, more similar to Hanna-Barbera's successful Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!
than the original Josie comic book, is famous for its music, the girls' leopard print leotard
s (replete with "long tails and ears for hats," as the theme song states), and for featuring Valerie as the first regularly appearing female black
character in a Saturday morning cartoon show.
Each episode featured a Josie and the Pussycats song played over a chase scene, which, in a similar fashion to The Monkees
, featured the group running after and from a selection of haplessly villainous characters.
-based Saturday morning cartoon, The Archie Show
, was a huge success, not only in the ratings on CBS
, but also on the Billboard charts: The Archies
' song "Sugar, Sugar
" hit the #1 spot on the Billboard charts in September 1969, becoming the number one song of the year. Animation studio Hanna-Barbera Productions wanted to duplicate the success their competitors Filmation
were having with The Archie Show
. After a failed attempt at developing a teenage-music-band show of their own called Mysteries Five (which eventually became Scooby-Doo, Where are You!
), they decided to go to the source and contacted Archie Comics about possibly adapting one of their remaining properties into a show similar to The Archie Show. Archie and Hanna-Barbera collaborated to adapt Archie's Josie
comic book into a music-based property about a teenage music band, adding new characters (Alan M. and Valerie) while dismissing others.
The Josie and the Pussycats recordings were produced by La La Productions, run by Danny Janssen and Bobby Young. They held a talent search to find three girls who would match the three girls in the comic book in both looks and singing ability, and, after interviewing over 500 finalists, settled upon casting Kathleen Dougherty (Cathy Dougher) as Josie, Cherie Moor
(actress Cheryl Ladd) as Melody, and Patrice Holloway
as Valerie.
Janssen presented the newly formed band to William Hanna
and Joseph Barbera
to finalize the production deal, but was in for a surprise. Hanna-Barbera wanted Janssen to recast Patrice Holloway, because they had decided to portray "Josie and the Pussycats" as an all-white trio and had altered Valerie, who had been conceived as African-American and was already appearing as such in Arche's revamped Josie and the Pussycats comic book, to make her white. Janssen refused to recast Holloway and threatened to walk away from the project. After a three-week-long stand-off between Janssen and Hanna-Barbera, Hanna-Barbera finally relented and allowed Janssen to keep Holloway, and changed Valerie back to being African-American.
The Valerie character was the first African-American female character on a regular Saturday morning cartoon series. The Hardy Boys drummer Pete Jones had been the first African-American male to appear on Saturday mornings a year earlier, and Hanna-Barbera also introduced a Harlem Globetrotters
series, which featured an African-American drummer named Pete Jones (portrayed by real-life session drummer Bob Crowder in live segments), and it aired in 1969, a year before Josie and the Pussycats. However, Valerie was the very first female African-American cast member on a regular Saturday-morning cartoon.
, William Hanna
(under the pseudonym "Denby Williams"), and Joseph Barbera
(under the pseudonym "Joseph Roland"). Patrice Holloway, the singing voice of Valerie, sings the lead vocal on the recording. The theme song was based on melodies from a incidental tune played on various Hanna-Barbera cartoons.
A cover of "Josie and the Pussycats", performed by Juliana Hatfield
and Tanya Donelly
, is included on the 1995 tribute album
Saturday Morning: Cartoons' Greatest Hits, produced by Ralph Sall
for MCA Records
.
Saturday morning
lineup on September 12, 1970, with the episode "The Nemo's a No-No Affair." The animated version of Josie was an amalgam of plot devices, villain types, settings, moods, and tones from other Hanna-Barbera shows such as Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!
, Jonny Quest
, Space Ghost
, and Shazzan
.
Like Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!
, Josie and the Pussycats was originally broadcast with a laugh track
. Later home video and DVD releases omit the laugh track.
The Pussycats would succeed in capturing the villain and get back to their gig/recording session/etc. The final gag always centered around one of Alexandra's attempts to interfere with/put an end to The Pussycats' performance and/or steal Alan away from Josie.
Musical numbers and chase sequences set to newly recorded songs were featured in this spin-off series as with the original. Josie in Outer Space also added the character of Bleep, a pet-sized fluffy alien adopted by Melody, who was the only one who could understand the creature (who only says "Bleep") and numerous other alien animals encountered.
The 16 episodes of Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space were re-run for the 1973-1974 season until January 26, 1974, when CBS canceled it and ordered no more new Josie episodes from Hanna-Barbera. Like its predecessor Josie and the Pussycats, Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space contained a laugh track as well, though this time around, an abridged, inferior laugh track was utilized.
Josie and The Pussycats made a final appearance as animated characters in a guest shot on the September 22, 1973 episode of of The New Scooby-Doo Movies
, "The Haunted Showboat." Early production art for Hana-Barbera's 1977 "all-star" Battle of the Network Stars
spoof Laff-A-Lympics
featured Alexandra, Sebastian, Alexander, and Melody among other Hanna-Barbera characters as members of the "Scooby Doobies" team, but legal problems prevented their inclusion in the final program.
In 1976, Rand McNally
published a children's book based on the Josie TV show, Hanna-Barbera's Josie and The Pussycats: The Bag Factory Detour.
The original Josie and the Pussycats series was re-run on NBC
Saturday morning for the 1975-1976 season. In the mid-1980s, both series, along with a number of other 1970s Hanna-Barbera cartoons (including Bratz
) were on board USA Network's Cartoon Express
; they would next appear on Cartoon Network
in 1992, where all 32 episodes were run in the same timeslot.
Singing Voices
Band Members Only
of Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space containing 3 episodes was issued by Worldvision Home Video in 1980. A second videocassette, Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space, Volume 2, was released in 1985.
Two VHS volumes of Josie and the Pussycats, each containing four episodes of the original 1970 series, minus the laugh tracks, were released by Warner Home Video
(Hanna-Barbera had been sold to Turner Broadcasting in 1991, with Turner merging with Time Warner
six years later) on April 10, 2001 to coincide with the release of the live-action film. A Josie and the Pussy Cat episode 'Warriors Women of Amazonia' was featured in a clip/episode collection of Hanna-Barbera on VHS, released in the UK. This video also includes episodes from Scooby Doo, where are you?, The Addams Family, and The Flintstones.
A Josie and the Pussycats: The Complete Series two-DVD box set was released in Region 1 (the United States, Canada, and Japan) on September 18, 2007. All sixteen episodes, again minus the laugh tracks, were included, as well as a half-hour documentary on the life and career of Dan DeCarlo.
On October 19, 2010, Warner Bros.
released Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space: The Complete Series on DVD in Region 1 via their Warner Archive Collection
of Manufacture-on-Demand (MOD) releases. Josie in Outer Space is available exclusively through Warner's online store and only in the US.
The first episode of the original 1970 series, "The Nemo's A No No Affair", is featured on the DVD compilation Saturday Morning Cartoons: the 1970s Volume 1 released on May 26, 2009.
, which referred to Josie as an amusing show for how it combined elements from The Archie Show
and Scooby-Doo
.
, punk
, Kiss
-like heavy metal
, country
, and techno dance. Different animation styles are used for each era. The same year, Josie and the Pussycats was adapted into a live action motion picture. The film, produced by Universal Pictures
, featured a punk rock cover of the theme song during the end credits.
The 2004 - 2007 Comedy Central
animated TV series Drawn Together
featured a character named Foxxy Love. An African-American mystery-solving musician, was a direct parody of the Josie and the Pussycats character Valerie Brown.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
animated television series, based upon the Archie Comics
Archie Comics
Archie Comics is an American comic book publisher headquartered in the Village of Mamaroneck, Town of Mamaroneck, New York, known for its many series featuring the fictional teenagers Archie Andrews, Betty Cooper, Veronica Lodge, Reggie Mantle and Jughead Jones. The characters were created by...
comic book series of the same name
Josie and the Pussycats (comic)
Josie and the Pussycats is a teen-humor comic book about a fictional rock band, created by Dan DeCarlo and published by Archie Comics. It was published from 1963 until 1982; since then, a number of one-shot issues have appeared without regularity...
created by Dan DeCarlo
Dan DeCarlo
Daniel S. DeCarlo was an American cartoonist best known as the artist who developed the look of Archie Comics in the late 1950s and early 1960s, modernizing the characters to their contemporary appearance and establishing the publisher's house style...
.
Produced for Saturday morning television
Saturday morning cartoon
A Saturday morning cartoon is the colloquial term for the animated television programming that has typically been scheduled on Saturday mornings on the major American television networks from the 1960s to the present; the genre's peak in popularity mostly ended in the 1990s while the popularity of...
by Hanna-Barbera Productions
Hanna-Barbera
Hanna-Barbera Productions, Inc. was an American animation studio that dominated North American television animation during the second half of the 20th century...
, sixteen episodes of Josie and the Pussycats aired on CBS during the 1970-71 television season, and were rerun during the 1971-72 season. In 1972, the show was re-conceptualized as Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space, sixteen episodes of which aired on CBS during the 1972-73 season and were rerun the following season.
CBS reran the original episodes, replacing the Outer Space shows in January of 1974. Beginning in September of 1974, ABC aired reruns of the original series for that entire year. To make it a third network,Josie and the Pussycats was then rerun on NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
Saturday mornings during the 1975-76 television season. This brought its national Saturday morning TV run on three networks to six years.
Josie and the Pussycats featured an all-girl pop music
Pop rock
Pop rock is a music genre which mixes a catchy pop style and light lyrics in its guitar-based rock songs. There are varying definitions of the term, ranging from a slower and mellower form of rock music to a subgenre of pop music...
band that toured the world with their entourage, getting mixed up in strange adventures, spy capers, and mysteries. On the small-screen
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
, the group consisted of level-headed lead singer and guitarist Josie, intelligent tambourinist Valerie, and air-headed blonde drummer Melody. Other characters included their shady manager Alexander Cabot III, his conniving sister Alexandra, her cat Sebastian, and muscular roadie Alan M.
The show, more similar to Hanna-Barbera's successful Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!
Scooby-Doo, Where are You!
Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! is the first incarnation of the long-running Hanna-Barbera Saturday morning cartoon Scooby-Doo. It premiered on September 13, 1969 at 10:30 a.m. EST and ran for two seasons on CBS as a half-hour long show. Twenty-five episodes were produced...
than the original Josie comic book, is famous for its music, the girls' leopard print leotard
Leotard
A leotard is a skin-tight one-piece garment that covers the torso but leaves the legs free. It was made famous by the French acrobatic performer Jules Léotard ....
s (replete with "long tails and ears for hats," as the theme song states), and for featuring Valerie as the first regularly appearing female black
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
character in a Saturday morning cartoon show.
Each episode featured a Josie and the Pussycats song played over a chase scene, which, in a similar fashion to The Monkees
The Monkees (TV series)
The Monkees is an American situation comedy that aired on NBC from September 1966 to March 1968. The series follows the adventures of four young men trying to make a name for themselves as rock 'n roll singers. The show introduced a number of innovative new-wave film techniques to series...
, featured the group running after and from a selection of haplessly villainous characters.
Origins
During the 1968-69 television season, the first ArchieArchie Comics
Archie Comics is an American comic book publisher headquartered in the Village of Mamaroneck, Town of Mamaroneck, New York, known for its many series featuring the fictional teenagers Archie Andrews, Betty Cooper, Veronica Lodge, Reggie Mantle and Jughead Jones. The characters were created by...
-based Saturday morning cartoon, The Archie Show
The Archie Show
The Archie Show is a Saturday morning cartoon animated series produced by Filmation. Based on the Archie comic books, created by Bob Montana in 1941, The Archie Show debuted on CBS in September 1968 and lasted for one season. A total of 17 half-hour shows, each containing two 11 minute segments,...
, was a huge success, not only in the ratings on CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
, but also on the Billboard charts: The Archies
The Archies
The Archies are a garage band founded by Archie Andrews, Reggie Mantle, and Jughead Jones, a group of adolescent fictional characters of the Archie universe, in the context of the animated TV series, The Archie Show...
' song "Sugar, Sugar
Sugar, Sugar
"Sugar, Sugar" is a pop song written by Jeff Barry and Andy Kim. It was a four-week 1969 number-one hit single by fictional characters The Archies. Produced by Jeff Barry, the song was originally released on the album Everything's Archie. The album is the product of a group of studio musicians...
" hit the #1 spot on the Billboard charts in September 1969, becoming the number one song of the year. Animation studio Hanna-Barbera Productions wanted to duplicate the success their competitors Filmation
Filmation
Filmation Associates was an American production company that produced animation and live action programming for television during the latter half of the 20th century. Located in Reseda, California, the animation studio was founded in 1963...
were having with The Archie Show
The Archie Show
The Archie Show is a Saturday morning cartoon animated series produced by Filmation. Based on the Archie comic books, created by Bob Montana in 1941, The Archie Show debuted on CBS in September 1968 and lasted for one season. A total of 17 half-hour shows, each containing two 11 minute segments,...
. After a failed attempt at developing a teenage-music-band show of their own called Mysteries Five (which eventually became Scooby-Doo, Where are You!
Scooby-Doo
Scooby-Doo is an American media franchise based around several animated television series and related works produced from 1969 to the present day. The original series, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, was created for Hanna-Barbera Productions by writers Joe Ruby and Ken Spears in 1969...
), they decided to go to the source and contacted Archie Comics about possibly adapting one of their remaining properties into a show similar to The Archie Show. Archie and Hanna-Barbera collaborated to adapt Archie's Josie
Josie and the Pussycats (comic)
Josie and the Pussycats is a teen-humor comic book about a fictional rock band, created by Dan DeCarlo and published by Archie Comics. It was published from 1963 until 1982; since then, a number of one-shot issues have appeared without regularity...
comic book into a music-based property about a teenage music band, adding new characters (Alan M. and Valerie) while dismissing others.
The music
In preparation for the upcoming cartoon series, Hanna-Barbera began working on putting together a real-life Josie and the Pussycats girl group, who would provide the singing voices of the girls in the cartoons and also record an album of songs to be used both as radio singles and in the TV series.The Josie and the Pussycats recordings were produced by La La Productions, run by Danny Janssen and Bobby Young. They held a talent search to find three girls who would match the three girls in the comic book in both looks and singing ability, and, after interviewing over 500 finalists, settled upon casting Kathleen Dougherty (Cathy Dougher) as Josie, Cherie Moor
Cheryl Ladd
Cheryl Ladd is an American actress, singer and author. Ladd is best known for her role as Kris Munroe in the television series Charlie's Angels, hired amid a swirl of publicity prior to its second season in 1977 to replace the departing Farrah Fawcett-Majors...
(actress Cheryl Ladd) as Melody, and Patrice Holloway
Patrice Holloway
Patrice Holloway was an African-American soul and pop singer.-Career:Patrice Yvonne Holloway was born on March 23, 1951 in Los Angeles, California, the youngest of three children born to Wade Holloway, Sr. and his wife, the former Johnnie Mae Fossett...
as Valerie.
Janssen presented the newly formed band to William Hanna
William Hanna
William Denby Hanna was an American animator, director, producer, and cartoon artist, whose film and television cartoon characters entertained millions of people for much of the 20th century. When he was a young child, Hanna's family moved frequently, but they settled in Compton, California, by...
and Joseph Barbera
Joseph Barbera
Joseph Roland Barbera was an influential American animator, director, producer, storyboard artist, and cartoon artist, whose film and television cartoon characters entertained millions of fans worldwide for much of the twentieth century....
to finalize the production deal, but was in for a surprise. Hanna-Barbera wanted Janssen to recast Patrice Holloway, because they had decided to portray "Josie and the Pussycats" as an all-white trio and had altered Valerie, who had been conceived as African-American and was already appearing as such in Arche's revamped Josie and the Pussycats comic book, to make her white. Janssen refused to recast Holloway and threatened to walk away from the project. After a three-week-long stand-off between Janssen and Hanna-Barbera, Hanna-Barbera finally relented and allowed Janssen to keep Holloway, and changed Valerie back to being African-American.
The Valerie character was the first African-American female character on a regular Saturday morning cartoon series. The Hardy Boys drummer Pete Jones had been the first African-American male to appear on Saturday mornings a year earlier, and Hanna-Barbera also introduced a Harlem Globetrotters
Harlem Globetrotters (TV series)
Harlem Globetrotters was a Saturday morning cartoon produced by Hanna-Barbera and CBS Productions, featuring animated versions of players from the basketball team, Harlem Globetrotters....
series, which featured an African-American drummer named Pete Jones (portrayed by real-life session drummer Bob Crowder in live segments), and it aired in 1969, a year before Josie and the Pussycats. However, Valerie was the very first female African-American cast member on a regular Saturday-morning cartoon.
Theme song
The show’s theme song, titled "Josie and the Pussycats", was written by Hoyt CurtinHoyt Curtin
Hoyt Stoddard Curtin was an American composer and music producer, the primary musical director for the Hanna-Barbera animation studio from its beginnings with The Ruff & Reddy Show in 1957 until his retirement in 1986, except from 1963-1973, when the primary music director was Ted Nichols...
, William Hanna
William Hanna
William Denby Hanna was an American animator, director, producer, and cartoon artist, whose film and television cartoon characters entertained millions of people for much of the 20th century. When he was a young child, Hanna's family moved frequently, but they settled in Compton, California, by...
(under the pseudonym "Denby Williams"), and Joseph Barbera
Joseph Barbera
Joseph Roland Barbera was an influential American animator, director, producer, storyboard artist, and cartoon artist, whose film and television cartoon characters entertained millions of fans worldwide for much of the twentieth century....
(under the pseudonym "Joseph Roland"). Patrice Holloway, the singing voice of Valerie, sings the lead vocal on the recording. The theme song was based on melodies from a incidental tune played on various Hanna-Barbera cartoons.
A cover of "Josie and the Pussycats", performed by Juliana Hatfield
Juliana Hatfield
Juliana Hatfield , is an American guitarist/singer-songwriter and author from the Boston area, formerly of the indie rock bands Blake Babies and Some Girls. She currently lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts....
and Tanya Donelly
Tanya Donelly
Tanya Donelly is an American Grammy-nominated singer songwriter and guitarist based in New England who co-founded Throwing Muses with her stepsister Kristin Hersh. She then went on to work in The Breeders and Belly in the 1990s...
, is included on the 1995 tribute album
Tribute album
A tribute album is a recorded collection of cover versions of songs or instrumental compositions. Its concept may be either various artists making a tribute to a single artist, a single artist making a tribute to various artists, or a single artist making a tribute to another single artist.There...
Saturday Morning: Cartoons' Greatest Hits, produced by Ralph Sall
Ralph Sall
Ralph Sall is a record producer, music supervisor, composer, songwriter, and screenwriter. He is the president of Bulletproof Entertainment, a company involved in several facets of the entertainment industry, including film, television, comic books and graphic novels, music, internet and live...
for MCA Records
MCA Records
MCA Records was an American-based record company owned by MCA Inc., which later gave way to the larger MCA Music Entertainment Group , of which MCA Records was still part. MCA Records was absorbed by Geffen Records in 2003...
.
Series overview
Josie and the Pussycats debuted on the CBSCBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
Saturday morning
Saturday Morning
-Album credits:*All tracks produced by Ralph Sall for Bulletproof Recording Company Inc.*Executive Producer/Concept: Ralph Sall for Bulletproof Recording Company Inc.*Engineered by Peter McCabe and Larry Fergusson....
lineup on September 12, 1970, with the episode "The Nemo's a No-No Affair." The animated version of Josie was an amalgam of plot devices, villain types, settings, moods, and tones from other Hanna-Barbera shows such as Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!
Scooby-Doo
Scooby-Doo is an American media franchise based around several animated television series and related works produced from 1969 to the present day. The original series, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, was created for Hanna-Barbera Productions by writers Joe Ruby and Ken Spears in 1969...
, Jonny Quest
Jonny Quest (TV series)
Jonny Quest – often casually referred to as The Adventures of Jonny Quest – is an American science fiction/adventure animated television series about a boy who accompanies his father on extraordinary adventures...
, Space Ghost
Space Ghost
Space Ghost is a fictional superhero created by Hanna-Barbera Productions and designed by Alex Toth for CBS in the 1960s. In his original incarnation, he was a superhero who, with his sidekick teen helpers Jan, Jace, and Blip the monkey, fought supervillains in outer space...
, and Shazzan
Shazzan
Shazzan is an animated television series, created by Alex Toth and produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions in 1967 for CBS. The series follows the adventures of two teenage siblings, Chuck and Nancy, traveling around a mystical Arabian world, mounted on Kaboobie the flying camel...
.
Like Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!
Scooby-Doo
Scooby-Doo is an American media franchise based around several animated television series and related works produced from 1969 to the present day. The original series, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, was created for Hanna-Barbera Productions by writers Joe Ruby and Ken Spears in 1969...
, Josie and the Pussycats was originally broadcast with a laugh track
Laugh track
A laugh track is a separate soundtrack invented by Charles "Charley" Douglass, with the artificial sound of audience laughter, made to be inserted into television programming of comedy shows and sitcoms.The term "laugh track" does not apply to the genuine audience laughter on shows that shoot in...
. Later home video and DVD releases omit the laugh track.
Plot
Every episode of the show would find the Pussycats and crew en route to perform a gig or record a song in some exotic location. Somehow, often due to something Alexandra did, they would accidentally find themselves mixed up in an adventure/mystery. The antagonist was always a diabolical mad scientist, spy, or criminal who wanted to take over the world using some hi-tech device. The Pussycats would usually find themselves in possession of the plans for an invention, an item of interest to the villains, a secret spy message, etc., and the villains would give chase. Eventually, the Pussycats would formulate a plan to destroy the villain's plans and bring them to justice, which result in a final chase sequence set to a Pussycats song.The Pussycats would succeed in capturing the villain and get back to their gig/recording session/etc. The final gag always centered around one of Alexandra's attempts to interfere with/put an end to The Pussycats' performance and/or steal Alan away from Josie.
Characters
- Josie McCoy - A red-head who plays the guitar and is the leader of the band. Alan is sweet on her, but Alexandra is always trying to steal him away. She usually wears blue.
- Valerie Brown - An African American who plays the tambourines. She's very intelligent and level-headed. Alex once said to her, "Val, for a girl you're a mechanical wizard." She usually wears purple and pink.
- Melody Valentine - A blond and the group's drummer. She's rather immature, but is very optimistic. She usually wears green.
- Alan M. Mayberry - The group's roadie and Josie's love interest.
- Alexander Cabot the III the group's manager and Alexandra's twin brother. He probably has the most bizarre outfit, a green shirt with a red and orange collar, purple pinstripe pants, yellow boots, and green rimmed sunglasses. He's very chicken (he's said so himself), but means well.
- Alexandra Cabot Alexander's twin sister. She is sweet on Alan and tries constantly to steal him away. She claims Josie is conniving and crazy.
- Sebastian - A black and white catCatThe cat , also known as the domestic cat or housecat to distinguish it from other felids and felines, is a small, usually furry, domesticated, carnivorous mammal that is valued by humans for its companionship and for its ability to hunt vermin and household pests...
who is Josie pet. His fur resembles Alexandra's hair. He enjoys being mean and sometimes appears to go to the enemy's side. Alexandra sometimes asks Sebastian to do mean things to Josie, but her tricks usually backfire. - Bleep Melody's pet alien (Only in Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space)
Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space
In September 1972, a spin-off series titled Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space debuted on CBS. This version of the series launched the characters into outer space; the opening credits sequence shows Alexandra accidentally knocking the cast into a spaceship and launching it into deep space. Every episode centered on the Pussycats encountering a strange new world, where they would encounter and often be kidnapped by various alien races before escaping and attempting to return home.Musical numbers and chase sequences set to newly recorded songs were featured in this spin-off series as with the original. Josie in Outer Space also added the character of Bleep, a pet-sized fluffy alien adopted by Melody, who was the only one who could understand the creature (who only says "Bleep") and numerous other alien animals encountered.
The 16 episodes of Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space were re-run for the 1973-1974 season until January 26, 1974, when CBS canceled it and ordered no more new Josie episodes from Hanna-Barbera. Like its predecessor Josie and the Pussycats, Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space contained a laugh track as well, though this time around, an abridged, inferior laugh track was utilized.
Afterlife
The New Scooby-Doo Movies
The New Scooby-Doo Movies is the second incarnation of the Hanna-Barbera Saturday morning cartoon Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!. It premiered on September 9, 1972 and ran for two seasons on CBS as the only hour-long Scooby-Doo series...
, "The Haunted Showboat." Early production art for Hana-Barbera's 1977 "all-star" Battle of the Network Stars
Battle of the Network Stars
Battle of the Network Stars is the name of 19 US television specials featuring competitions among teams of popular television performers representing the three major broadcast networks at that time: ABC, CBS, and NBC.- History :...
spoof Laff-A-Lympics
Laff-A-Lympics
Laff-A-Lympics was the co-headlining segment, with Scooby-Doo, of the package Saturday morning cartoon series Scooby's All-Star Laff-A-Lympics, produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions. The show was a spoof of the Olympics and the ABC television series Battle of the Network Stars, which debuted one...
featured Alexandra, Sebastian, Alexander, and Melody among other Hanna-Barbera characters as members of the "Scooby Doobies" team, but legal problems prevented their inclusion in the final program.
In 1976, Rand McNally
Rand McNally
Rand McNally is an American publisher of maps, atlases, textbooks, and globes for travel, reference, commercial, and educational uses. It also provides online consumer street maps and directions, as well as commercial transportation routing software and mileage data...
published a children's book based on the Josie TV show, Hanna-Barbera's Josie and The Pussycats: The Bag Factory Detour.
The original Josie and the Pussycats series was re-run on NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
Saturday morning for the 1975-1976 season. In the mid-1980s, both series, along with a number of other 1970s Hanna-Barbera cartoons (including Bratz
Bratz
Bratz is an American line of fashion dolls and merchandise manufactured by MGA Entertainment. Four original 10" dolls were released in 2001 - Cloe, Jade, Sasha and Yasmin...
) were on board USA Network's Cartoon Express
USA Cartoon Express
The USA Cartoon Express was a programming block of animated productions which aired on cable television's USA Network from late 1982 to September 15, 1996...
; they would next appear on Cartoon Network
Cartoon Network
Cartoon Network is a name of television channels worldwide created by Turner Broadcasting which used to primarily show animated programming. The channel began broadcasting on October 1, 1992 in the United States....
in 1992, where all 32 episodes were run in the same timeslot.
Josie and the Pussycats: 1970-1971
| № | Title | Original airdate | Prod. code |
|---|
Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space: 1972
| № | Title | Original airdate | Prod. code |
|---|
Voices
Speaking Voices- Janet WaldoJanet WaldoJanet Waldo is an American actress and voice artist with a career encompassing radio, television, animation and live-action films. She is best known in animation for voicing Judy Jetson, Penelope Pitstop and Josie McCoy in Josie and the Pussycats...
- Josie McCoy - Barbara Pariot - Valerie Brown
- Jackie JosephJackie JosephJackie Joseph is an American character actress, voice artist, and writer known for portraying the film characters of: Audrey Fulquard in the original The Little Shop of Horrors, Sheila Futterman in both Gremlins films, and the voice of Melody in the animated television series Josie and the...
- Melody Valentine - Jerry DexterJerry DexterJerry Dexter is a voice actor best known for voicing heroic young men in Hanna-Barbera cartoons from the 1960s to the 1980s. He is a California native...
- Alan M. Mayberry - Casey KasemCasey KasemKemal Amin "Casey" Kasem is an American radio personality and voice actor who is best known for being the host of the nationally syndicated Top 40 countdown show American Top 40, and for voicing Shaggy in the popular Saturday morning cartoon franchise Scooby-Doo.Kasem, along with Don Bustany and...
- Alexander Cabot the III - Sherry AlberoniSherry AlberoniSherry Alberoni is an American actress and voice artist. Alberoni got her start as a Mouseketeer on the weekday ABC television program The Mickey Mouse Club. As an adult, she became a voice artist for Hanna-Barbera Productions...
- Alexandra Cabot - Don MessickDon MessickDonald Earl "Don" Messick was an American voice actor best known for his work for Hanna-Barbera. Perhaps his most well-known voice creations include Scooby-Doo, Papa Smurf, and Dr. Benton Quest....
- Sebastian the Cat
Singing Voices
Band Members Only
- Cathy Dougher - Josie McCoy
- Patrice HollowayPatrice HollowayPatrice Holloway was an African-American soul and pop singer.-Career:Patrice Yvonne Holloway was born on March 23, 1951 in Los Angeles, California, the youngest of three children born to Wade Holloway, Sr. and his wife, the former Johnnie Mae Fossett...
- Valerie Brown - Cheryl LaddCheryl LaddCheryl Ladd is an American actress, singer and author. Ladd is best known for her role as Kris Munroe in the television series Charlie's Angels, hired amid a swirl of publicity prior to its second season in 1977 to replace the departing Farrah Fawcett-Majors...
- Melody Valentine
Home video releases
A VHS videocassetteVHS
The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....
of Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space containing 3 episodes was issued by Worldvision Home Video in 1980. A second videocassette, Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space, Volume 2, was released in 1985.
Two VHS volumes of Josie and the Pussycats, each containing four episodes of the original 1970 series, minus the laugh tracks, were released by Warner Home Video
Warner Home Video
Warner Home Video is the home video unit of Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., itself part of Time Warner. It was founded in 1978 as WCI Home Video . The company launched in the United States with twenty films on VHS and Betamax videocassettes in late 1979...
(Hanna-Barbera had been sold to Turner Broadcasting in 1991, with Turner merging with Time Warner
Time Warner
Time Warner is one of the world's largest media companies, headquartered in the Time Warner Center in New York City. Formerly two separate companies, Warner Communications, Inc...
six years later) on April 10, 2001 to coincide with the release of the live-action film. A Josie and the Pussy Cat episode 'Warriors Women of Amazonia' was featured in a clip/episode collection of Hanna-Barbera on VHS, released in the UK. This video also includes episodes from Scooby Doo, where are you?, The Addams Family, and The Flintstones.
A Josie and the Pussycats: The Complete Series two-DVD box set was released in Region 1 (the United States, Canada, and Japan) on September 18, 2007. All sixteen episodes, again minus the laugh tracks, were included, as well as a half-hour documentary on the life and career of Dan DeCarlo.
On October 19, 2010, Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
released Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space: The Complete Series on DVD in Region 1 via their Warner Archive Collection
Warner Archive Collection
The Warner Archive Collection is a manufactured-on-demand DVD series. It was started by Warner Home Video on March 23, 2009 with the intention of putting previously unreleased back catalog films on DVD for the first time ever. Using recordable DVDs, they custom burn discs for each order rather than...
of Manufacture-on-Demand (MOD) releases. Josie in Outer Space is available exclusively through Warner's online store and only in the US.
| DVD Name | Ep # | Release Date |
|---|---|---|
| Josie and the Pussycats: The Complete Series | 16 | September 18, 2007 |
| Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space: The Complete Series | 16 | October 19, 2010 |
The first episode of the original 1970 series, "The Nemo's A No No Affair", is featured on the DVD compilation Saturday Morning Cartoons: the 1970s Volume 1 released on May 26, 2009.
Reception
Josie and the Pussycats was named the 100th best animated series by entertainment website IGNIGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
, which referred to Josie as an amusing show for how it combined elements from The Archie Show
The Archie Show
The Archie Show is a Saturday morning cartoon animated series produced by Filmation. Based on the Archie comic books, created by Bob Montana in 1941, The Archie Show debuted on CBS in September 1968 and lasted for one season. A total of 17 half-hour shows, each containing two 11 minute segments,...
and Scooby-Doo
Scooby-Doo
Scooby-Doo is an American media franchise based around several animated television series and related works produced from 1969 to the present day. The original series, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, was created for Hanna-Barbera Productions by writers Joe Ruby and Ken Spears in 1969...
.
Spin-offs and Spoofs
In 2001, Cartoon Network began airing a Josie and the Pussycats short, called "Musical Evolution", featured the Pussycats performing their theme song through the various eras of pop music, including pop, discoDisco
Disco is a genre of dance music. Disco acts charted high during the mid-1970s, and the genre's popularity peaked during the late 1970s. It had its roots in clubs that catered to African American, gay, psychedelic, and other communities in New York City and Philadelphia during the late 1960s and...
, punk
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
, Kiss
KISS (band)
Kiss is an American rock band formed in New York City in January 1973. Well-known for its members' face paint and flamboyant stage outfits, the group rose to prominence in the mid to late 1970s on the basis of their elaborate live performances, which featured fire breathing, blood spitting,...
-like heavy metal
Heavy metal music
Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...
, country
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
, and techno dance. Different animation styles are used for each era. The same year, Josie and the Pussycats was adapted into a live action motion picture. The film, produced by Universal Pictures
Universal Pictures
-1920:* White Youth* The Flaming Disc* Am I Dreaming?* The Dragon's Net* The Adorable Savage* Putting It Over* The Line Runners-1921:* The Fire Eater* A Battle of Wits* Dream Girl* The Millionaire...
, featured a punk rock cover of the theme song during the end credits.
The 2004 - 2007 Comedy Central
Comedy Central
Comedy Central is an American cable television and satellite television channel that carries comedy programming, both original and syndicated....
animated TV series Drawn Together
Drawn Together
Drawn Together is an American animated television series, which ran on Comedy Central from October 27, 2004 to November 14, 2007. The series was created by Dave Jeser and Matt Silverstein, and uses a sitcom format with a TV reality show setting...
featured a character named Foxxy Love. An African-American mystery-solving musician, was a direct parody of the Josie and the Pussycats character Valerie Brown.
See also
- Josie and the Pussycats (the Archie comic)Josie and the Pussycats (comic)Josie and the Pussycats is a teen-humor comic book about a fictional rock band, created by Dan DeCarlo and published by Archie Comics. It was published from 1963 until 1982; since then, a number of one-shot issues have appeared without regularity...
- Josie and the Pussycats (the music group put together in conjunction with the show)
- Josie and the Pussycats (the live action movie)Josie and the Pussycats (film)Josie and the Pussycats is a 2001 comedy film released by Universal Studios and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Directed and co-written by Harry Elfont and Deborah Kaplan, the film is loosely based upon the Archie comic of the same name...
External links
- http://www.dandecarlo.com Creator Dan Decarlos Website
- Archie Comics' Josie and the Pussycats homepage
- Josie and the Pussycats at Toonopedia
- JOZINE: unofficial Josie/DeCarlo fan site
- Big Cartoon DataBase (BCDb): Josie and the Pussycats
- Big Cartoon DataBase (BCDb): Josie and the Pussycats In Outer Space