JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS (TV SERIES)

'''Josie and the Pussycats''' was an American animated television series produced for Saturday mornings by Hanna-Barbera Productions in 1970 for CBS. In 1972, Hanna-Barbera produced a spin-off called '''Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space,''' which ran until 1974. Based upon the Archie Comics series of the same name made by Dan DeCarlo, ''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. The show, more similar to Hanna-Barbera's ''Scooby-Doo, Where are You!'' rather than the original ''Josie'' comic book, is famous for its music, the girls' leopard print leotards (replete with "long tails and ears for hats," as the theme song states), and for featuring the first regularly appearing black character in a Saturday morning cartoon show. ^[1] Unlike the original comic series, the cartoon show was made to appeal to a lighthearted nature.

Characters

''See the Josie and the Pussycats comic book article for a detailed decription of each character''

★ ''Josie James'' (speaking voice by Janet Waldo, singing voice by Cathy Dougher)

★ ''Melody Jones'' (speaking voice by Jackie Joseph, singing voice by Cheryl Ladd)

★ ''Valerie Smith'' (speaking voice by Barbara Pariot, singing voice by Patrice Holloway)

★ ''Alan M. Mayberry'' (voiced by Jerry Dexter)

★ ''Alexander Cabot III'' (voiced by Casey Kasem)

★ ''Alexandra Cabot'' (voiced by Sherri Alberoni) and

★ ''Sebastian'' {cat} (voiced by Don Messick)

★ ''Bleep'' (only in ''Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space'', voiced by Don Messick)
Note: The surnames of Josie, Melody and Valerie were later changed in the comic books to McCoy, Valentine and Brown, respectively.

Creation and development

Origins

During the 1968 - 1969 television season, the first ''Archie''-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. 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 Comics responded by offering to re-develop their comic Josie into a TV series about a teenage music band, allowing Hanna-Barbera to adapt it into a music-based Saturday morning show.

The music

''Main entry: Josie and the Pussycats (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. Many of the songs on the album would be used in the cartoon as well.
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 the late 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 was black in the 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 black.
Valerie was actually the very first black cast member on a regular animated television show (in 1969, Bill Cosby's Fat Albert appeared in a one-shot animated prime-time special, but would not get his own show until 1971). Valerie only holds this position in history thanks to the CBS scheduling department: ''Josie and the Pussycats'' debuted at 9:30 AM EST on September 12 1970, while another new Hanna-Barbera show, ''The Harlem Globetrotters'' (on which all but one of its major human characters were black) debuted on the same day — but at 10:00 AM.

Show premiere

''Josie and the Pussycats'' debuted on the CBS 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'' contained a laugh track.

Plot

Every episode of the show would find the Pussycats (along with Josie's boyfriend and band roadie Alan, their cowardly manager Alexander, Alexander's scheming sister Alexandra, and the equally scheming pet Sebastian the cat) en route to perform a gig or record a song in some exotic location. Somehow (more often than not 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.
Towards the end of the episode, the villain would succeed in capturing the Pussycats and would begin executing their diabolical plan to take over the world. The gang would break free (usually thanks to Sebastian), and would proceed to "disconboomerate" (their word) the device/lab and capture the bad guys. This would result in a final chase sequence, set to one of the songs recorded for the Capital Records releases.
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 (a) interfere with/put an end to The Pussycats' performance, (b) steal Alan away from Josie, or (c) achieve both at the same time. More often than not, she would enlist Sebastian to carry out her dirty work, and Sebastian would always bumble the job in some way, which would result in Alexandra getting in trouble and/or being made a fool of. Alexandra and Sebastian cat parallel another set of comic Relief villians-Dick Dastardly and Muttley.

Style and similarites

The art styling for the show was a cross between Dan DeCarlo's artwork and Hanna-Barbera's late-1960s adventure shows such as ''Space Ghost'' and ''The Herculoids''. ''Josie and the Pussycats'' was somewhat less realistic and more cartoony than ''Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!,'' from which much of its tone, laugh track, pacing, and plot elements were derived; both shows also feature the same Ted Nichols background score cues and Casey Kasem. Many viewers who are unaware of ''Josie's'' Archie Comics origins would argue that it is a complete rip-off of ''Scooby.'' Also, the animated versions of Alexander Cabot III and Alan look remarkably like Shaggy and Fred, respectively, from ''Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!''
Nevertheless, ''Josie and the Pussycats'' was a ratings success for the 1970-1971 TV season, and was rerun for the 1971-1972 season. There were 16 episodes produced.

Production credits

; Produced and Directed by : William Hanna and Joseph Barbera
; Co-Producer :' Alex Lovy
; Story Supervision : ' Joe Ruby, Ken Spears
; Story :' Larz Bourne, Tom Dagenais, Bill Lutz
; Story Direction :' Willie Ito, Paul Sommer, Earl Klein, Howard Swift
; Voices :' Sherry Alberoni, Jerry Dexter, Catherine Dougher, Patrice Holloway, Jackie Joseph, Casey Kasem, Barbara Pariot, Cherie Moor, Janet Waldo
; Animation Director :' Charles A. Nichols
; Production Design :' Iwao Takamoto
; Production Supervisor :' Victor O. Schipek
; Layout : Jerry Eisenberg, Homer Jonas, Lou Appet, Jan Green, John Ahern, Don Jurwich, Stan Green, Roman Arambula
; Animation :' Jerry Hathcock, Ed Barge, Dick Lundy, Isadore Ellis, Ed Aardal, Bob Bemiller, Morey Reden, Dick Thompson, Shannon Lee Dyer, John Garling, Jack Parr
Background Styling : F. Montealegre
; 'Backgrounds :' Fernando Arce, Martin Forte, Rene Garcia, Gino Giudice, Richard Khim, Gary Niblett, Iraj Paran, Curtis Perkins, Eric Semones, Peter Van Elk
; 'Titles :' Robert Schaefer
; 'Music Supervision :' La La Productions
; 'Musical Director :' Ted Nichols
; 'Josie Theme by :' Hoyt Curtin
; 'Technical Supervisor :' Frank Paiker
; 'Ink & Paint Supervisor :' Roberta Greutert
; 'Xerography:' Robert "Tiger" West
; 'Sound Direction :' Richard Olson, Bill Getty
; 'Editorial Supervisor :' Larry Cowan
; 'Music Editor :' Pat Foley
; 'Effects Editors :' Richard Allen, Milton Krear, Wayne Hughes
; 'Negative Consultant :' William E. DeBoer
; 'Post-Production:' Joed Eaton
; Camera: Charles Flekal, Roy Wade, Bill Kotler, Dennis Weaver
; Created by : John Goldwater and Richard Goldwater for the "Josie and the Pussycats" comic book originally designed by Dan DeCarlo

''Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space''

In September 1972, a spin-off series called ''Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space'' debuted on CBS. The gang was lost in space (thanks--no surprise!--to Alexandra's bumbling) and were trying to return back to Earth. A typical plot would involve the gang encountering some alien race, being kidnapped by said alien race, escaping, solving the problems the aliens are having (while performing a musical number or two), and then be sent on their way back to Earth by the thankful aliens. Inevitably, however, Alexandra would find a way (unintentionally) to have them go off-course again. 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.

Josie and the Pussycats and the Mystery, Inc. gang from ''Scooby-Doo'' join forces in a 1973 episode of ''The New Scooby-Doo Movies'', "The Haunted Showboat."

Afterlife

Josie and The Pussycats made one last hurrah as animated characters in a guest shot on the September 22, 1973 installment of '' The New Scooby-Doo Movies'', "The Haunted Showboat." Early production art for 1977's ''Laff-A-Lympics'' featured Josie and The Pussycats and Jeannie (from the 1973-75 CBS series ''Jeannie'') as members of the "Scooby Doobies" team, but last-minute legal problems prevented it.
''Josie and the Pussycats'' (but not ''Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space'') 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 ''Jabberjaw'', ''Jeannie'', and ''Help! It's the Hair Bear Bunch''), were shown on the USA Network's ''USA Kids Club''. They would next appear on Cartoon Network in 1992 (where all 32 episodes were run in the same timeslot). ''Josie and the Pussycats'' and ''Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space'' are often seen today on Cartoon Network's spinoff channel Boomerang. A Cartoon Network bumper, called "Musical Evolution", featured the Pussycats performing their theme song through the various eras of pop music, including pop, disco, punk, KISS-like heavy metal, country, and techno. Different animation styles are used for each era.
In 2001 ''Josie and the Pussycats'' was adapted into a live action motion picture. The movie was based more on the comic rather than the cartoon, but a variation on the popular theme song from the cartoon (written by Hoyt Curtin, William Hanna, and Joseph Barbera) is performed during the end credits.

DVD releases

Warner Home Video will be releasing ''Josie and the Pussycats: The Complete Series'' on DVD in Region 1 on September 18, 2007.^[2] There has been no announcement as to a release of ''Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space''.

DVD Name	Ep #	Release Date
The Complete Series	16	September 18 2007

Notes

1. Charles, Don. Long Tails and Ears for Hats: The Story of Josie and The Pussy Cats.
2. http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/newsitem.cfm?NewsID=7349

References

★ Burke, Timothy and Burke, Kevin (1999). Saturday Morning Fever: Growing Up With Cartoon Culture. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-16996-5.

★ Charles, Don (March 2003). Long Tails and Ears for Hats: The Story of Josie and The Pussy Cats. ''Cool & Strange Music'' #28. Text available at http://lpintop.tripod.com/oldiesconnection/id17.html.

★ Josie and the Pussycats: Stop Look and Listen: The Capitol Recordings [CD Set]. Burbank: Rhino Handmade. Text available at http://www.geocities.com/antlion7/josie.htm.

External links

★

★

★ Archie Comics' Josie and the Pussycats homepage

★ Brad Nelson's Josie and the Pussycats Cartoons homepage

★ Josie and the Pussycats at TV.com

★ 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

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