Josie and the Pussycats (TV series)
- Yhis article is about the TV series. For other uses, see Josie and the Pussycats.
| Josie and the Pussycats | |
|---|---|
 On-screen title card. | |
| Network | CBS |
| Production company | Hanna-Barbera Archie Comics |
| Distributor | Taft Broadcasting |
| Original release | September 12, 1970―January 2, 1971 |
| Starring | Janet Waldo Barbara Pariot Jackie Joseph Jerry Dexter Sherry Alberoni Casey Kasem Don Messick |
| Producer(s) | William Hanna Joseph Barbera |
| Music composed by | Ted Nichols |
| Writer(s) | Larz Bourne Tom Dagenais Bill Lutz |
| Director(s) | William Hanna Joseph Barbera |
| Series navigation | |
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Josie and the Pussycats, titled on-screen as Josie and the Pussy Cats, is an American animated musical/comedy/mystery television series produced by Hanna-Barbera and Radio Comics, the latter an imprint of Archie Comics, for CBS' Saturday morning line-up. It ran from 1970 to 1971, airing 16 episodes that spanned one season.
Josie, Valerie, and Melody tour the world in their bubblegum pop band Josie and the Pussycats, which inadvertently gets them on misadventures involving megalomaniacs and twisted scientists. They are joined by their manager, Alexander, their roadie, Alan M., and Alexander's sister and foil to Josie and her cat, Alexandra and Sebastian, respectively.
Despite being publicized as a real-life band with real female singers who performed real music, the series didn't really catch on, so Hanna-Barbera made the logical conclusion that the characters needed to go to space to generate more viewers, which was called--you guessed it--Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space, which had the same amount of episodes, but didn't even last through the next year like the previous series.
The series has been released on both DVD and Blu-ray Disc.
Production
Development
Music
The theme song was composed and sung by Hoyt Curtin and Patrice Holloway, respectively. The music was composed by Ted Nichols. The songs were supervised by La La Productions.
Episodes
| Episode | Original air date |
|---|---|
| 1x01 | September 12, 1970 |
| 1x02 | September 19, 1970 |
| 1x03 | September 26, 1970 |
| 1x04 | October 3, 1970 |
| 1x05 | October 10, 1970 |
| 1x06 | October 17, 1970 |
| 1x07 | October 24, 1970 |
| 1x08 | October 31, 1970 |
| 1x09 | November 7, 1970 |
| 1x10 | November 14, 1970 |
| 1x11 | November 21, 1970 |
| 1x12 | November 28, 1970 |
| 1x13 | December 5, 1970 |
| 1x14 | December 12, 1970 |
| 1x15 | December 19, 1970 |
| 1x16 | January 2, 1971 |
Cast
- Janet Waldo as Josie
- Barbara Pariot as Valerie
- Jackie Joseph as Melody
- Jerry Dexter as Alan M.
- Sherry Alberoni as Alexandra Cabot
- Casey Kasem as Alexander Cabot III
- Don Messick as Sebastian
Crossover
| Title | Number | Original air date |
|---|---|---|
| The New Scooby-Doo Movies: "The Haunted Showboat" | 1 | September 15, 1973 |
In popular culture
- In the Student Bodies episode "Snowed In," Mags tries to find a common interest with Flash, but it isn't Josie and the Pussycats. Instead, it turns out to be Scooby-Doo
- In The Fairly OddParents episode "Shelf Life," Tom Swayer changes the story Jason and the Argonauts so that Jason and his Argonaut soldiers are magically changed into a music band "Jason and the Pussycats," singing a parody of the theme song to fight off a cyclops.
- In Comedy Central's adult animated series Drawn Together, Valerie serves as a template for one of the main characters, Foxxy Love. A deleted scene in "Hot Tub," the first episode, explained that she was a lead singer in a band called the Foxxy 5, who solved mysteries on the side like in Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! In "Hot Tub," the girls were of all different ethnicities, while in their official appearance in "Captain Hero's Marriage Pact," they are all black like Foxxy. They are also revealed to have driven in a van like Mystery Incorporated drove The Mystery Machine in Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! In "Clara's Dirty Little Secret," Foxxy led the housemates into a dance number during a chase.
Riverdale
- "Chapter Six: Faster, Pussycats! Kill! Kill!:" Kevin refers to the Pussycats as having long tails and ears for hats just like in the theme song.
- "Chapter Ninety-One: The Return of the Pussycats:" The Pussycats perform part of their theme song in a benefit gig for Riverdale, cutting off before they refer to their world travels, because in this continuity they have not achieved that kind of fame. The end of the series also sets up a potential spin-off after it is discovered Josie's father may have been murdered, with Melody alluding to the Hanna-Barbera series when she says they would embark on "magical musical mysteries unknown."
Merchandise
Home media
On September 18, 2007, Warner Home Video released the entire series on DVD as Josie and the Pussycats: The Complete Series. They rereleased it in a "Hanna-Barbera Diamond Edition" packaging on June 20, 2017. On May 26, 2009, Warner Home Video released the first episode on DVD in the Saturday Morning Cartoons: 1970s Volume 1 set.
On November 3, 2020, the Warner Archive Collection released the series in high definition Blu-ray Disc set called Josie and the Pussycats: The Complete Series.
Reading material
In 1976, Hanna-Barbera was able to secure the rights again with a one-off book called The Big Factory Detour, which was published by Rand McNally.
