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Josie & The Pussycats
Josie and the Pussycats (formatted as Josie and the Pussy Cats in the opening titles) 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 1974. Beginning in September 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 McCoy, intelligent tambourinist Valerie Brown, and air-headed blonde drummer Melody Valentine. Other characters included their cowardly manager Alexander Cabot III, his conniving sister Alexandra, her cat Sebastian, and muscular roadie Alan M.Mayberry
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 leotards (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
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