Josie and the Pussycats (TV Series)-Trivia

* Adapted from an Archie spin-off comic, the animated version differs from the actual comic most significantly in the characters of Alexandra, Sebastian, and Alexander. In the cartoon, Alexandra and Sebastian are simply conniving and sneaky; in the comic book, Sebastian is the reincarnation of a witchcraft-practicing ancestor of the Cabots, and Alexandra can cast powerful magic spells while she is holding him. In the original Archie comic, Alex is a snide braggart who lords his wealth over everyone and sees Alan M. as his rival for Josie's attention. In the animated series, Alex is a meek coward who brags much more about the band's talent than his wealth, and expresses no romantic interest in Josie.
* Hanna-Barbera wanted to change Valerie to a Caucasian even though she was already established as African-American in the Archie comics, so they wanted to fire Patrice Holloway who had been cast as Valerie's singing voice. But Danny Janssen, who was producing the real-life group's Capitol album, refused to fire Holloway and Hanna-Barbera relented.
* This is Cheryl Ladd's first TV project.
* As with Scooby Doo, Where Are You! (1969), Josie and the Pussycats originally aired with a laugh track. Remastered prints omit the laugh track. The second season of Scooby-Doo, produced concurrently with Josie and using much of the same creative team, features musical interlude "chase songs" just as Josie does.
* Cheryl Ladd (credited as Cherie Moor) provided the singing voice for Melody Valentine. Patrice Holloway, sister of Motown singer Brenda Holloway, provided the singing voice of Valerie and sings lead on the theme song.
* The series was the first original American Saturday-morning animated series to feature a Black female character: the tambourine player Valerie. Filmation's The Hardy Boys (1969) was the first original American Saturday-morning animated series to feature a Black male character, the drummer Pete Jones. Where's Huddles? (1970), another Hanna-Barbera series that aired in July and August 1970 as a summer replacement for The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour (1969), was the studio's first animated series to feature a Black character ("Freight Train").
* A full album and and two 45-RPM singles were released by Capitol/EMI Records in connection with the show. Neither of the Josie & the Pussycats singles - "Every Beat of My Heart" and "Stop, Look, and Listen" - became chart hits like the songs from another Archie Comics series, The Archie Show (1968). Four further Pussycats 45s were relegated to the status of mail-in prizes on the back of Kellogg's cereals.
* In the series' original opening sequence, Alexandra attempts to blow up the band... but, like Wile E. Coyote, is herself blown up. When edited for re-broadcast, this sequence, coming toward the end of the theme song, is replaced with more footage of Josie and the Pussycats dancing... but, because the sound of the explosion is part of the theme track, the explosion itself has been left intact.
* Although Josie and the Pussycats originated as part of the ARCHIE COMICS universe; Archie, Judghead, Betty, Veronica, Sabrina the Witch, and the rest of the Riverdale gang are never mentioned in this series. This is due to the fact that Josie's crew were the only characters available to Hanna-Barbera after the others had all been licensed to Funimation.
* In addition to Ms. Patrice Holloway portraying the first black animated character in a U.S. cartoon, she's the only (and lead!) vocal on the cartoon's memorable theme (as well as the sequel, Josie and the Pussy Cats in Outer Space (1972)), she's the only member of the cast to appear as an actual member of the group - as well as appear on the eponymous album cover (pussycat ears and all).
* The movie Josie and the Pussycats (2001) contains an in-joke where Wyatt Frame tells the Pussycats that they might get an animated cartoon made about them. That movie was intended to have a sequel based on this cartoon.
* Most incarnations of the Josie and the Pussycats comic book focus on sitcom-like misadventures about the day to day logistics of maintaining a garage band in Riverdale, USA, frequently interacting with the Archie gang who live in the same town. By contrast, the animated cartoon focuses on the band having to fight against supervillains in exotic locations. The band-related theme is a secondary concern in the cartoon, often disappearing entirely, except for a token gig scene shoehorned into the opening or closing scene of the story. The adventures are remarkably similar to the typical conflicts-of-the-week on Jonny Quest (1964) (though less grim) and Scooby Doo, Where Are You! (1969).
* The central characters' likenesses often differ greatly from their comic book origins. Instead, they resemble the cast of Scooby Doo, Where Are You! (1969), presumably reusing the same character models. Alex Cabot is essentially Shaggy Rogers with a different head, and Casey Kasem even provides both characters with similar personalities and vocal tics. Alan M is essentially Fred Jones, Josie McCoy resembles Velma Dinkley, and Melody Valentine has a silhouette similar to Daphne Blake. When the group run from danger, the same character action can be seen to be reused against different backgrounds. Don Messick voices both Scooby Doo the dog and Sebastian the cat, although with very different styles for each character. And Josie's villains-of-the-week often speak disparagingly of the heroes as "those meddling kids," a phrase first popularized in the same context on Scooby's show.
* The cat Sebastian Cabot shares a name with then-living character actor Sebastian Cabot, who himself voiced a black cat in The Jungle Book (1967). The name was also held by a 15th/16th-century naval explorer, best known for his voyages in what are now Canada and Argentina.
* Melody, Alexander, Alexandra, and Sebastian were originally intended to appear in Scooby's Laff-A Lympics (1977) as members of the team Scooby Doobies, as shown in an early promotional art for that show. But licensing difficulties with Archie Comics prevented Hanna-Barbera from using them, so instead Cavey, Dee Dee, Brenda and Taffy from Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels (1977) were used.