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Josie and the Pussy Cats in Outer Space

Catalog Number
51002
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Primary Distributor (If not listed, select "OTHER")
Release Year
Country
VHS | LP | Slipcase
90 mins (NTSC)
N/A | N/A | N/A
N/A | N/A
Second Distributor
Josie and the Pussy Cats in Outer Space (TV Series) (1972)

Additional Information

Additional Information
Contains 3 episodes: "Where's Josie?", "Make Way for the Multimen" and "The Sleeping Planet."
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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. Reruns of the original series alternated between CBS, ABC, and NBC from 1974 through 1976.[1] 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 cowardly manager Alexander Cabot III, his conniving sister Alexandra, her cat Sebastian, and muscular roadie Alan.
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.[2] 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

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. Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space contained a laugh track as well, but utilized an inferior version created by the studio.

A VHS videocassette 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 in Outer Space episode, "Warriors Women of Amazonia", was featured in a clip/episode collection of Hanna-Barbera on VHS, released in the UK.
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.[6] 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. The first episode of the 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.
On October 19, 2010, Warner Archive released Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space: The Complete Series on DVD in Region 1 as part of their Hanna–Barbera Classics Collection of Manufacture-on-Demand (MOD) releases. Josie in Outer Space is available exclusively through Warner's online store and Amazon.com.[7]

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