Thursday, May 8th, 2008

Lost in the ’70s: Josie and the Pussycats

by John C. Hughes

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With long tails and ears for hats, Josie and the Pussycats, created by Archie Comics genius Dan DeCarlo, debuted on Saturday-morning TV screens everywhere in 1970 with a show copied straight from Scooby Doo, Where Are You? You had your weekly mystery, a wacky pet sidekick (in Josie’s case, it was the sorta evil cat Sebastian), and chase scenes punctuated by catchy pop songs. What Josie had that Scooby didn’t was a “real” band and a record album.

Part of Hanna-Barbera’s plans for the show was to assemble a real-life Josie and the Pussycats to record all the songs and eventually tour. After hundreds of women were auditioned, the lineup was finalized: Cathy Dougher as Josie, Patrice Holloway (sister of Brenda Holloway) as Valerie, and Cherie Moor (or, as you might know her from her later stage name, Cheryl Ladd) as Melody. The vocal trio was given top-notch material to work with, somewhat derivative of what was topping the charts at the time but a step above what normally passed for music on Saturday-morning cartoons.

Capitol Records released Josie and the Pussycats in late 1970, paired with the single “Every Beat of My Heart” (download), cowritten by none other than Monkees hit maker Bobby Hart. Holloway sings lead on this track, a Carpenters-esque lightweight bubblegum tune, but that doesn’t stop her from belting out a great performance. Unfortunately, it failed to follow the Archies up the charts.

Capitol tried again with “Stop, Look and Listen” (download); this time Ladd took the lead. If it sounds somewhat familiar, that’s because it’s a shameless rip-off of the Jackson 5’s “ABC.” Shameless, yes, but still irresistible. A bit of trivia for you: while Ladd sings lead on the record, Holloway sings lead in the version used on the cartoon.

Oh, those meddling teenagers. Josie and the Pussycats failed to duplicate their Saturday-morning success on the pop charts, but those songs must have stayed in the hearts of many a pop-music fan (including mine), since Rhino Handmade issued every Josie song recorded for Capitol on a limited-edition CD a few years ago. Only 5,000 copies were pressed, and the disc now fetches a minimum of $250 on Amazon. No, you can’t have mine.

Now, if only Rhino would release a Sugar Bears compilation so I could replace all the cardboard records I cut out of the back of Super Sugar Crisp cereal boxes.

Neither single charted.

Get Josie and the Pussycats music at Amazon if you’ve got a few hundred bucks to spare.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, May 8th, 2008 at 1:30 pm and is filed under Lost in the '70s, Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

  • "Trivia note - while Ladd sings lead on the album, Holloway sings lead in the version used on the cartoon"

    Thank god I never made room in my head for the pythagorean theorem or the atomic number of halite cause I had JUST enough room up ther for one more important bit of girl band pop culture trivia. That space is now occupied with this info about a fave Josie and the Pussycats deep cut. My favorite deep cut, next only to your coin slot, angelhore! XO, Tits!
  • JohnHughes
    Hilair!
  • JonCummings
    Thank you, John, for (partially) filling in a major gap in my music collection. I'm completely serious. Of course, now I'll have to figure out how to label these tunes to set them apart from the Josie & the Pussycats film soundtrack of a few years back.

    I would hope all Popdosers are already up to speed on how great that soundtrack is. Killer power-pop songwriting...and Kay Hanley singing. What more could a guy want?

    I very much hope to someday hear all the songs on that Rhino Handmade CD, but alas, I cannot afford to spend $250 on an out-of-print disc on my nonexistent Popdose salary. (Hint, hint...)
  • JohnHughes
    ...and some of the music for the Josie movie was written by Adam Schlesinger who is in....Ivy.

    See, it all comes together, people.
  • Cheryl Ladd. Another adolescent crush reborn... with kinky kitty-cat accoutrement!
  • Mikee
    One of my favorite cartoons ever! Even though every episode was basically the same, the music was ill! At some point in my life I will drop the dough on that cd. I am jealous of those that have it and angry with myself for not buying it when it was initially released. Thank you for these two songs.
  • Now, that's a frosty covered treat !
  • Fred
    I never knew it was Cheryl Ladd on those tunes-as a kid anyways. It was a fun time.
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