Josie et les Pussycats dans le cosmos

I hadn't seen this since it was first shown. It was a follow-up to the 1970 series Josie and the Pussycats, but with an added sci-fi spin. Like the original series, it's a mixed bag. Parts are good, parts don't hold up so well - but I still love it. This was the final hurrah for Josie and the girls as far as their own animated series went - although they did make one more animated appearance for Hanna-Barbera the following year, in The New Scooby-Doo Movies crossover episode, The Haunted Showboat.

Where's Josie? ~ 6/10; Make Way for the Multi-men ~ 5/10; The Sleeping Planet ~ 5/10; Alien Alan ~ 5/10; The Water Planet ~ 6/10; The Sun Haters ~ 6/10; The Mini-Man Menace ~ 6/10; The Space Pirates ~ 5/10; Anything You Can Zoo ~ 6/10; Now You See Them, Now You Don't ~ 7/10; The Four-eyed Dragon of Cygnon ~ 7/10; The Forward Backward People of Xarock ~ 6/10; The Hollow Planet ~ 5/10; All Hail Goddess Melody ~ 7/10; Outer Space Ark ~ 6/10; Warrior Women of Amazonia ~ 7/10

The regular voice cast are entirely carried over from the original series; Janet Waldo (Josie), Barbara Pariot (Valerie), Jackie Joseph (Melody), Jerry Dexter (Alan), Casey Casem (Alexander), Sherry Albioni (Alexandra), and Don Messick (Sebastian the cat, and - additionally, for this series - Bleep the alien).

Overall, 6/10.

These were the further adventures of Josie and her gang, only this time they are trapped on a rocket after Alexandra accidentally launches them into space. This had to be one of the lamest excuses for a cartoon series ever. It was bad enough that Hanna-Barbera strayed away from the original concept of the Josie comic book, but now they had to make this show into a "Lost in Space" rip-off. Now, instead of taking on megalomaniacal wannabe dictators, now they are taking on aliens bent on taking over the universe.

Also, wasn't Bleep one of the worst characters ever created?

"A long time ago..." Okay, only 30 years, Josie and the Pussycats introduced us to what was probably the first Pokemon: Bleep. Like the pocket monsters of today, about all he could utter was his (her?) name: "Bleep! Bleep! Bleep!" This wasn't much different from the original "Josie", but the dialog and music were certainly better than Pokemon. Like most modern video games, I'll take any of the classics instead.

After a successful first season run and repeated episodes of the original "Josie and the Pussycats",Hanna-Barbera decided that there should be a sequel to one of its major Saturday Morning hit shows. And the results weren't pretty. On September 9,1972 the show revised its story line and became "Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space". The show premiered that same day as another successful Hanna-Barbera show,who was also imprompted a sequel based on Scooby Doo titled "The New Scooby Doo Movies",on CBS' Saturday Morning schedule for the 1972-1973 season.

In this installment and the sequel to "Josie and the Pussycats",this show was very similar to the original,but the plot always remained the same. Synopsis: While posing for press photos at a rocket launching pad, Alexandra accidentally shoved the group into the missile at the time of takeoff. The spaceship took them to various and unknown planets where the pussycats would get mixed up in trouble on some uncharted planet and is chased around by some power mad alien dictator(and in just about every episode they're captured by the alien hencemen but somehow manages to escape just in time to get back to the ship and blast off),save the day for the planet's people,and towards the end do a song before blasting off for another adventure where Alexandra again accidentally sends the group into an unknown region or unknown planet where the exact same thing would happen again. As before,the same concept by different. Totally different. Hanna-Barbera did the unthinkable to this once brilliant animated series by straying away from the original concept,and totally away from the origins of the Archie Comics title. Did H-B pull references for Irwin Allen's 1960's TV-series "Lost In Space?" You bet. As before,there was Alexandra(the sister of road manager Alexander)who was always trying to win Alan over from Josie,but was succeeded in messing up things for everyone. Again. Alexandra was a cross between Veronica of The Archies and Cruella De Vil from the Disney animated film "101 Dalmations".

The real change was some of the subject issues that were presented which was almost unheard of for a Saturday Morning cartoon during the early 1970's. Subjects such as racial discrimination,women's issues,and animal rights were presented. The only thing that was totally new and a regular companion of the group was Bleep,a cuddly cute blob like space alien that looked like a fluffy duck and spoke only its own name. Melody loved the creature and treated it as a pet making him the group's mascot. Again the voices of Janet Waldo(Josie),Casey Kasem (Alexander),Sherry Albertoni(Alexandra),Jerry Dexter(Alan),Jackie Joesph (Melody),and Barbara Pariot(Valerie),and Don Messick(the voice of Sebastian and Bleep)were supplied along with the exact same music that was in the original series. Only 16 episodes were produced. The series ran on CBS-TV from September 9,1972 until September 1,1973. Only the original episodes aired in the first season and were repeated for CBS from September 8,1973 until August 31,1974. During the second season,the episodes were repeated along with recycled episodes of the original "Josie and the Pussycats" that were shown on CBS' Saturday Morning schedule for the 1973-1974 season.

This cartoon was very similar to the original Josie and the Pussycats in that the group ended up on a rocket and visited various planets where there was always some type of dischord. The plot was always the same. The Pussycats would get mixed up in the trouble, be chased around by the power mad alien dictator, save the day for the planet's innocent people and do a song before blasting off to another planet where the same thing would happen. The graphics are laughable by today's standards and not much use is made of the outer space angle as the aliens always have very human qualities. As before, there was Alexandra who was always trying to win Allan M over from Josie but always only succeeded in messing things up for everyone. The only real change was the addition of a mute, blob-like alien Bleep, who became the group's mascot but who didn't really add much to the stories. Too bad they couldn't have had an episode where the Pussycats encountered the Enterprise crew of the Star Trek cartoon series which aired around the same time. Now that would have been quite a show!