Don't Believe the Hype

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

With all the talk about comparing Josie's bunch with that of Scooby-Doo, I seem to vaguely remember that both groups were featured in an episode of the New Scooby-Doo Movies back in 1973. Casey Kasem must have needed a rest after supplying dialog for both Shaggy and Alexander, nervous breakdowns and all...at one point they even both sounded alike!!!! Furthermore with an expanded cast of eleven teens plus the animal mascots, it must have been tough trying to get the personalities straight - particularly with Alexandra as the sarcastic sounding-board. Then again, the animation would have suffered with so many people to keep track of, including the supporting cast of ghosts and ghouls.

I rediscovered the cartoon when the 2001 movie starring Rachael Leigh Cook and Tara Reid was almost released. The show was broadcasted in a Canadian Cable Network (YTV).I have watched it in 1972-73 and re-watching it was going into the same fun I had when I was a kid. Stories that were funny, written the "Hanna Barbera" way and with such a sense of humor. I can say here the show distanced a bit from the Archie comic book itself. For example, Alex left his arrogant ego in the comic book and becomes a coward in this one (and that voice from Casey Kasem, I burst out, this is funny ). For the rest, Alexandra with her envys of stealing Alan from Josie and give the Pussycats a "music lesson" and Melody with her everlasting ditziness makes the show...Noticeable thing here: since the original series started when "Scooby Doo" took a break, I found that Josie and the Pussycats were patterned the same way, with same music and expressions like "meddling kids". Otherwise, the rest is fun to watch and was also a great geography course because in each show, they were in a different country. And even one of the shows did feature a chase around the world (one of the best episodes called "The Great Pussycat Chase"...).A fun classic to be enjoyed over and over again...

Sarcastic Alexandra is really the star of this cartoon series, with her cantankerous manner and continual put-downs (she even tells her cat Sebastian off, as with this caveat while unloading the van: "How would you like a suitcase sombrero?"). Josie gets completely lost in the woodwork, offering no solutions and no banter; blonde Alan is also a dullard (is that why they put them together?). I enjoy "Josie and the Pussycats" somewhat more than the similar "Scooby Doo" series simply because it's about musicians in danger and not a motley crew of teenage sleuths (and the music is actually pretty jazzy for bubblegum). Still, there isn't much direction at work here...and no driving force.

Josie and the Pussycats was sort of like Scooby Doo in that a gang of young people travelled from place to place and always ran into trouble. The difference is that here, instead of monsters, the gang ran into spies and megalomaniacs wanting to take over the world. Like Scooby though, each episode had a wild chase and as the Pussycats were a musical group, the chase always featured music, like the classic song I'm Gonna Do Some Voodoo on You Baby. The humor was pretty dopey, even for a cartoon but there was always some fun to be had thanks to Alexander Cabot, the group's shades wearing manager who, like Scooby, was always the first one to panic. The show is interesting in that it featured Valerie, one of the first black characters to appear on a major cartoon. The music that the Pussycats played was sometimes quite good, but unlike the Archies, they did not become a hit. The cartoon didn't have much to do with the comic book which was basically a female version of the Archie comic books. The Josie series didn't last that long, probably due to the fact that so many episodes copied each other with minor changes in locale and the way in which the villains planned to take over the world. Looking at it today is amusing in that despite the fact that three girls and two guys spend all their time travelling together, there is no hint of anything going on, (even though Josie and Allan M. are supposed to be involved) and none of the males ever seem to show much interest in Melody who was among the first of the dumb blondes on TV. For people who grew up in the 70s, this cartoon is fun to look back on but it simply is too tame and dated for today's kids to enjoy.