Setting animation to music is a time-honored tradition going back to the early days of Mickey Mouse and Betty Boop. But combining pop music with animation really came into its own during the late 1960s, with cartoon versions of real-life, flesh & blood acts as well as animated characters with no basis in the real world having hits on the charts.
Mention the phrase "cartoon bands" and most people think “The Archie Show,” which gave birth to the bubblegum group The Archies.
The story goes that Don Kirshner – music supervisor for “The Monkees” TV program – was looking for a new project. Although The Monkees generated enormous ratings on NBC with their faux-Beatles style and Brill-Building songs by up-and-coming songwriters like Carole King (“Pleasant Valley Sunday”) and Neil Diamond (“I’m A Believer”), Kirshner grew tired of the show when the actors began insisting they should play their own instruments and write their own songs.
Which led Kirshner to “The Archie Show,” which debuted on CBS and quickly had a Top 10 hit with a little number called “Sugar Sugar.” Here, Kirshner could call all the shots and didn’t have to deal with actors’ demands.
Singer Ron Dante, who performed most of the lead vocals for the animated group, still tours today, and doesn’t downplay his Archie Andrews heritage.
Archie and his friends weren’t the only two-dimensional musicians on the TV block. However, unlike those bands following in their celluloid footsteps, the folks in “The Archie Show,” thanks to the long-running Archie comic book series, were already established characters.
Not so with “Josie & The Pussycats,” the band that rocked the Saturday morning cereal crowd in 1970.
While Josie had her roots in the Archie comic book series, the Pussycats didn’t exist until TV came-a-callin’. When the king of cheap animation, Hanna-Barbera was looking for a property to compete with Filmation’s “The Archie Show,” they contacted Archie Comics about licensing a minor character in Archiedom named Josie.
In each episode, the girls would sing songs, save the world and sing songs. That pretty much sums it up.
Three years later the world saw the debut of “Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kids” on NBC. The title capitalized on the success of the 1969 Paul Newman / Robert Redford movie, but instead of horses and train robberies, the cartoon was about a modern-day rock band whose members doubled as secret agents. Their spy boss was a computer named Mr. Socrates who would contact the band by way of a secret ring on Butch’s hand. A typical episode had Butch and the band sing, save the world, and sing some more. Feeling a little déjà vu?
One of the odder cartoons mixing popsters and animation was “Mission: Magic,” which debuted in 1973 and starred an up-and-coming Australian singer named Rick Springfield. A surprisingly buff Rick Springfield.
But fictional characters weren’t the only ones rocking the Saturday morning cartoon world. The most obvious example being the animated TV series “The Beatles,” which ran on ABC from 1965 through 1967.
Don’t confuse this with the animated classic “Yellow Submarine,” which played in theaters in 1968. The Beatles cartoon series was the perfect example of Saturday morning cartoons – cheap and poorly written. And, unlike “Yellow Submarine,” the cartoon series had ringers voicing the parts of John, Paul, George and Ringo.
But The Beatles weren’t the only band represented by cartoon doppelgangers on Saturday mornings. Debuting in 1971 on ABC, “The Jackson 5ive” not only served up animated renditions of Michael, Jermaine, Tito, Marlon and Jackie, but also of Motown Records founder Berry Gordy. Like “The Beatles” cartoon program, “The Jackson 5ive” starred voice actors instead of the real deal. In fact, veteran voice actor Paul Frees not only played Berry Gordy in “The Jackson 5ive” but also took a turn played John Lennon and George Harrison in “The Beatles.”
Watching “The Jackson 5ive” prompts memories of how innocent and charming the boys were back in the day. And one cannot escape the irony that the performers who once inspired a cartoon series appear to be living cartoon lives today.
Others? Sure there were others. But that’s where you come in. Tell us about your own cartoon band memories.