Baker’s Log – Josie and the Pussycats

A somewhat sexy Saturday morning cartoon to the big screen

Here’s a show I would love to make a movie* out of. Josie and the Pussycats was a comedy/adventure/espionage cartoon based on the Archie comic book of the same name. Cartoonist Dan DeCarlo was in Paris (just after the War?) where he met an adorable French girl named Josie. He didn’t speak a word of French, she knew not a word of English. In short order they fell in love and got married. DeCarlo used his better half as model for a comic book character, resulting in the “Here’s Josie” comic. Though began as another of Archie’s teen comedies, it eventually changed format to involve The Pussycats, an all-girl rock group. In 1970, the concept was adapted to television, and resulted in a delightful series in which the Pussycats and their managers were constantly running afoul of mad scientists and would-be world conquerors. Basically, it was a mixture of the spy craze and HB’s popular Scooby Doo program. Though a short run, it was a popular show. A sequel series took things into the realm of space opera, it called Josie And The Pussycats In Outer Space!

*Technically, the property was adapted to the big screen sometime around the turn of the century, but the previews looked terrible and quite different from the charming Saturday morning cartoon. They even took away the iconic Pussycat uniforms! My movie will more faithfully mirror the animated version, and will likely be set in 1970.

Josie and the Pussycats

Josie and the Pussycats
The film adaptation with (left to right) Tara Reid as Melanie, Rachael Leigh Cook as Josie, and Rosario Dawson as Valerie. Bravo to the producers for making Valerie a bassist rather than giving her two tambourines, which would have made her look ridiculous, like the character in the cartoon.

AdvertisementMesser Chups


About the author

Illustrator at // Website // More articles

Rock is a pencil jockey by trade. He's done work for AC Comics, Main Enterprises, and Moonstone, among others. Some of the strips he's created include Dinosaur Girl (AC Comics, creator, writer, pencils), Crissy Carrots (Main, creator, writer, pencils), and Betsy the Bookwriter (Main, co-creator, writer, pencils). His specialty is cheesecake cartooning (what they call "good girl art" these days).

1 Comment

  1. Going by the cartoon, the casting of the band was pretty accurate, but I don’t know why they cast the 6’0″ tall Missy Pyle to play the “villainess” Alexandra.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.


*