Posts Tagged ‘Bubble Gum Rock’

Before Spice Girls there was Josie, Melody and Valerie better known as Josie and the Pussycats. An animated all girl bubble gum band that first aired on CBS in 1970 and was running for 7 long years but it was however re-conceptualized in 1972 as Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space. And who knew that the singing voice of Melody was non-other than Cheryl Ladd that we came to love in Charlie’s Angels.

We are hooked on the Bugaloos and how can you not be? Please listen and enjoy.

Here is some info from our friends over at the Bugaloos official site, Tranquility Forest:

The Bugaloos originally hit the airwaves back in 1970, and came from the highly creative minds of Sid and Marty Krofft. The Krofft brothers are well known for providing high quality children’s television in the 1970s. The Bugaloos was the second show in their wide and varied library.

The Bugaloos was a show about four musically-adept, teenaged kids, living in Tranquility Forest, along with their friend, Sparky the Firefly. Tranquility Forest was located about 10 miles outside of Rock City, where Peter Platter spun records at Kook Radio. Rock City was located in Rock Land, which was also the home of Benita Bizarre (nemesis to the Bugaloos), who lived in a huge jukebox, and was forever trying to find a way to get her records played on Kook Radio.

Here is the link to the Bugaloos website.

There is nothing like being a Rock and Roller by night and a Super Hero by day:

The Impossibles was a series of animated cartoons produced by Hanna-Barbera in 1966 and aired on American television by CBS. The series of shorts appeared as part of Frankenstein Jr. and The Impossibles.” - Wikipedia

Read the rest of the Wikipedia article here.

The Archies cartoon started in 1968 and they are considered one of the first animated Bubble Gum Rock band to jam during their show. The actual music for the band was sung by Ron Dante and was released as singles and records. The song Sugar, Sugar was a huge hit and a number 1 single for 4 weeks in 1969. The song was supposedly offered by the producer, Ron Kushner to the Monkees who refused to record it.

You can read more about it here.

The Archies, they’re not. They are, however, four hillbilly cats who love to rock. Yeah, yeah, we know how some of you feel about animated Bubblegum Rock bands. Are you forgetting that this is a site for kids after all?

One of Hanna-Barbera’s least known shows, the Cattanooga Cats, never had the popularity of the very similar, Banana Splits. Lead singer/guitarist Country was voiced by Bill Callaway, who also was the voice of Aquaman on the Superfriends. The drummer Groove was voiced by none other than Casey Kasem, who was also on the Superfriends, as the voice of Robin.

The show’s catchy tunes were penned and performed by music legend Mike Curb, who also produced for the likes of Roy Orbison and Sammy Davis Jr.  Curb is also known to be responsible for signing the group WAR to a contract as well as becoming Lieutenant Governor of California from 1979-1983.