Josie and the Pussycats featured a teenage all-girl pop band that toured the world with their entourage, getting mixed up in strange adventures, spy capers, and mysteries.

The group consisted of level-headed lead singer, songwriter and guitarist Josie, intelligent tambourine Valerie, and air-headed blonde drummer Melody.

Other characters included their cowardly manager Alexander Cabot III, his conniving sister Alexandra, her cat Sebastian, and muscular roadie Alan.

than the original Josie comic book, is remembered for its music, the girls' leopard print leotards (replete with "long tails and ears for hats", as the theme song states), and for featuring Valerie as the first regularly appearing female black character in a Saturday morning cartoon show.

The animated version of Josie was an amalgam of plot devices, villain types, settings, moods, and tones from other Hanna-Barbera shows such as Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, Jonny Quest, Space Ghost, and Shazzan.

Each episode found the Pussycats and crew en route to perform a gig or record a song in some exotic location where, somehow, often due to something Alexandra did, they became mixed up in an adventure.

[7] After interviewing over 500 finalists, settled upon casting Kathleen Dougherty (Cathy Dougher) as Josie, Cherie Moor (later known as Cheryl Ladd) as Melody, and Patrice Holloway as Valerie.

According to Danny Janssen's recollections in his liner notes for the Rhino compilation CD, when he submitted his suggested studio singers, he was unaware that all three characters in the Archie comic book were caucasian.

A cover of "Josie and the Pussycats" performed by Juliana Hatfield and Tanya Donelly is included on the 1995 tribute album Saturday Morning: Cartoons' Greatest Hits, produced by Ralph Sall on MCA Records.

A jealous Alexandra, elbowing the cast aside in order to steal the spotlight from Josie yet again, stumbles and causes a domino effect so that they are all jerked inside, accidentally triggering the launch sequence, which sends all into deep space.

Bleep and Sebastian fluctuate between being competitors or good friends throughout the series, with Don Messick providing the non-verbal chattering of both pets.

Alexandra's role parallels that of Dr. Zachary Smith – both are unpleasant characters, often at odds with the rest of the crew, whose blunders caused the initial loss in space.

Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space contained a laugh track as well, but it utilized an inferior version created by the studio.

Thanks to Alexandra's scheming, the gang, thinking that they are headed to Nashville for a gig, end up in the Amazon rainforest, where they encounter an evil botanist named Dr. Greenthumb, his man-eating plants, and a tribe of headhunters.

While in Bombay, the gang mistakenly enters the lair of a sinister organization called the Secret Six which plans to replace an Indian leader with one of their number with the use of a potion that can manipulate a person's facial structure.

Valerie bears an uncanny resemblance to an abducted Arabian princess and thus becomes involved in a plan to catch her kidnapper, a hypnotist known as the Evil Eye.

While skiing in the Alps, the gang ends up in the clutches of a baron calling himself Dr. Midas who plans to destroy the world's entire supply of gold unless half of it is given to him.

The gang's plane, heading for Puerto Rico, makes an emergency landing in a Caribbean jungle inhabited by dinosaurs and bipedal apes, all of which are under the control of a mad scientist named Dr. Madro who can change humans into animals.

Mixes elements of H. G. Wells' The Island of Doctor Moreau and Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World, with a titular reference to Planet of the Apes.

The gang's hot air balloon in Miami is set loose and ends up on the island of Dr. Strangemoon, a mad scientist who plans to launch missiles that will devastate the Earth's atmosphere.

The Serpent, a mad toymaker who resembles yellow peril stock characters such as Fu Manchu, pursues the gang in order to obtain the coin, which is the key to his plans for the conquest of Asia.

While on a relaxing gig in Hawaii, the gang is pursued by a Zeppelin bourne criminal known as the Hawk when confidential information is transferred from a tape recorder to Melody's memory.

When the Shadow discovers that the gang has the box, he and his henchmen embark on an around-the-world chase to steal it from them in the style of Around the World in Eighty Days and The Great Race.

In an odd moment, Alexandra appears to have mind control powers over a polar bear, possibly a reference to her comic book origin story.

The Pussycats land on a planet of cat people and soon learn from their king Kator that their queen Felina is being held prisoner by the power-mad robot Menton, who possesses a weapon that can create nearly-endless duplicates of himself or others.

The group thwarts a power plot by the mad scientist Arkapus, who, by means of a sonic transmitter, has trained the local animals for conquest.

A Josie in Outer Space episode, "Warrior Women of Amazonia", was featured in a clip/episode collection of Hanna-Barbera on VHS, released in the UK.

A Josie and the Pussycats: The Complete Series two-DVD box set was released in Region 1 (the United States, Canada, and Japan) on September 18, 2007.

[19] Josie and the Pussycats made a final appearance as animated characters in a guest shot on the September 22, 1973, episode of The New Scooby-Doo Movies, "The Haunted Showboat".

Murray later co-starred in the Riverdale spin-off Katy Keene starting in 2020 as an adult Josie, with Lucien Laviscount as Alexander and Camille Hyde as Alexandra.