Western Animation / Josie and the Pussycats

Left to right: Alexander, Valerie, Melody, Josie, Alan, Alexandra. Foreground: Sebastian.

"Josie and the Pussycats!
Long tails and ears for hats!
Guitars and sharps and flats!
Neat, sweet, a groovy song
You're invited, come along!"

- First verse of the theme song

Although based on an Archie Comics publication, this series was produced by Hanna-Barbera rather than Filmation and aired from 1970 to 1971. The all-female rock trio comprised guitarist Josie McCoy, tambourinist Valerie Brown, and drummer Melody Valentine. Valerie is Black and Nerdy, Melody is a Dumb Blonde and Josie is of average intellect.

Supporting characters were Alan Mayberry, an ex-country singer who became the Pussycats' roadie and Josie's love interest; Alexander Cabot III, the Pussycats' cowardly manager; Alexandra Cabot, Alexander's twin who continually tried to steal Alan away from Josie and/or replace Josie as leader of the band; and Sebastian, Alexandra's snickering cat.

Each episode usually had the group traveling to their next gig or recording session, only to stumble upon criminals, mad scientists, or terrorists and foil their plot.

It had a successor series, Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space that aired in 1972. While posing for a photo shoot in front of a space ship, Alexandra accidentally makes the group stumble into the ship and it blasts off. By the time they get the ship under control, they are hopelessly lost in space. A woolly creature named Bleep joined the cast, whom Melody could communicate with. Each episode had the group fly the space ship, trying to find Earth, only to stumble upon a planet with some kind of problem, usually a dictator or invaders, and fix it. The series was cancelled without the group making it home.

Voice talent included Janet Waldo, Casey Kasem and Don Messick, enabling Josie and friends to cross over to The New Scooby-Doo Movies.

It was adapted into a live-action film in 2001. For information on that, click here.

---

This series provides examples of the following tropes:

• Accidental Astronaut:
  • The titular cast are captured by Doctor Strangemoon, who believes the musical group and their roadies are spies sent by the government. For some reason, the Mad Scientist decides to put three of the six (Alexander, Melody and Alexandra) aboard his space capsule. These three are successfully launched into orbit, despite the added 300 pounds in the nose section.
  • The spin-off Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space begins with this trope. While posing for publicity stills in front of a space rocket, Alexandra decides that she doesn't want to be on the fringe, where she can easily be cropped out. Instead, she tries to move to the center, nudging the group behind her. Josie and company lose their balance, and tumble into the crew compartment, pulling Alexandra with them. A stumbling Josie pulls the launch lever by accident, and away they go.
• Accidental Passenger: Alexandra Cabot has a knack for misdirection that kicks off the plot.
  • In "The Midas Mix-Up," the 'Cats have a gig at a ski lodge, and take to the slopes before their performance. When Alexandra sabotages a trail marker, the whole gang end up skiing off a cliff, and crash into a sky tram car. This is how they find themselves at the castle of The Villain Count Midas.
  • In "A Greenthumb Is Not A Goldfinger," Alexandra routes Josie onto a cargo plane rather than the passenger aircraft. Everyone else hustles aboard as well, taking Alexandra with them. Somehow, no one notices that only themselves and cargo occupy the plane's interior until Valerie makes an observation.
  Valerie: If I didn't know better, I'd swear we were flying over the Amazon.
  Alexandra: We are flying over the Amazon.
• Adaptational Hairstyle Change: In the Archie Comics, the early Shes Josie series has Alexandra Cabot as Josie's romantic rival. Alexandra is a brunette with a bobbed style similar to Josie's, and grown to shoulder length at most. When Hanna-Barbera leased the concept from Archie Comics, Alexandra was restyled into a raven ponytail with a skunk stripe that extends to cover her thoracic vertebrae, and is tied with a big red bow. The success of the cartoon series prompted Archie Comics to Retcon Alexandra with the new design.
• Adaptational Intelligence: In the comic strip, Alan was portrayed to be, at best, an average guy with muscles or, at worst, a bit of Dumb Muscle, but in the cartoon, he is made out to be just as intelligent as Valerie, turning him into a Genius Bruiser.
• Alternative Foreign Theme Song: Like most Hanna-Barbera shows of the period, the Japanese dub came with its own customized opening.
• Animated Adaptation: It started in Archie Comics, after all.
• Artist and the Band
• Artsy Beret: Exploited by Alexander while Josie and the Pussycats are hiding from two mooks in a fashion studio by posing as the couturier (fashion designer) Charles of the Bowery. Alex's wardrobe is already eclectic, but gets pushed to absurdity with a huge bow tie and an oversized beret. The mooks are skeptical but withhold their aggression. Then the real couturier appears: a middle-aged, balding man dressed like a proper banker.
• Ascended Extra: Similar to Hot Dog in The Archie Show, Sebastian has a much larger role in the cartoon than he did in the comics.
• Asian Buck Teeth: The closing scene of episode "All Wong in Hong Kong" has Alexandra leech some coins from her brother, then head toward the snack bar. She collides with an Asian man there, and grouses that he should watch where he's going. Since the Pussycats' whole adventure began with this scenario, the troupe flees the hotel, with Alexandra following behind. The Asian man has huge, protruding buck teeth, and he laments, "You meet the strangest people in Hong Kong."
• Aside Comment/Cats Are Snarkers: Sebastian's snickering.
• Bag of Kidnapping: An apeman nabs Josie, Melody, and Valerie with this method in "Plateau of the Apes Plot".
• Betty and Veronica: Averted, because Alan is unwaveringly involved with Josie and has no interest in the scheming Alexandra.
• Beware the Silly Ones: Pussycats are just a band going from one place to another just to preform their music. But they have thwarted many villain's schemes who made the unfortunate choice in threating their lives, which spurs the gang to stop evil plan and get them caught.
• The Blank: Mastermind from "Never Mind a Master Mind".
• Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: Drummer Melody is the Blonde, Valerie has tambourines as the Brunette, and Josie on electric guitar is the Redhead.
• Botanical Abomination: The villain Doctor Greenthumb plans to cultivate and loose an army of eight-foot tall aggressive plant-monsters in battalion strength, unless he's paid richly to keep them bottled.
• Captain Nemo Copy: Josie and Company are captured by Captain Nemo and taken aboard his submarine. The captain claims that his great-grandfather helmed a sub exactly like his. The mad captain is using a huge drill bit on the ship's prow to puncture the hulls of merchant ships, sinking them, then looting them safely underwater. The vessel even includes a pipe organ on the bridge.
• Cargo Concealment Caper: The group discovers that Midas is exporting spray cologne that's really gold-dissolving mist. The whole gang hide in a cologne crate to hide from Midas's mooks, but Alan sneezes, blowing their cover. They escape anyway by using the crate to slide down the snowy mountain.
• Cats Are Mean: Sebastian is a nasty prankster in the main show. He bedeviles Scooby in a Crossover, and he and Bleep are in a constant state of war when the show ends up Recycled in Space.
• Cat Girl: The theme of the band.
  -"...long tails, and ears for hats."
• Cat Stereotype: Sebastian the cat is their Team Pet. He has mostly black fur, with white paws, muzzle, cheeks, and a white streak running along the crest of his head. Sebastian is often in the care of Alexandra, the troupe's Token Evil Teammate, who has a white streak herself, and like Alexandra, Sebastian is guileful and subversive. Fortunately, Sebastian never slips into evil territory, remaining a Lawful Neutral by using his guile to subvert villains.
• Chase Scene: A staple of each episode accompanied by a song from the 'Cats.
• Classical Anti-Hero: Alexander, the self-described "chicken."
  • Can also be interpreted as Adaptational Wimp; in the comics, though Alex is far from being a heroic and noble character, he isn't nearly as cowardly as his animated version.
• Crossover: Particularly noticeable is the one with Scooby Doo.
• The Ditz/Dumb Blonde: Melody, to the point she could be the poster child of both tropes!
• Darker and Edgier: Subverted with respect to the kind of villains that Josie and the gang faced in comparison to the "Scooby-Doo" Hoax involving villains that were not professional criminals and were easily foiled by Those Meddling Kids. On the other hand, villains that menaced the Pussycats were truly dangerous and potentially murderous criminals who had henchmen that sometimes used guns and other lethal force. Though nobody ever got hurt and the villains eventually succumbed to Bond Villain Stupidity.
• Dumb and Drummer: It likely isn't a coincidence that Melody is the drummer.
• Dumb Is Good: Melody. Besides being uber-nice:
  • She had a preternatural power to understand the speech of alien animals.
  • She wept when upon hearing Alexandra's voice (she was hiding in a plant - see Shout-Out below), she thought Alexandra was eaten by one of Greenthumb's plant-monsters!
• "Everybody Laughs" Ending: Usually because of some tragedy befalling Alexandra.
• Expy: The show being heavily inspired by Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, Alan and Alexander have been retooled into fairly obvious expies for Fred and Shaggy. The change is most noticeable with Alexander, whose comic-book counterpart is an Expy of Reggie Mantle.
  • Alan being a Fred expy is lampshaded by Fred himself in a Cartoon Network bumper where he chastizes Velma for setting Daphne up for a date with Alan ("He's me with more muscles!").
• Failure Is the Only Option: Once the series was Recycled in Space, this became the only option for our heroes finding their way home. Even if some benevolent aliens pointed them in the right direction, Alexandra would inevitably accidentally bump into something, throwing them off course (which is how they got lost in space in the first place).
• Faint in Shock: "The Secret Six Secret" has the villains let loose a Bengal tiger in the girls' hotel room, because they know too much. Alan manages to trap the tiger in a Murphy bed. Upon hearing what the girls endured, Alexander faints. When his sister, Alexandra, tries to give Alan a Smooch of Victory, she trips over Alex's inert form.
  Alexandra: The next time you decide to faint, do it by an open window.
• Fainting: Alexander is prone to this, whether out of fright or by Foreign Queasine.
• Fake Defector: On a few occasions, Sebastian fakes buddying up to a given villain in order to help the group later (like deactivating a death trap or swiping keys to handcuffs).
• Female Fighter, Male Handler: Alexander is the band's manager, and Josie's sort of boyfriend Alan is their roadie.
• Fishbowl Helmet: Sebastian the cat plunks an actual fishbowl over his head in order to rescue Josie and the Pussycats from prison capsules on the ocean floor. Thanks to Cartoon Physics, this works.
• Forced Dance Partner: The closing gag of "A Greenthumb Is Not a Goldfinger" has the Power Trio perform a short set in the greenhouse. There, the wicked doctor's Botanical Abominations seem to groove to the music. One creature-plant taps Alexandra on the shoulder, then takes her in its tendrils and starts dancing with her. Alexandra, thorny as ever, wants none of this, but the creatures are bigger and stronger than she is, so she gets passed from one tendrilled abomination to the next.
• Friendly Enemies: Alexandra may hate the band and especially Josie, but she occasionally helps them defeat the villains and defends them when the chips are down.
• Fun with Acronyms: In "Spy School Spoof", the gang enters Laser's lair claiming to be from QUACK (Quality Undercover Agents Checking Kooks).
• Genius Ditz: As dumb as Melody is, she plays the drums professionally.
  Melody: Eat your heart out, Ringo!
• Harmless Electrocution: This has been featured in a few episodes:
  • In "The Nemo's A No No Affair", Alexander gets shocked when he plugs a cord in a port to start up the motor of a motorboat and as this happens, his entire body flashes in various, neon colors.
  • In "X Marks The Spot", Alexandra, jealous as usual of Josie and her band, decides to switch out the speaker wires to make Josie sound terrible. This unfortunately backfires on her when she gets zapped and engulfed in sparks causing her to bounce around the venue the band is performing at.
• Human Popsicle: The Scorpion captures Alexander, Melody and Alexandra, and traps them in transparent tubes that he fills with "freeze gas." The three are frozen in place in those tubes until Alan, Josie and Valerie sneak into the control room and open the tubes. The three prisoners topple forward, and shatter the ice around them upon impact. Somehow, they're none the worse for this ordeal.
• Inexplicable Language Fluency: In Outer Space has Melody encounter an alien creature that looks like cotton candy with eyes and flippers. The critter speaks in a series of bleeps, and Melody names him Bleep. She can also understand him perfectly, and acts as translator for everyone else. Also, Bleep seems to understand English just fine.
• Insult Backfire: Laser-Guided Karma aimed at Alexandra, especially when she calls anyone "dum-dum".
• Iron Butt Monkey: Alexandra, for all of her Amusing Injuries.
• Ironic Echo Cut: In "The Jumpin' Jupiter Affair":
  Alexandra: [after blowing one of the gang's plans - again] Thanks to me, I'll bet the rest of the gang is heading this way with help.
  [cut to Alexander, running for his life as a result of his sister's bumbling]
  Alexander: HELP!
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Sebastian. He's an often mean-spirited prankster who finds other people's pain and humiliation hilariously funny, but he does care about his humans, particularly Alexandra, and will provide aid and support when needed.
• Jerkass: Alexandra's arrogance, impatience and pomposity make her very difficult to like.
• Just Eat Gilligan: You really do have to wonder why they even put up with Alexandra, who is nothing more than The Load and The Millstone to the group. In the outer space series, they could have gotten home if they had just pushed her out the airlock or left her on the next planet they landed (this would've been wildly out of character for the main trio, but still).
• Karmic Butt-Monkey: Alexandra Cabot is often a subversive glory-hog in the cartoons. Her efforts to displace or humilliate Josie always backfire. However, though Alexandra dislikes Josie, she abhors villains.
• Large Ham: Alexander in the comics, Alexandra in the cartoon.
• Leotard of Power: Their feline stage outfits.
• Let's Split Up, Gang!: Lampshaded by Alexandra in the final episode, having been sent off with Sebastian, Alexander, and Melody:
  Oooh, why do I always get stuck with a cat, a chicken, and a giggling blonde?
• Limited Wardrobe: The Pussycats seem to travel light, as they have only their leopard-print leotards for performing, and minidresses (blue for Josie, green for Melody, purple for Valerie) for regular wear. Alan almost always wears a pale blue shirt and grey slacks, while Alexander nearly always wears a green cardigan and violet bellbottoms. Alexandra often wears a red-and-black mindress. The only times they change outfits is when they're in disguise to fool a villain, or are in sleepwear when staying overnight somewhere. A rare exception occurs when the troupe visits a ski lodge, and everyone except Alexander gets stylish winterwear.
• The Load: Alexandra, who stoops to subversion to undermine Josie, and insists upon being a Glory Hound, which often sunders the effort to thwart the villain. However, there are times when she actually manages to thwart the villain of the episode, mostly by happenstance.
• Locking MacGyver in the Store Cupboard: If you're gonna kidnap Valerie, you'd better be damn sure she can't move or speak.
• Lovable Coward: Alexander, who talks a big game, but has no spine to back up his boasting.
• Love Triangle: Josie, Alan, Alexandra. In the comics, Alexander is less cowardly and more devious, and has a crush on Josie, creating a Love Quadrangle.
• Loves Only Gold: The episode "The Midas Mix-Up" has Josie and the Pussycats encounter a reclusive Mad Scientist who would threaten, "Unless I am paid half the gold in the world, I shall destroy all the gold in the world!" Midas has perfected a microbe mist that can dissolve gold, and plans to export the stuff disguised as spray cologne.
• Luminescent Blush: "In Chili Today And Hot Tamale", Alexandra's face turns raspberry red and smoke comes out of her ears, and mouth, as a result of eating a taco with hot sauce, which was poured on by Sebastian.
• MacGyvering: Valerie was the champion of this, making solutions and springing traps with guitar strings, bubble gum and hairspray.
• Made of Bologna: The Countess is pursuing the 'Cats, intent on dosing them with rapid-aging mist. Alan and Josie emerge from a garden shed, riding on a yard tractor that's hitched to tilling blades. The tractor runs completely over the top of the Countess's car, slicing it into ten or so sections that fall apart like bread slices. Each slice has a solid, woodlike interior with no sign of any mechanical components. Somehow, though the car is in pieces, the Countess herself is completely unscathed, just furious at losing her phaeton.
• Mad Scientist: Several, namely Doctor Greenthumb (plant monsters), Midas (gold dissolving microbes), The Scorpion (weather control), Doctor Strangemoon (comet attractor), The Countess (aging accelerant mist).
• Marilyn Maneuver: In the episode, "A Thumb Is Not A Goldfinger", Valerie's dress floats slightly in the breeze, as she and the others cling onto one another and parachute to the ground.
  • Alexandra in "The Jumping' Jupiter Affair". Her skirt gets lifted from behind, as she hangs on tightly to a kite and the gust carries them idly. In a possible animation goof, she seems to be commando.
  • Melody in "Never Mind A Master Mind". Her skirt flies up as she and the others drop to the ground after being suspended in the air by a ray gun used to cause levitation, and the effect wears off. As a possible animation goof, she doesn't seem to wear undies in this.
  • In "All Wong In Hong Kong", Valerie's dress flows lightly or slightly as she hangs onto a flying rocket and grabs, and carries Alexandra. But the former isn't seen from behind when this happens.
• Meteor-Summoning Attack: The main characters encounter the villain Doctor Strangemoon, whose Evil Plan is to launch a satellite that will attract fiery comets to Earth, raining havoc upon civilization. He launches the vehicle with three of those meddling kids (Alexander, Alexandra and Melody) aboard. Fortunately, Alexandra pulls the capsule off course somehow, so the satellite never pulls a comet to Earth as intended.
• Miles Gloriosus: Alexander will gladly take credit for foiling the villain. However, in "Plateau of the Apes Plot", he has this to say at the end - this was after he had been transformed into a gorilla and had to be rescued from the pound:
  Alexander: "There never was any doubt that we could handle the situation. After all, under my skillful and fearless leadership, mmph ..."
  Alexandra: (stuffing a banana in his mouth): "You'd still be in that funny farm for animals if it weren't for me!"
• The Millstone: Whenever the gang has some kind of plan, Alexandra, in an attempt to show everyone else up, will inadvertently ruin it.
• Mind Control: Melody gets hypnotized, brainwashed and mind-controlled by the villains a lot. In every single instance they end up wishing they hadn't, because her ditzy nature is only exaggerated when she's hypnotized, and she will screw up the simplest of tasks. Sometimes it's hinted she isn't mind-controlled and only pretending to thwart the villains.
  Villain: I am your Master!
  Melody: Yes, Mustard! (giggle)
  (Cue Villain getting increasingly annoyed)
• Mind-Control Eyes: Again, Melody gets them when under the influence of the villains.
• Mouth Taped Shut: When the Big Bad learns that Melody has memorized a secret formula, he sends his mooks to kidnap her. The mooks succeed in capturing Melody, and get her into their vehicle. As they make their escape, Melody starts bitching about their driving, which prompts the mooks to adhere a crisscross of tape over her lips. This reduces Melody's complaining to irritated humming.
• Ms. Fanservice: All the female, main characters. Whether they're wearing miniskirts/minidresses, leopard skin leotards, or babydoll dresses as seen in "The Secret Six Secret", they provide this.
• Nearly Normal Animal/Speech-Impaired Animal: Sebastian falls in between.
• Non-Human Sidekick: Sebastian, and Bleep in outer space.
• Pain to the Ass: As the Chew Toy of the group, Alexandra receives a lot of ass-based slapstick, including landing butt-first on a cactus, getting it hit by a door, pinched by a crab, and too many others to count. She really is the Butt Monkey of the group.
• Pet Gets the Keys: Josie and her five companions are trapped in prison capsules on the sea floor. Team Pet Sebastian the cat retrieves the keys from Captain Nemo's submarine, then plunks a Fishbowl Helmet on his head before descending to the sea floor to free them. Thanks to Toon Physics, this actually works.
• Plant Mooks: Mad Scientist Doctor Greenthumb sought to create an army of plant-creatures in the episode "A Greenthumb Is Not A Goldfinger." His Evil Plan never made it out of beta.
• Pokémon Speak: Bleep
• Power Trio: Josie, Melody, Valerie.
• Prince and Pauper: Melody was more than once mistaken for somebody of elevated status, including one Outer Space episode where the residents of a planet mistook her for their goddess.
  • For that matter, a pair of shoes was accidentally mixed up for another pair of shoes that were intelligence-gathering devices.
  • Valerie turned out to be a dead ringer for a princess from India, and agreed to act as a decoy to catch a villain who was after her.
• Rapid Aging: The plot of "Don't Count on a Countess". Affects both the cast (sans Valerie) and the villains of the episode.
• Recognizable by Sound: While sneaking around the mansion of Mad Scientist Doctor Greenthumb in the episode "A Greenthumb Is Not a Goldfinger," the three band members encounter a walking pile of leaves. They presume that this is one of the mad doctor's plant creatures, and attack it. While Josie and Valerie are pummeling the creature, it cries in pain from the blows. Melody recognizes the voice, and begins sobbing, "That sounds like Alexandra. The creature-plant must have eaten her!" Immediately, Josie and Valerie realize that Dumbass Has a Point, and it's revealed that the creature was Alexandra disguised as a creature plant.
• Recycled with a Gimmick: Their outer space adventures are the Trope Codifier, and possibly the Trope Namer for Recycled IN SPACE!.
• Red Live Lobster: The gang takes a break on a beach. Alexandra tries to seduce Alan with a hula dance, and grabs a nearby grass skirt. She somehow fails to notice a crimson crab on the leafy green skirt, and wears it around her hips. The crab dislikes all the motion, and pinches Alexandra's glutes to steady itself. She gets very wiggly with this impromptu prompting.
• Replaced with Replica:
  • "Never Mind a Mastermind" has the Pussycats attempt to safeguard an anti-gravity ray gun by posing as scientists at a symposium, and swapping out the device with a non-functioning replica. Alas, Mastermind deduced this plan, and used a Batman Gambit to seize the device from the Pussycats.
  • "Spy School Spoof" has technical plans to a ray gun erroneously delivered to the Pussycats. When the villain's mooks try to wrest the plans from the 'Cats, Valerie draws up a close but non-working copy. The villain succeeds in capturing the Pussycats and attaining the plans, but the weapon behaves very differently than anticipated.
• Rich Bitch: Alexandra, the sarcastic and selfish twin sister of the Pussycats' manager, Alexander.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: Josie and the Pussycats need to find their roadies, who were taken to the lab of the Mad Scientist to be fed to his Plant Monsters. However, the 'Cats are unfamliar with the mansion's layout, and have no idea which way the greenhouse lies. Melody, who is The Ditz and a Cloud Cuckoolander, postulates this: "Plants have to kept warm, and it's always warmer in the South. Let's go south." Valerie rolls her eyes, but can't give a better choice, so they go south. This turns out to be the right direction when they encounter Alexandra, who is disguised as a plant-creature.
• Rock Trio: A pop version that swapped the bass guitar with a tambourine.
• "Scooby-Doo" Hoax: The plot of "The Jumpin' Jupiter Affair," subverted in that the villains were revealed to the audience in the middle of the episode.
• Shipping Torpedo: Alexandra routinely tries to sabotage the Josie + Alan pair, never making a dent, and always suffering a Backstab Backfire for her efforts.
• Shout-Out: From the debut episode, "Greenthumb Is Not a Goldfinger", after the others find Alexandra, Alexander and Sebastian hiding in plants:
  Josie: Alexandra, it's you!
  Alexandra: Of course it's me! Who were you expecting? Scooby-Doo?
• Shrunk in the Wash: Subverted in the episode '"A Greenthumb Is Not a Goldfinger." All six protagonists have been captured by Amazon basin natives, who plan to shrink the Pussycats' heads in their potion cauldron. To prove that Pussycat magic is stronger than the natives' magic, Alexandra dunks her brother's shirt into the potion, which has no effect. Alexander's shirt was the only one guaranteed not to shrink.
• Shrunken Head: Having fled the mansion of the Mad Scientist, The Pussycats are soon captured by a tribe of Amazon natives. Alex wonders what the natives will do with their captives. Valerie shows him some shrunken heads, and replies, "Do these answer your question?" Fortunately, the Pussycats are able to use the natives' superstition to effect an escape.
• Skintone Sclerae: Only the upper lid of the characters' eyes are drawn, reflective of Archie Comics' house style as defined by Bob Montana and Dan DeCarlo. Colorists simply filled in the sclera rather than guess where the separation should be, as part of Hanna-Barbera's speed-the-plow animation.
• Sky Heist: "Chili Today, Hot Tamale" has The Scorpion's mooks succeed in lowering a large horseshoe magnet to capture the Pussycats' dune buggy. Their boss wants the uranium pellets hidden within Melody's big bass drum. Josie, Alan and Alexandra get dumped out of the vehicle in the process.
• Smart Dumb And In Between: Among the Power Trio, Valerie is The Smart Girl, able to outwit the villain and engineer clever escapes. Melody is The Ditz, a classic Dumb Blonde Malaproper full of giggles. Josie has average intellect, and tends to be a protagonist with not much to do.
• Spoofy-Doo: The show has a lot in common with Scooby-Doo, involving a group of youngsters solving mysteries.
• Spy Speak: In the episode "Never Mind a Master Mind".
• Steal It to Protect It: In "Never Mind a Master Mind", the heroes mistakenly receive a message warning of the villain Master Mind's plan to steal an anti-gravity gun from a science symposium in Amsterdam. The heroes decide to steal the device themselves, and have it Replaced with Replica before Mastermind can get his hands on it. Unfortunately, three members of the group, including the one with the anti-gravity gun, are captured by Master Mind.
• Strictly Formula: Similar to a lot of Hanna-Barbera mystery shows. The gang shows up in a new town, stumbles onto some great crime or mad plot, solves the mystery, and then everyone laughs as Alexandra's attempt to steal Alan screws up.
• Stylistic Suck: Results whenever Alexandra actually gets to perform.
• Suddenly Fluent in Gibberish: A second-season episode has the team flying into outer space and encountering a dog-bird alien named Bleep, who communicates as follows: "Bleep bleep bleep." Melody, the Ditz, says, "Bleep bleep bleep, bleep bleep?" Bleep responds, "Bleep bleep bleep, bleep." Melody then gives an English translation.
• Sunglasses at Night: Alexander, who's seldom seen without his sunglasses.
• Through the Ceiling, Stealthily: Sneaky escape due to a lack of watchers, not from any attempt at stealth. The titular group get captured by the Secret Six, and are tied to stone pillars in an old temple. They're told by the villains that death by neglect will be their fate. Alexandra sneers. "These chintzy ropes won't hold us. I happen to be an expert at untying knots." This results in Alexandra, Josie and Alan being imprisoned in a secret compartment in one wall. The three prisoners discover water leaking from the compartment's ceiling, and chisel an exit using a nail file.
• Token Minority: Valerie, but this was the late 1960s and early 1970s. Pretty progressive for the times, really, especially considering her TV Genius and MacGyvering talents.
• Trauma Button Ending: In "All Wong in Hong Kong," the Pussycats began their adventure when Alexandra bumped into a Chinese man, causing both to drop coins. Inadverently, Alexandra picked up a rare coin that'd been taken by Mister Wong from a numismatist. After being pursued and captured by Wong and his minion, the 'Cats thwart the villain and sunder his Evil Plan. At the conclusion, Alexandra heads for the concession area, and once again bumps into a Chinese man, spilling their coins. Having no desire to repeat her adventure, Alexandra bugs out.
  Chinese man: You meet the strangest people in Hong Kong.
• TV Genius: Valerie could often hold her own, understanding what the Mad Scientist was talking about.
• Villain Ball: In many episodes, the villains would have gotten away if they didn't kidnap those meddling kids!
• Walking the Earth: The band was always getting into trouble in a city or town they'd visit as part of a gig for their tour.
• The Walls Are Closing In: The episode "The Jumpin' Jupiter Affair" has "aliens" using local villagers, and later the Pussycats, as slave labor in a diamond mine. Tired of their escapes and meddling, the aliens capture Josie, Alexandra and Alan, and tie them in place between two walls lined with spikes that slowly move together. Fortunately, Melody finds the "off" button on a console before the "waffle machine" (Alexandra's term) draws blood.
• Weirdness Magnet: Wherever they tour, one or more supervillains will always be around.
• With Friends Like These...: Alexandra and Alexander (sometimes Alan as well) got the Pussycats more often in trouble than aided them.
• X-Ray Sparks: Alexander in one episode experiences this, complete with his shades being visible over his skull eyes!
• You Meddling Kids: Very rarely were those words used verbatim, but the sentiment was there when the gang solved the mystery. This was true for the majority of Hanna-Barbera's Animated Series in the 1970s.

---