JOSIE Biography - Fictional, Iconical & Mythological characters

 
 

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JOSIE

Name: Josie and the Pussycats                                                             
                                                                                           
Josie and the Pussycats (also known as She's Josie and Josie) is a teenage humor           
comic book about a fictitious rock band, created by Dan DeCarlo and published by           
Archie Comics. It was published from 1963 until 1982; since then, a number of             
one-shot special issues have appeared without regularity. It was adapted into a           
Saturday morning cartoon by Hanna-Barbera Productions in 1970 and a live-action           
motion picture by Universal Pictures in 2001. Two albums were recorded under the           
name Josie and the Pussycats: one as the soundtrack for the 1970 cartoon series           
and the other as the soundtrack for the 2001 motion picture.                               
                                                                                           
Josie was created in 1958 by comic book artist Dan DeCarlo, who based her on his           
wife (also named Josie). After spending a number of years attempting to sell               
Josie as a syndicated comic strip, he instead sold it to his main employer,               
Archie Comics, so that he could develop it into a bi-monthly comic book series.           
The first issue of She's Josie appeared in February 1963, featuring level-headed,         
sweet-natured Josie (whose last name was given as either Jones or James), her             
blonde bombshell friend Melody, and the bookwormish brunette Pepper. These early           
years also featured the characters of Josie and Pepper's boyfriends Albert and             
Sock (real name "Socrates"), Albert's rival Alexander Cabot III, and Alex's twin           
sister Alexandra. Occasionally Josie and her friends would appear in "crossover"           
issues with the Archie characters. She's Josie was eventually shorted to just             
Josie, and was mildly successful during the rest of the 1960s.                             
                                                                                           
During the 1968 - 1969 television season, the first Archie-based Saturday                 
morning cartoon, The Archie Show, debuted on CBS. The Archie Show, produced by             
Filmation Studios, was not only a hit on TV, but on the radio as well (The                 
Archies' song "Sugar, Sugar" hit the number one spot on the Billboard Hot 100             
chart in September 1969 and went on to be Billboard's number one "Hot 100 Single"         
of that year). Competing animation studio Hanna-Barbera Productions wanted to             
duplicate its success and contacted Archie Comics about possibly adapting one of           
their remaining properties into a show similar to The Archie Show. Archie Comics           
responded by offering to re-develop the Josie comic (which, by 1969, had lost             
its focus and popularity) into a comic about a teenage music band, and allowing           
Hanna-Barbera to adapt it into a music-based Saturday morning show.                       
                                                                                           
Therefore, in 1969, many significant changes were made to the "Josie" comic:               
                                                                                           
In Josie #42 (published in August 1969), Josie met a heavily built blond folk             
singer named Alan M., who over time became Josie's on-again, off-again boyfriend           
(much to the chagrin of Alexandra, who was also immediately smitten with Alan M.           
and never missed an opportunity to try and steal him away from Josie).                     
                                                                                           
In Josie #43 (published in September 1969), Alexandra discovers that her cat               
Sebastian is actually a reincarnation of an ancestor of the Cabot family, who             
was executed for consorting with witches. Whenever Alexandra holds Sebastian in           
her arms, she can cast powerful magic spells. This ability would seem to give             
Alexandra quite an edge in her competition with Josie for Alan M., but the magic           
spells she casts always seem to backfire in some way. Alexandra and Sebastian's           
witchcraft powers were not used in Hanna-Barbera's TV show.                               
                                                                                           
In Josie #45 (or rather Josie and the Pussycats #45, as this was the first issue           
to bear that title, published in December 1969), Josie and Melody have decided             
to start a band called The Pussycats, and ask Alexandra to be their bassist.               
Alexandra accepts... but only if the girls change the name of the group to "Alexandra's   
Cool Time Cats." Expecting Josie and Melody to yield to her demands, Alexandra             
is flustered when she finds that her brother Alex has appointed himself manager           
of the Pussycats and found a replacement bassist in Valerie Smith (later renamed           
Valerie Brown), a new girl in school. The Pussycats make their now-famous                 
leopard print costumes (complete with cat ear headbands and a long tail) and               
perform at their first gig (a school dance), as Alexandra, seething with                   
bitterness and anger, tries unsuccessfully to use her witchcraft to get back at           
the Pussycats and Alex.                                                                   
                                                                                           
The re-imagining of the comic also resulted in three casualties: Albert, Sock,             
and Pepper, who were eventually phased out of Josie's world. From 1970 on, most           
of the stories in the comic book revolved around the Pussycats traveling around           
the country and the world to perform gigs, with Alan M., Alex, and Alexandra (and         
sometimes Sebastian) in tow. When the girls weren't off performing, they would             
be at home dealing with the various trials and tribulations of teenage life (often         
including Alex's jealousy of Alan M., Alexandra's jealousy of Josie, and Melody's         
overwhelming sex appeal). The Josie and the Pussycats comic ran until 1982,               
after which the girls would often be featured in various Archie Giant Series               
issues and special limited-run series and one-shot books of their own. Reprinted           
Josie stories (including the occasional pre-Pussycats story) appear frequently             
in the various Archie digest reprint magazines.