Saturday Morning Musical Kid's Shows of the 1960s and 1970s Part Five

In 1968 The Banana Splits Adventure Hour and The Archie Show, two kid's shows in which music played a large role, debuted on Saturday morning on the American broadcast networks. The two shows proved to be huge hits and as a result sparked an entire cycle towards musical, Saturday morning, kid's shows. The cycle peaked in the 1970-1971 season, with no less than six such shows debuting. By the 1973-1974 season the cycle was very nearly over. Signs that the cycle had been in decline were apparent as early as the 1971-1972 season, when Archie's TV Funnies became the first Archie project in which music did not play a role. It was also in the 1971-1972 that a musical cartoon debuted (The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show) in which none of the songs were released as singles or on albums. Regardless, two new musical cartoons debuted in the 1973-1974 season.

The first of the shows to debut was another Hanna-Barbera cartoon inspired by Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!. Butch Cassidy and the Sun Dance Kids centred on the rock group of that name, who also happened to be government agents. They reported to a self-aware supercomputer named Mr. Socrates. Whereas Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! focused on supernatural mysteries, Butch Cassidy and the Sun Dance Kids focused on various thefts and espionage-style adventures.

Two singles from the show, "Little Miss Magic" and "Rosie was a Good Old Girl," were released on the Romar label under the name "The Sun Dance Kids Featuring Butch Cassidy." That was the extent of The Sun Dance Kid's record releases, as no album was ever released.

Butch Cassidy and the Sun Dance Kids debuted on NBC on September 8 1973. It did not prove to be a success, as it lasted only one season.

The second of the shows to debut in the 1973-1974 season utilized the talents of an existing pop star, Rick Springfield. Mission: Magic! was a spin-off of The Brady Kids.The second season episode of The Brady Kids, "Teacher's Pet," introduced the character of teacher Miss Tickle, who played the central role in Mission: Magic!. On Misson: Magic! Miss Tickle was in charge of an after-school club called The Adventurers Club. Each week Rick Springfield would get in touch with Miss Tickle and The Adventurers Club through a gramophone. Miss Tickle would then create a magic portal by drawing a door on the blackboard. Miss Tickle and The Adventurers Club would then pass through the portal into some fantasy realm. There they would meet up with Rick Springfield and all of them would go on an adventure. Each episode Rick Springfield sang one of his songs.

Rick Springfield's third solo album, Mission: Magic!, was released in association with the show, although it was only released in his native Australia. As to the show Mission: Magic! itself, it did not prove successful. It only aired for one season on ABC.

Here it is worth mentioning a bit of interstitial programming that had debuted on January 6 1973. Schoolhouse Rock! featured songs teaching grammar, science, economics, history, mathematics, and civics.The interstitials proved very successful, running for seven seasons. Since then the series has been revived a few times.

If the 1973-1974 season cannot be counted as the end of the cycle towards musical kid's show, the 1974-1975 season certainly could, with only one musical cartoon debuting. That show owed its existence to the success of The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show. Seeing the success of The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show, Hanna-Barbera decided to do a revival of The Jetsons featuring a grown-up Judy, who was now a reporter, and a teenage Elroy. Hanna-Barbera took this idea to Fred Silverman at CBS, who suggested instead that they do a futuristic show featuring The Partridge Family as well.

Today Fred Silverman's suggestion might seem odd, particularly give The Partridge Family ended its run in 1974. That having been said, the latest trend in Saturday morning cartoons at the time was the revival of primetime television show as cartoons. Among these shows were Jeannie (inspired by I Dream of Jeannie), My Favorite Martians (a continuation of My Favorite Martian), Emergency+4 (a Saturday morning version of the primetime show Emergency!), and Star Trek. Making it even less strange that Fred Silverman would suggest  a show based around the Partridge Family is the fact that they had appeared in several episodes of Goober and the Ghost Chasers (another take-off on Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!) in the prior season.


Partridge Family 2200 A.D. found the Partridge Family in the 23rd Century with no explanation. Danny Bonaduce, Suzanne Crough, and Brian Forster all voiced their characters from the original show. Susan Dey only voiced Laurie Partridge for two episodes before Sherry Alberoni took over the role . The characters of mother Shirley and oldest brother Keith were voiced by Joan Gerber and Chuck McLenan respectively. Their manager, Reuben Kinkaid did not appear on the show. Of course, every episode The Partridge Family performed one of their songs.

The Partridge Family 2200 A.D. debuted on September 7 1974. As it turned out, Fred Silverman might have been better off if he had let Hanna-Barbera go ahead with their idea for a revival of The Jetsons. The Partridge Family 2200 A.D. only lasted one season.

It would be a full two years before there would be another kid's show on Saturday morning that incorporated music. The Krofft Supershow debuted on September 11 1976 on ABC. It was essentially a variety show which featured such live-action segments as Dr. Shrinker, Electra Woman and Dyna Girl, Wonderbug, and repeats of The Lost Saucer. The show was hosted by Kaptain Kool and the Kongs, a group put together expressly for the show.

Kaptain Kool and the Kongs were originally portrayed as a glam rock band in the first season. For their second season their image was toned down a bit. Unlike The Monkees before them (who, contrary to popular belief, had talent as musicians), for the most part Kaptain Kool and the Kongs were mere actors.  Bert Summer, who played Flatbush in the band, was a musician and had even played with The Left Banke and released his own solo albums prior to the show. Michael McMeel, who played drummer Turkey) was also a musician and would later play with Three Dog Night. Initially Kaptain Kool and the Kongs' songs were written by The Osmonds. This would later change when other songwriters were employed.

Kaptain Kool and the Kongs released one album, Kaptain Kool and the Kongs, on Epic. One single was released, "And I Never Dreamed." They were also featured on the children's album Stories from The Krofft Supershow, which also included comedy sketches from the show.  The Krofft Supershow moved to NBC for its third season. It was renamed The Krofft Superstar Hour and Kaptain Kool and the Kongs were replaced by The Bay City Rollers. In this new format it ran one last season.

Ultimately, the boom in musical kid's shows on Saturday morning can be considered as lasting from 1968 to 1973, with The Partridge Family 2200 A.D. and The Krofft Supershow being mere echoes of the original cycle. It is not difficult to understand the emergence of the cycle. During the Sixties the cycle had such predecessors as The Alvin Show, The Beatles, and The Beagles. With the outcry over violence in Saturday morning cartoons growing in the Sixties, the animation studios had to look to genres beyond the superhero and adventure cartoons they had been producing. This would lead to the creation of The Banana Splits Adventure Hour and The Archie Show. The success of those two shows, along with the recording success of The Archies, sparked the cycle that would last for the first part of the Seventies.

It is also not difficult to understand why the cycle ended. With the success of The Banana Splits Adventure Hour and The Archie Show, there was a rush to put even more musical kid's shows on Saturday morning. In the end there was a glut of such shows on the air. In the 1970-1971 season six new musical kid's shows debuted, so that there were no less than eight musical kid's shows on the broadcast networks in that season. This was compounded by the fact that none of the shows (with the exception of Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids) repeated the success of The Archie Show. Certainly, none of them repeated the recording success of The Archies.

Regardless, the cycle towards musical kid's shows in the late Sixties and early Seventies would be remembered. Many of the shows, such as The Banana Splits and The Archie Show, would persist in syndication for years. The Archies' songs, particularly "Sugar Sugar," still receive airplay to this day. The musical kid's shows of the Sixties and Seventies may be gone, but they are not forgotten.