Sometimes my mind wanders

Since Gilligan's graphic is more interesting,
I used it as the banner for this post.  

 Retrospace, is one of my favorite places on the Internet.   If you have any curiosity about what life looked like in the good old days, an hour or two at Gilligan's site is time well spent.  I saw this worthy posting the other day and it got me thinking about Josie and the Pussycats, my first taste of sex and rock and roll.  Of course the drugs leg of the triangle would come from Scoobie Doo's Shaggy, but that wouldn't be until I was in college.


  My introduction to the swinging, hedonistic pleasures of watching hot, leggy girls playing guitars happened in 1970, at age six,  when the Hanna-Barbara series Josie and the Pussycats premiered as part of the Saturday morning line up.  With the focus on the three leading female characters, it was more sexually charged than Scoobie Doo, this show soon was my Saturday morning favorite.

Josie and the Pussycats was also my first lesson in gender appropriate choices.   I remember my mother having to explain why I couldn't have the Josie and the Pussycats lunchbox because it was for girls.  I took home the more masculine themed Gunsmoke box instead.

Check out the ship, you're thinking
 2001 a Space Odyssey, right?

A few seasons later, the show was became a rock and roll, science fiction spectacular, Josie and the Pussy Cats in Outer Space.  By that time, I was too busy running around the yard yelling "Bang! Bang!" with my stick guns to pay much attention.

Speaking of running around with a stick in my hand, how could anyone miss the giant penis everyone traveled through space in?






Also premiering in 1970 was Russ Meyers and Roger Ebert's masterpiece, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.  I can't think of one without being reminded of the other because they are so similar.  Each features the loves and adventures of a racially mixed, all female band seeking success.  Granted, The Kelly Affair, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls house band, had adventures that were not Saturday morning cartoon appropriate (or elementary school lunch boxes either).

And now, some videos;

 I guess I am going to have to make my own rips of the songs from Beyond the Valley.  By the way, Roger Ebert wrote  Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, not Russ Meyers as the trailer says.  Oh well.

(I just posted five songs from Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, see them here before they get taken down.