Groovie Goolies - Production

Production

The show originally aired on CBS as Sabrina and the Groovy Goolies, and also featured Archie Comics character Sabrina the Teenage Witch with her aunts Hilda and Zelda. Sabrina had had previous appearances as a supporting character on The Archie Comedy Hour the previous year. In 1971, Sabrina was spun off into her own show.

Never a critical success, the Goolies had appeal, reappearing in 1971 as The Groovie Goolies on their own solo show. After one season with Sabrina, executives decided that the Goolies were strong enough to make it on their own, and thus Sabrina and the Goolies both received their own separate shows. The following year they had a feature entitled Daffy Duck and Porky Pig Meet the Groovie Goolies (which was part of The ABC Saturday Superstar Movie), teaming them with the Looney Tunes stars. Interestingly, this movie featured a brief, live-action sequence featuring some of the Goolies, including Drac, Wolfie, and Hauntleroy. ABC later rebroadcast the original series for one season in 1975. They finally entered syndication in 1978.

The syndicated version became an anthology series, entitled The Groovie Goolies and Friends, with the Goolies introducing rotating episodes of many other Filmation series, including The New Adventures of Waldo Kitty (minus the live-action sequences), Lassie's Rescue Rangers, The New Adventures of Gilligan, My Favorite Martians, and former Uncle Croc's Block segments M.U.S.H., Fraidy Cat, and Wacky and Packy. M.U.S.H. standing for "Mangy Unwanted Shabby Heroes"; a parody of the very adult Korean War dramedy M*A*S*H, but starring dogs working in an arctic military fort.

The cartoon aired with the UK version of Hanna-Barbera's Banana Splits in the early 1980s, and as of May, 2009, the show can be streamed in the US in Minisode form on Crackle.