Retro Saturday: Partridge Family: 2200 A.D. (CBS)(1974-75)

Saturday, April 24, 2021

Retro Saturday: Partridge Family: 2200 A.D. (CBS)(1974-75)

Thank you for tuning in to another edition of Retro Saturday Morning! This week I am still working through the line-up of cartoons that began airing in the Fall of 1974. In prior weeks I have discussed the many animated series that were animated versions of popular live-action shows like Emergency, Gilligan's Island and I Dream of Jeannie.

This week we have such a show called Partridge Family: 2200 A.D. which as you probably guessed is a animated version of the popular sitcom The Partridge Family. Unlike the other shows that I mentioned however this series deviated from simply making a cartoon that is a copy of its counterpart Hanna-Barbera opted to take the shows characters and place them in the future. This would become a reoccurring them for many upcoming HB productions in years to come.

The fact that the show was originally conceived as a sequel to The Jetsons is very apparent. All the backgrounds, spaceships, architecture and technology are all strait from that show. Undoubtedly a lot of the elements used to comprise scenes were leftovers from The Jetsons.

Just take The Partridge Family and drop them into The Jetsons universe and bingo, you have brand new show.

Just like its live-action counterpart Partridge Family: 2200 A.D. would feature a musical number. From this clip its sounds like they weren't bad tunes.

Well there were worse songs on the radio back then as I recall.

History:

While in pre-production, Hanna-Barbera originally proposed an updated version of The Jetsons, in which Elroy would be a teenager and Judy would have a steady job as an ace reporter. CBS, under the leadership of Fred Silverman, discarded the idea and decided to make an animated version of The Partridge Family instead. The Partridge Family had already been recurring characters on a previous Hanna-Barbera production, Goober and the Ghost Chasers.

In this new iteration of the series, The Partridge Family is—without any explanation—living in a Jetsons-like futuristic environment in 2200 A.D. The family's "galaxy-famous" musical act is notably more successful than in the live-action show, and they appear to manage themselves: the character of Ruben Kincaid is not a regular. Danny has a robotic dog named Orbit, and Keith and Laurie have two good friends that travel with the family (though they are not part of the musical act): Marion, a two-toned green and blue Martian who can fly, and Veenie, a purple-haired Venusian with a distinct buzzing vocal tic.

Danny Bonaduce, Suzanne Crough, and Brian Forster voiced their respective characters from the live action series.Susan Dey provided Laurie's voice for only two episodes before she was replaced by former Mouseketeer Sherry Alberoni. Chuck McLenan served as both the speaking and singing voice of Keith Partridge instead of David Cassidy; Joan Gerber voiced Shirley Partridge in place of Shirley Jones, while John Stephenson took over the role of Reuben Kincaid from Dave Madden in the few episodes in which he appears.

Micky Dolenz, a member of a previous made-for-television band (The Monkees), had various recurring roles in the series, one of his first voice-over roles.

Sixteen half-hour episodes were produced for Partridge Family 2200 A.D., which lasted half a season on CBS Saturday morning (September 7, 1974 – March 8, 1975). In 1977–78, it was retitled The Partridge Family in Outer Space when episodes were serialized on the syndicated weekday series Fred Flintstone and Friends. Like many animated series created by Hanna-Barbera in the 1970s, the series contained a laugh track created by the studio. - Wiki