Until 1968, Saturday morning cartoons were printing money for TV networks. Action shows like Space Ghost and Superman were hits. But 1968 was a rough year for the U.S., with massive protests in the streets over the Vietnam War, the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., and other violent events. Parent groups started objecting to superhero-type shows as bad for children.
The assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, an advocate of regulating children’s TV programming, led to the creation of the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence, lighting a fire under broadcasters and incentivizing them to pull away from action shows and turn to comedy.
The debut of “The Archie Show” in 1968 served as a model. The cartoon’s musical aspect – all of the main characters were part of a band – made it a hit.
An executive had asked animators Joseph Barbera and William Hanna to come up with an idea, and they conceived of a show about teenagers traveling the country, solving supernatural mysteries. They pitched the show as “Mysteries Five” — basically the same idea as the end product but with the main characters all playing in a band, including the dog “Too Much,” who played the bongos. (Seriously.)
That pitch was, ironically, too much for CBS, who rejected the show as too scary. Barbera and Hanna ended up tweaking the concept, cutting the band storyline and leaning harder into the show’s comedy element. The network bought that version, which turned out to be a hit when it debuted on Sept. 13, 1969. Read more here and here.
