The Cattanooga Cats.

Hey kids! (And kids at heart!) It's Saturday Morning Cartoon time again!

In 1968, Hanna-Barbera (the 900# gorilla of TV cartoons) utilized the well-established idea of employing colorful hosts to liven-up a show filled with second-string material. (In this case, cartoons based on Public Domain properties.) For the host segments, they brought-in creative puppeteers Sid and Marty Krofft to design the amusement park mascot costumes and living clubhouse for the zany pop-rock band that hosted the show with slapstick skits and musical numbers.

This show, The Banana Splits, was a big hit for NBC. It also launched the Krofft's TV career, as they went on to do H.R. Puffnstuf and many other cartoon style live-action shows of their own.

The following year, Hanna-Barbera tried a variant of the formula for ABC. This time, staying in their own wheelhouse with an animated band, the Cattanooga Cats, performing songs and lead-ins for second-string cartoons. (Including another one based on a Public Domain property, and Hanna-Barbera's second, thinly-veiled rehash of the Tom & Jerry characters that had launched their partnership while working at MGM.)

The Cattanooga Cats Show didn't do nearly as well as the Banana Splits. But it did better than Hanna-Barbera's third run at the format, The Skatebirds, which flopped at CBS in 1977.

Here are the Cats in Witch Whacky, from the first episode of their show, broadcast in September 1969.

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