(2020) Groovie Goolies - Groovie Goolies (1970, Reissue)


Review:
The 1970 power pop album was the soundtrack to the popular CBS-TV music-themed Saturday morning cartoon show produced by Filmation. Each episode included two original songs: one from The Monster Trio (Drac, Frankie, and Wolfie – see the album cover!) and one from a rotating group of “bands” such as The Rolling Headstones, The Mummies and The Puppies, The Bare Bones Band, and The Spirits of ’76. In reality, these songs were performed by members of the surf-rock group The Challengers, as well as legendary session musicians like Larry Carlton and Ronnie Tutt. When Filmation Studios landed a late-‘60s hit with the Saturday morning cartoon TV show The Archies, it wasn’t long before it started looking for more “sugar” with a similarly music-themed follow-up. Inspired by the success of such shows as The Munsters and The Addams Family, penned by a couple of writers for Laugh-In, and featuring the voice of F-Troop’s Larry Storch, Groovie Goolies first aired in September 1970 as a pairing with the Archies spin-off Sabrina, the Teenage Witch. Though it only lasted 16 episodes, the Groovie Goolies cult lasts to this day (even inspiring the name of the S.F. punk band The Groovie Ghoulies). Why? One guess — the music! Just like The Archies did with Andy Kim, Ron Dante, and Jeff Barry, Groovie Goolies brought A-list talent to the task of composing and performing two songs for every episode, including Dick Monda and, for this album, Sherry Gayden and Janet Martin a.k.a. Richard Delvy and Ed Fournier of the surf-rock band The Challengers (that’s Fournier dressed as Wolfie on the back cover). And playing in the band: legendary guitarist Larry Carlton and Elvis Presley drummer Ron Tutt! The whole record has a very Archies vibe with some very groovy, er, groovie touches, like the fuzztone guitar on “Save Your Good Lovin’ for Me,” the wah-wah on on “Frankie” and even some sitar.





Tracklist:
01 Save Your Good Lovin' For Me
02 Bumble Goolie
03 We Go So Good Together
04 Frankie
05 Goolie Get-Together (Theme)
06 First Annual Semi-Formal Combination Celebration Meet-The-Monster Population Party
07 Spend Some Time Together
08 Cling, Clang
09 Goolie Garden
10 One, Two, Three


Media Report:
Genre: original soundtrack, pop
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec, 16-bit PCM
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits