№ 17 · LEGACY
Their Own Saturday-Morning Cartoon
Jackson 5ive, ABC Television, September 11, 1971
MICHAEL JACKSON
The King of Pop
★ RARE
← MICHAEL JACKSON
CARD N° 17 · LEGACY · ★ RARE
Their Own Saturday-Morning Cartoon
Jackson 5ive, ABC Television, September 11, 1971
№ 17 LEGACY
Their Own Saturday-Morning Cartoon
Three years after their first single, ABC launched a Saturday-morning animated series called Jackson 5ive. It was the first animated TV show ever built around a real, currently-charting Black recording group — and ironically, the Jacksons themselves did not voice their own characters.
▶ THE MOMENT
Jackson 5ive Cartoon — Opening Theme (1971)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=46AbT4F1tNg
MICHAEL JACKSON · B·SIDE · VOL.I
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THE FACT
Three years after their first single, ABC launched a Saturday-morning animated series called Jackson 5ive. It was the first animated TV show ever built around a real, currently-charting Black recording group — and ironically, the Jacksons themselves did not voice their own characters.
WHAT MOST DON'T KNOW
Produced by Rankin/Bass (the same studio behind Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and ThunderCats), the show used voice actors imitating the Jackson brothers — partly because the boys' tour schedule made recording impossible, partly because Motown wanted total creative control. Real Jackson 5 songs played behind each episode, often the entire B-side of an album, which became a sneaky way for Motown to market the records to children. The show ran for 23 episodes across two seasons, ending in 1973. Michael, by then fourteen, said in later interviews that watching the cartoon as a kid was 'the most surreal thing in my life — they made me a Saturday morning'. The original cels, drawn at Filmation studios, regularly sell at Sotheby's for thousands.
▶
THE MOMENT
Jackson 5ive Cartoon — Opening Theme (1971) — The ABC animated series ran on Saturday mornings for two seasons.