Additional Information about the TV Cartoon The Roobits

C'mon, get happy all over again with The Partridge Family: 2200 A.D. This half-hour Saturday morning cartoon from Hanna-Barbera was based on the popular live-action series about America's favorite singing family (at the time, at least-no disrespect intended to The Jackson 5ive, The Osmonds, The Bradys, et al). This time around, The Partridges-mom Shirley and kids Keith, Laurie, Danny, Chris, and Tracy-took their act on the interstellar road, 225 years in the future. Also along for the ride was band manager and father figure Reuben Kincaid.

No longer content to tour other cities, the show saw the rock and rollers touring other galaxies. In lieu of the family's trademark psychedelic touring bus, their mode of transportation in outer space was (naturally) a psychedelic touring spaceship. It didn't take long for the singing clan to meet up with a pair of good-humored teenaged aliens, Veenie (from Venus) and Marion (from Mars), who provided much of the show's comic relief. Most of the hilarious plotlines revolved around science-fiction type gags, like Danny turning himself invisible or Keith shrinking in size.

The concept for The Partridge Family: 2200 A.D. began when ABC launched another Scooby Doo-inspired series entitled Goober and the Ghost Chasers. In that show, members of the Partridge Family would appear as guest stars to help Goober, the crime-sniffing hound. It was successful enough that ABC and Hanna-Barbera decided to give the musical family their own show one year later. In 1977, Goober and the Partridges were reunited in the composite series Fred Flintstone and Friends.

"The Partridge Family in Outer Space" was the working title for this series, it was also use as an alternative title when it aired as part of Fred Flintstone and Friends.

Only 16 episodes of this series were produced.

The original idea was to make this as an updated version of another Hanna-Barbera cartoon, The Jetsons, with Elroy as a teenager and his sister, Judy, as a full-grown woman who finally has a job. ABC, however rejected the idea, but hoped to make an animated adaptation of The Patridge Family, and use the rejected concept as part of that series.

Due to ties with The Partridge Family, this is one of a few Hanna-Barbera produced series that was distributed outright by Columbia Pictures; Jeannie was another.

The topic of this episode has similarities to "Tale of Two Hamsters," an episode of "The Partridge Family," as well as the "Star Trek" episode "The Trouble With Tribbles."

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