The Jackson 5ive

The Jackson 5ive was the Saturday morning cartoon series that provided a fictionalized story of the career of the Jackson 5: Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, Marlon and Michael. It's a bit of a shame that none of them were actually in it. In the shows opening the faces of the Jackson 5 are morphed into cartoons but they did not provide the voices of the characters or contribute to the show in any way. Their music was used as well as some concert footage but that was it. It didn't matter anyway because the show was a hit. It aired for two seasons from September 1971 to September 1973. Here's the intro:

Like most of the cartoons of this time frame, the show had a laugh track. It was produced by Ranklin/Bass and Motown; no Hanna Barbera here. The first episode guess starred Diana Ross (her real voice), as well as Barry Gordy (not his real voice) who understandably had a recurring role. Michael's fascination with weird pets apparently began at an early age as a few of them made it into the show. There was Rosie the snake and Ray and Charles his pet rats. They never talked on the show by apparently Michael understood them.

In the show, the group would go on tour, travel and do a bunch of crazy things for publicity all of which seemed to get them into enough trouble to create an episode. Each of the 23 episodes contained two Jackson 5 songs. Here's the episode that started it all:

The cartoon ended in 1973 but that didn't stop the popularity of the Jacksons as you know. They started a live-action show in 1976.