My Top 3 Animated Smart Black Girls

Happy Black History Month! Also Happy "Funky Turns 51" Year! Yes, fifty-one years ago, Saturday Morning kidvid started turning out African American cartoon characters that were the polar opposites of the old stereotypes of the theatrical cartoons of the past. And a lot of these new characters were female. Here are my Top Three favorite animated black females.

Sybil Wrights, KID POWER

Based on the old comic strip WEE PALS by Morrie Turner, KID POWER centered on eleven members of the multiracial cast who formed the Rainbow Power Club. Two of them were girls: Connie, the tough little white feminist; and her calm, even-tempered black best friend, Sybil Wrights (clever pun, huh?).

With straightened hair pulled back in a ponytail, Sybil once claimed she didn't wear an Afro to symbolize her Black Power because she'd rather show it from the inside out. Her best KID POWER episode was a flashback to when Connie and she helped build the Rainbow Club's clubhouse--then were shut out of membership by the boys! It took winning an athletic event and finding a local sponsor for their baseball team (but did it have to be "Maxine's Beauty Salon"?) for them to gain entrance. Sybil was even elected as president of the Rainbow Club, but only for one episode.

Sybil Wrights showed "quiet strength"--the Tony Dungy of SatAM.

Valerie Smith, JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS and JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS IN OUTER SPACE

Would you believe this beautiful black tambourine-playing, catsuit-wearing, mechanically-inclined young woman was almost portrayed as a white girl? Thank Heaven for progressive Hanna-Barbera creators!

Like Sybil Wrights, Valerie was the even-tempered member of the group, and usually the one member who didn't get zapped or trapped by the villain's Fiendish Machine or Formula. In fact, there was a whole "Princess and the Pauper" episode centered around Valerie's resemblance to a desert country princess and a plan to trap her enemies. Too bad most of the action involved the bungling efforts of Valerie's white friends!

On JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS IN OUTER SPACE, Valerie was the one who could make simple repairs on their lost rocket ship but couldn't get it pointed back to Earth--the black female version of The Professor from GILLIGAN'S ISLAND. Hey, progress is always slow but steady.

Christy Cross, aka Microwoman, SUPERSTRETCH AND MICROWOMAN

This is what would happen if Valerie or Sybil grew up, got married and stole the superpower from the Silver Age version of DC Comics' the Atom. Filmation was pretty good about having African American heroines in their SatAM shows, and to me, Microwoman was the best.

Scientists Chris and Christy Cross wore matching Afros and bell-bottom outfits and fought crime alongside their pet puppy Trouble, adding a little HART TO HART element. All Christy had to do was chant, "I am MICROWOMAN!" to shrink to mousey size and battle villains with her husband, the black Plastic Man. My favorite episodes were "Sugar Spice", about a villainess who mesmerised her enemies with beautiful visions of ideal scenes; "The Superstretch Bowl", which took place at a championship football game; and "Superstarch and Magnawoman", with lookalike villains from another dimension with the opposite powers.

But the best part of every episode was the ending where Superstretch and Microwoman embraced and kissed each other right square on the lips. It was okay--they were married!

And there you go--my favorite black ladies of Seventies animated kidvid. Their black truly was beautiful!