The Archie Show was the first of several TV incarnations of the beloved comic book series, which began in the 40's and still continues today. The popular show, which seemed to change titles every season, focused on a group of teenagers who, despite their wildly different personalities, still preferred to hang out together.
The leader of the gang was red-headed all-American nice guy Archie Andrews. The object of his affections was usually the wealthy, dark-haired beauty Veronica Lodge, who was all too aware of her devastating looks. Competing with Archie for her affections was the equally self-absorbed Reggie Mantle. Jughead Jones, Archie's skinny and always-hungry best friend, had a great fear of girls, and so always played the cynical bystander to the other boys' pursuit of Veronica. Rounding out the cast was Betty Cooper, the friendly blonde girl-next-door, who was Veronica's best friend and worst enemy in the constant competition to be Archie's girl of choice.
Also along for the action were Riverdale High School�s homeroom teacher, Miss Grundy; Principal, Mr. Weatherbee; PE instructor, Coach Kleats; school jock, Big Moose; school brain, Dilton Doily; and Jughead�s pursuer, Big Ethel. The unofficial mascot was Hot Dog, Jughead's big, white sheepdog.
When the kids weren't riding around in Archie's noisy jalopy or eating at Pop's Chock'lit shop, they were singing groovy tunes in their rock band called, appropriately, The Archies.
In the real world, The Archies were a group of talented studio musicians fronted by Ron Dante, who hit the big time with their smash single "Sugar Sugar," which became the #1 song on the charts in 1969.
In addition to the songs, the Archie clan left several stamps on pop culture, including Jughead's "so-geeky-it's-cool" crown hat, and the classification of girls as either pretty, nice "Bettys" or hot and conceited "Veronicas." The show itself, in various forms, lasted through the 1980's.
Archie�s Funhouse announced the return to a half-hour format for the kids from Riverdale High, as Filmation spun Sabrina the Teenage Witch off into a series of her own. Funhouse took the emphasis off of the musical group The Archies (a real band fronted by studio musician Ron Dante, with the number one hit "Sugar, Sugar" to their credit), and although their music was still a major part of the program, the format changed to more of a variety-oriented show.
The animated show was added to footage of a live-action audience of children sitting in a theater �watching� Archie and the gang as they performed music and short comedic sketches, known as �blackouts.� This is the series that featured �Archie�s Giant Jukebox,� a popular attraction at Archie�s Funhouse. Many critics of Saturday morning television consider this to be the strongest of the Archie series, but after one year, it was time for yet another name change, this time to Everything's Archie.
Everything�s Archie was the title given to network reruns of the first two seasons of Archie, The Archie Show and The Archie Comedy Hour. The two shows featured comic vignettes, psychedelic backgrounds, and pop music performed by The Archies (an actual band fronted by studio musician Ron Dante, with a number one hit, "Sugar, Sugar," in 1969). This half-hour incarnation lasted only four months before giving way to The U.S. of Archie the following season.
The U.S. of Archie got a head start on celebrating America's Bicentennial by taking Archie and the gang out of Riverdale and placing them throughout history. This program was designed to teach children about our country�s heritage, and as a result, departed farther from the regular formula than any other incarnation.
Episodes featured the gang going back in time to learn about slavery while working on the underground railroad with Harriet Tubman, meeting George Washington Carver and finding out about his numerous inventions, and discovering how Betsy Ross came to sew the flag.
Fans, apparently, missed the pop music and the psychedelia, and The U.S. of Archie moved to the dead-end world of Sunday morning after a few months. The gang was revived and moved to NBC in 1977 to form half of The New Archie/Sabrina Hour.
After the 1974-76 flop The U.S. of Archie, NBC decided to bring the vibrant fun back to the formerly powerful Archie series. The hour-long The New Archie/Sabrina Hour combined segments from earlier seasons of CBS� The Archies and Sabrina, both Archie Comics properties.
This package lasted only a few months before NBC split them up into the half-hour formatted Sabrina, Super Witch and Archie's Bang-Shang Lalapalooza Show. Each of these series also lasted only a few months, and Archie and friends left Saturday morning for a ten-year dry spell. The gang from Riverdale High finally returned in 1987 with The New Archies.
Ten years after The Archies' last Saturday morning cartoon and forty-six years after the eternal teens debuted in comic book form, Archie and pals re-appeared on NBC.
The New Archies series actually borrowed from the Archie Comics Group book, Little Archie, in which all of the Riverdale gang were pre-pubescent children. The program also made some changes to the traditional comic book�s line-up (much the way Filmation had done in the late 1960�s by cutting African-American Chuck and Moose�s girl Midge.)
The New Archies did not bring those characters back into the fold, but instead added newly created Amani and Eugene in an effort to break up the all-white Riverdale for a more diverse 1980�s audience. Eugene, the school brain, also replaced earlier Riverdale egghead Dilton Doily.
Two other substantial changes to the landscape were the removal of Pop�s Chok�lit Shoppe (which transformed into Pop�s Video Caf�) and the re-birth of Hot Dog, Jughead�s big sheep dog, as an English terrier.
Each half-hour episode contained two stories, as opposed to the fast-paced comic blackouts of the previous decade. Also missing was �The Archies� band. The New Archies ran for one season of original episodes and another season as repeats, ending its run in 1989, twenty years after "Sugar, Sugar" by The Archies (a real band fronted by studio musician Ron Dante) topped the charts as the #1 single of 1969.
In April of 1990, DIC produced a live action telemovie for NBC that would see Archie and the gang like they had never been seen before: AS ADULTS! In Archie: To Riverdale And Back Again (now out on video), Archie and company were thirtysomething adults, fifteen years removed from their graduation from Riverdale High and were coming home for a reunion. The concept of this movie was to combine the long-standing familiarity of Archie along with decidedly adult issues.
Case in point: Veronica, just as vampy as ever, having lived overseas in France since graduation was a four time loser at marriage; Jughead, a psychiatrist of all things was also a divorc� who carried emotional baggage that manifested itself in a terrible fear of women while Betty, a gradeschool teacher was being bossed around by her crummy boyfriend, Robert. Moose and Midge had married, became chiropractors and had a son, and Archie, now a successful lawyer was getting ready to tie the knot with his fianc�e, Pam and move out of Riverdale to the big city.
But when Archie sees Betty and Veronica for the first time in fifteen years, all his old feelings for them come flooding back, threatening his engagement. It doesn�t help that the girls renew their pursuit of Archie, heedless of the fact that he has a fianc�e! A sideplot to the movie saw Archie trying to keep perpetually slimy Reggie, helped along by an uncharacteristically menacing Mr. Lodge from evicting Pop Tate from his store. In the end, Archie saves the Chock�Lit Shoppe, though he loses Pam in the bargain, however, he decides to stay in Riverdale as do the others.
The telemovie, which was broadcast during the May sweeps period was seen as a pilot for a possible series. Despite a pretty decent story and even better performances from the actors and actresses who portrayed the Archie characters, the movie finished a disappointing 51st in the Neilsen ratings, having been thrashed by the prime-time premiere of the Kevin Costner/Sean Connery remake of The Untouchables on CBS and the powerful one-two punch of Married: With Children and In Living Color (featuring the then unknown Jim Carrey) on FOX.
Ten years after the New Archies hit the chopping block, a brand new cartoon series based on a brand new comic book released the same year aired for the first time on October 2, 1999.
Archie's Weird Mysteries was similar to the X-Files, only animated, and it had Archie and the gang battling ghosts and tracking down strange mysterious happenings that happened in Riverdale, including a haunted library, zombies, and a 50-foot tall Veronica Lodge.
Deemed too weird by viewers and echoing the cries of Scooby-Doo, Archie's Weird Mysteries was canned on February 21, 2000 after 39 episodes.
