The Archie Show

One of the most successful cartoon bands ever.

This Filmation series on CBS was based on the popular comic books, chronicling the comic misadventures of Archie Andrews and his friends in the town of Riverdale.

One element in the TV series not previously featured in the comics was that Archie led a bubble gum rock quintet: He was the lead guitarist and lead singer, Reggie was the bassist, Betty was the tambourinist, Veronica was the keyboardist, Jughead was the drummer and Hot Dog, Jughead's canine pet, was the conductor. The Archies released several singles and albums; one of their songs, "Sugar Sugar", was a major hit.

Spin-offs and successor series included:

• The Archie Comedy Hour, which expanded the first show to an hour and introduced Sabrina The Teenage Witch.
• Sabrina and The Groovie Goolies, which centered on Riverdale's teenage witch, her two aunts and the denizens of Horrible Hall.
• Josie and the Pussycats, which centered on the titular band travelling the world and solving mysteries, using the Scooby-Doo formula. This was the only Archie Comics cartoon of the era not produced by Filmation, instead being produced by Hanna-Barbera.
• The Brady Kids, a recycled version of The Archie Show but featured the Brady siblings from The Brady Bunch in place of Archie and his friends (Greg, Peter, and Cindy were guitarists, Marcia was the tambourinist, Jan was the keyboardist, Bobby was the drummer, and Moptop, the Brady siblings' canine pet, can really howl).
• Archie's Fun House, which featured a Giant Jukebox and a live-action audience of children. Was spun off from "The Funhouse" segments on The Archie Comedy Hour, as well as the "Side Show", which became "Thunderbolt Theater" in this series.
• Archie's TV Funnies, which featured animated adaptations of newspaper comic strips such as Dick Tracy.
• The U.S. of Archie, in which identical ancestors of Archie and his friends participated in American historical events.
• The New Archie-Sabrina Hour, which was a revival of sorts after years of reruns. Was later split into two separate shows (Bang Shang Lalapalooza and Super Witch). before becoming recombined into a single half-hour syndicated version.
• The New Archies, featuring the characters in middle school. Produced by Dic Entertainment.
• Sabrina the Teenage Witch, a live-action sitcom based on Sabrina The Teenage Witch, portrayed by Melissa Joan Hart from Clarissa Explains It All.
• Sabrina: The Animated Series (a sequel to Sabrina the Teenage Witch but had a middle school version of Sabrina The Teenage Witch, who was living in a town called Greendale) (co-produced with Hartbreak Films for Dic Entertainment).
• Archie's Weird Mysteries, which follows Archie and his friends encountering supernatural weirdness in Riverdale. Also produced by DIC.

---

This series provides examples of:

• Adapted Out: Strangely, despite her boyfriend Big Moose Mason appearing in most of these shows, it seems that Midge Klump doesn't exist in any of them except Weird Mysteries.
• Animated Adaptation
• Animesque: The New Archies.
• The Artifact: The voices are inspired by the 1940s-1950s The Adventures of Archie Andrews radio show. Alas, Characterization Marches On has occurred and the voices don't match the characters. Most glaringly, New Yorker Veronica sounds like a Southern Belle.
• Artistic License – Music:
  • Rock bands don't have conductors, whether they're sheep dogs or not.
  • The songs regularly use instruments that no one in the band uses.
• Ascended Extra: Hot Dog, compared to the comics, has become a major character.
• Beach Episode: One short has Archie, Jughead and Reggie enter a surfing contest. Meanwhile, Betty and Veronica fawn over a very attractive male lifeguard.
• Canon Immigrant: The comic books incorporated the characters' band, "The Archies," into continuity, and it has remained ever since.
• Everybody Do the Endless Loop
• Fake Band: The Archies, of course.
• Film Comic: "Kids' Day" received this treatment in Archie's Pals 'n' Gals Double Digest Issue 100, as a Milestone Celebration for that digest.
• Foot Bath Treatment: In "Snow Business," hijinks result in Veronica's dad getting covered in snow. In the next scene, he's shivering with his feet in a barrel of heated water.
• Gratuitous Animal Sidekick: Hot Dog was invented for this show, although he shows up in the comic books later. His two relatives, Hot Dog Junior and Chili Dog, were only on the show, not the comic book.
• Gretzky Has the Ball: In "Par One", Betty roots for Mr. Lodge to "Hit a home run," while playing golf.
• Identical Stranger: In "Jughead's Double", Jughead meets a martial artist who looks just like him, and even has the same nickname.
• Laugh Track: This was the first-ever Saturday-Morning Cartoon to utilize one; laugh tracks for Saturday Morning soon became standard practice afterwards till 1983.
• Limited Wardrobe: As opposed to the comics.
• Roger Rabbit Effect: Archie's Funhouse mixes animation with a handful of stock film clips of an audience of kids clapping, laughing, bopping around in their seats, etc., none of which ever seem to be even remotely synced to the animation.
• Secondary Adaptation: The original medium is the Archie Comics which began in The '40s. They were quickly adapted into a radio series, called The Adventures of Archie Andrews. Those were adapted into a cartoon series, where Filmation even emulated the radio voices, which is why Veronica has a Southern accent despite being from the Northeast.
• Singing Voice Dissonance:
  • Archie has a high-pitched and cartoony sounding speaking voice. His singing voice however is much deeper and suave sounding.
  • Jughead also has a high-pitched speaking voice, but seems to be a basso profundo, if his solo lines in the song "Rock and Roll Music" are any indication.
• Skintone Sclerae
• Spotlight-Stealing Squad: In The Archie Comedy Hour, Sabrina tends to get a lot more attention than Archie, with the majority of the stories revolving around her. Several stories only have Archie and the gang show up for brief cameos, though Reggie was slightly more likely to have a large role — usually because he kept suspecting something was weird about Sabrina and a few times came close to finding out that she was a witch.
• Theme Tune Roll Call:

  Archie's here,
  Betty's here,
  Veronica too,
  Reggie's here,
  And here comes Jughead,
  And Hot Dog too!
  So everything's Archie!

• Three Shorts: "The Archie Show" used the ABCDA format; A were the main cartoons of Archie and the gang bookending each episode, B was a dance segment where one of the Archie's (usually Jughead and Hotdog) would demonstrate as they put it "a brand new dance to watch and learn", which was followed by C a music video of an Archie's song which is meant to be danced to by the previously taught dance step; and finally D was a quickie featuring Jughead and Hotdog.
• Unexplained Accent: North-Eastern Veronica has a Southern accent, which is based on her accent from the older radio shows.
  • Sabrina for some reason has a British accent, despite being American and having no accent in any other version.
• Vocal Dissonance: The voices don't actually match the characters. Archie and Jughead have higher pitched voices than you'd think, Betty's voice is squeaky, and Veronica has a Southern accent.

---