The Archies

I mentioned on a previous post that one of my favorite cartoons from the 60s on Saturday mornings was The Archie Show. This was about Archie and his friends from Riverdale and the situations they get into in and around high school. To add to the mix they also had their own group, The Archies, who sang and played instruments in the show and somehow managed to end up on the music charts across the nation for real.

The gang was comprised of Archie Andrews, Betty Cooper, Veronica Lodge, Reginald (Reggie) Mantle, Jughead Jones, and Jughead's dog Hot Dog. They attended Riverdale High School with Mr  Weatherbee as the principal and their teacher was Miss Grundy. Episodes also centered around their favorite hangout Pop's Chok'lit Shoppe. The Archie Show was the number one cartoon show of 1968-69 and under this title lasted only two seasons, as did The Archies singing group. (No explanation was given for the demise of the group but they had made their impact in a big way.)

Further incarnations of the show were entitled Archies Funhouse in 1970-71, Archies TV Funnies from 1971-73, then Everything's Archie in 1973-74 which repeated the first two seasons of shows. The series finished after the 1974-75 season on CBS when the popularity decreased as it became The U.S. of Archie. This season was a mix of history and entertainment with the Archies (the friends not the group) going back in time and inserting themselves into various historically significant events.

The voices for the Archies speaking parts were as follows:

Archie Andrews

Dallas McKennon
(Yes, for real!)

       
                                                                       

Reggie Mantle

John Ervin

Jughead Jones

Howard Morris 

   
 

L-R, Veronica Lodge, Archie, Betty Cooper

Jane Webb (both Betty
and Veronica)

Archie began with the comic book characters created by John Goldwater, written by Vic Bloom and drawn by Bob Montana in 1941. In addition to the comic books and the later TV cartoon shows there was a radio comedy titled Archie Andrews on Mutual from 1943-44 and NBC from 1946-53.

Archie Comics #1

The Archies released their first song, Bang-Shang-A-Lang in 1969 and it went to #22 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts (remember this is a cartoon group). The follow-up hit was the real monster of the group, Sugar, Sugar. It was #1 in 1969 not only in America but in many other countries and sold 6 million copies world-wide! Another Archies song, Jingle Jangle, went to #10 nationally.

There were around 30 songs released by The Archies. Several appeared on the show's first two seasons which consisted of two cartoons, a new dance of the week, then a song performed with the dance.



The Archies singing group was comprised of The Cufflinks (a studio band) lead singer Ron Dante and Toni Wine, who did both female singing parts. Occasionally they were joined by Andy Kim and Jeff Barry, who wrote most of the songs, as well as other session singers who contributed to the background vocals. Session musicians played the instruments on the songs.

Ron Dante

Toni Wine

For this past Christmas my wife gave me the first two seasons of The Archies on DVD. It is widely available. The first time in probably 30 years or more since I had seen these episodes. Here is the cover art:

And here's Sugar, Sugar for you