Hubbry Logo
search
logo

The Archie Show

logo
Community Hub0 Subscribers
Write something...
Be the first to start a discussion here.
Be the first to start a discussion here.
See all
The Archie Show

The Archie Show (also known as The Archies) is an American musical animated sitcom television series produced by Filmation for CBS. Based on the Archie Comics, created by Bob Montana in 1941, The Archie Show aired Saturday mornings on CBS from September 1968 to 1969. The show featured the main characters in the Archie series, including Archie Andrews, Jughead Jones, Reggie Mantle, Betty Cooper and Veronica Lodge.

In 1969, the show was expanded to an hour and retitled The Archie Comedy Hour, which included a half-hour featuring Sabrina the Teenage Witch. In 1970, the show became Archie's Funhouse, and featured live-action segments. After three seasons, The Archie Show stopped airing on CBS in 1971.

Filmation continued to produce further Archie television series until 1978, including Archie's TV Funnies (1971–1973), The U.S. of Archie (1974–1976) and The New Archie and Sabrina Hour (1977–1978).

A typical episode would include two eight-minute stories, a "Dance of the Week" segment, a three-minute musical segment, and a Jughead joke segment. The show was targeted to both kids and young teenagers.

The main characters of the show are 17-year-old vocalist/rhythm guitarist Archie Andrews and his teen-age pals from Riverdale High School, including his best friend and food fiend drummer Jughead Jones; wise-cracking bassist Reggie Mantle; attractive, blonde, girl-next-door tomboy vocalist/lead guitarist/percussionist Betty Cooper; beautiful, spoiled-rich girl vocalist/keyboardist Veronica Lodge; and Jughead's English sheepdog Hot Dog. On the show, the friends appeared as a bubblegum pop band featuring Archie on lead guitar. Other characters in the show included Mr. Weatherbee, Miss Grundy, Dilton Doiley, Moose Mason, Pop Tate, Mr. Lodge, and Coach Kleats.

In 1967, Irv Wilson, Filmation's agent at the time, approached John Goldwater about licensing his comics. Lou Schiemer, founder of Filmation, received a call from Wilson on having the rights to Archie Comics. He replied to his response, "What the hell is Archie? Is it something kids know?" Shortly, he flew out to meet John Goldwater and created a deal. The concept of the show was presented to CBS daytime programming executive, Fred Silverman, with several comic books. It was considered to be one of the cheapest and successful presentations Filmation has ever made. At the time, CBS immediately liked it due to an amount of cartoons, mostly Hanna-Barbera action cartoons, being protested by parent-run organizations, including Action for Children's Television (ACT), and it was bought. Filmation also immediately conceived an idea of making music an essential part of the show's concept.

In 1968, Norm Prescott called Don Kirshner to create music for The Archies. Kirshner happily accepted it, creating a music deal with the band.

Filmation took every aspect from the comics for the concept of the show. The main characters' tone was done for children to relate to the characters. Hot Dog was also immediately created for the show.

See all
User Avatar
No comments yet.