The Archie Show - Overview

Overview

The show revolves around 17-year-old Archie Andrews and his teen-age pals from Riverdale High School including: his best friend, food fiend Jughead Jones; wise-cracking Reggie Mantle; beautiful, spoiled-rich brunette Veronica Lodge; and attractive, blonde, girl-next-door tomboy Betty Cooper. On the show, the friends appeared as a pop rock band featuring Archie on lead guitar. The Archies had a real-life #1 hit single in 1969 with their song, "Sugar, Sugar", written by Jeff Barry and Andy Kim. Their songs have been covered by other artists. For instance Sugar, Sugar by Bob Marley (and many others); Get on the Line by The Sweet.

The Archie Show contained a laugh track, the first Saturday morning cartoon to do so (using the success of The Archie Show as a template, nearly all cartoon series' would utilize laugh tracks until the early 1980s). Previous cartoon series', such as Rocky and Bullwinkle, The Flintstones and The Jetsons, had utilized laugh tracks. However, these shows were broadcast during prime time with the target audience being adults.

A typical episode started with the first Archie story, introduced by Archie and occasionally a different character. Next was a "dance of the week" segment starting with a teaser, then after the commercial break Archie introduced the dance, followed by the song of the week performed by The Archies. After that was a short joke followed by the 2nd Archie story. All 17 half hours were presented in this format.