The Archie Show facts for kids

Quick facts for kids The Archie Show
Genre	Sitcom Musical
Created by	John L. Goldwater (comic) Bob Montana (character designs)
Written by	Bob Ogle
Directed by	Hal Sutherland
Starring	Dallas McKennon Howard Morris Jane Webb John Erwin
Composer(s)	Ray Ellis
Country of origin	United States
Original language(s)	English
No. of episodes	17 (list of episodes)
Production
Producer(s)	Norm Prescott Lou Scheimer
Running time	20-22 mins. (DVD Release)
Production company(s)	Filmation
Distributor	Vitt Media International NBCUniversal Television Distribution (current, on behalf of DreamWorks Classics)
Release
Original network	CBS
Original release	September 14, 1968 (1968-09-14) – January 4, 1969 (1969-01-04)

The Archie Show (also known as The Archies) is an American musical sitcom television series. It was made by a company called Filmation for the CBS TV network. The show is based on the popular Archie Comics, which were first created by Bob Montana in 1941.

The Archie Show first aired on CBS on Saturday mornings from September 1968 to August 1969. It featured all the main characters from the Archie comics. These characters include Archie Andrews, Betty Cooper, Veronica Lodge, Reggie Mantle, and Jughead Jones.

In 1969, the show became longer, lasting an hour, and was renamed The Archie Comedy Hour. This new version also included a part of the show featuring Sabrina the Teenage Witch. In 1970, the show changed again to Archie's Funhouse. This version even had live-action parts with real kids!

Filmation kept making more Archie TV shows until 1978. Some of these included Archie's TV Funnies (1971-1973), The U.S. of Archie (1974-1976), and The New Archie and Sabrina Hour (1977-1978).

Meet the Gang: The Archies Band

This fun show is all about 17-year-old Archie Andrews. He's the lead singer and plays rhythm guitar. He hangs out with his friends from Riverdale High School.

• Jughead Jones is Archie's best friend. He loves food and plays the drums.
• Reggie Mantle is the funny guy who plays bass guitar.
• Veronica Lodge is a beautiful and rich girl. She sings and plays the keyboard.
• Betty Cooper is a pretty, blonde, girl-next-door type. She's a bit of a tomboy and sings, plays lead guitar, and percussion.

On the show, these friends form a bubblegum pop band called The Archies. They even had a real-life number one hit song in 1969 called "Sugar, Sugar". This famous song was written by Jeff Barry and Andy Kim.

The Archie Show was one of the first Saturday morning cartoons to use a "laugh track." A laugh track is a recording of people laughing that is added to a show. Because The Archie Show was so popular, many other animated shows started using laugh tracks until the early 1980s. Before this, shows like The Flintstones and The Jetsons used laugh tracks, but they were shown in the evening for adults.

A typical episode of The Archie Show started with a story about Archie. Then, there was a "dance of the week" segment. After a commercial break, Archie would introduce the dance, and the band The Archies would perform a song. There was also a short joke, followed by a second Archie story. All 17 episodes of the first season followed this fun pattern.

Different Show Formats and Titles

The show changed its name and format several times over the years.

• The Archie Show (1968–69): This was the original series.
• Archie and his New Pals (1969 TV special): In this special, Big Moose and Reggie competed to be Class President. It also introduced Sabrina as a new student at Riverdale High.
• The Archie Comedy Hour (1969–70): This was an hour-long show with new stories. It included two segments about Sabrina and a new "The Funhouse" joke section. This part was a bit like the popular show Laugh-In. It also had regular parts like Sabrina's Magic Trick and Dilton Doiley's Inventions.
• Archie's Funhouse (1970–71): This was an expanded version of the "Funhouse" idea. It featured a live audience of kids and a "Giant Jukebox." This version focused a lot on music.
• Archie's TV Funnies (1971–73): In this show, Archie and his friends ran a TV station. They showed cartoons based on classic newspaper comic strips.
• Everything's Archie (1973–74): This series showed repeats of older episodes.
• The U.S. of Archie (1974–76): Archie and the gang explored different events from American history in this show.
• The New Archie and Sabrina Hour (1977–78): This show featured new episodes of Archie and Sabrina, along with some older ones. Later, this series was split into two separate 30-minute shows: The Bang-Shang Lollapalooza Show (for Archie) and Super Witch (for Sabrina). These last two shows aired on NBC, while the earlier Archie programs were on CBS.

A show called Hero High (1981) was planned to feature Archie and his friends as superheroes. However, this idea changed because the company Filmation no longer had the rights to use the "Archie" characters.

Other Shows from the Archie World

Several other shows came from the world of Archie and Sabrina:

• Sabrina and the Groovie Goolies (1970): This show later aired as just Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Groovie Goolies.
• Sabrina the Teenage Witch (1970–1974): This show rebroadcast Sabrina episodes from The Archie Comedy Hour and other series, plus new episodes.
• Groovie Goolies (1970): This show rebroadcast the "Goolies" episodes in its own time slot.
• The Bang-Shang Lollapalooza Show (1977): This was originally part of The New Archie and Sabrina Hour.
• Super Witch (1977): This was also originally part of The New Archie and Sabrina Hour.

Who Lent Their Voices?

Many talented voice actors brought the Archie characters to life:

• Dallas McKennon voiced Archie Andrews, Hot Dog, Mr. Weatherbee, Pop Tate, Mr. Lodge, and Coach Kleats.
  • Ron Dante was the singing voice for Archie Andrews.
• Jane Webb voiced Betty Cooper, Veronica Lodge, Miss Grundy, and Big Ethel.
  • Toni Wine was the singing voice for Betty Cooper and Veronica Lodge.
• John Erwin voiced Reggie Mantle.
• Howard Morris voiced Moose Mason, Jughead Jones, and Dilton Doiley.
• Don Messick also voiced Jughead Jones and Hot Dog in one episode.

Episodes

Where to Watch the Show Today

The New Archie and Sabrina Hour was later shown again on TV channels like The Family Channel. This version was a half-hour long and called The Archie and Sabrina Surprise Package. You can still find this version through Universal Television, which owns the rights to most Filmation shows, including the Archies.

Most episodes from all these series were also shown in 1976 as The Archies. However, the music parts from Comedy Hour were missing from this package. In 2010, the show aired on the Retro Television Network.