Beware The Archies!

I'm still haunted by quite a few things from my childhood: lima beans...bullies...Dad's belt. But perhaps the scariest, lingering component of my childhood was "The Archies."

(Disclaimer: I'm purposefully omitting The Banana Splits and Davey and Goliath, otherwise this post would be wayyyyyy too long.)

But consider The Archies. For those mercifully not in the know, they were a fictional bubble-gum pop band taken from the Archie comics and shot to "super-stardom" on the Saturday morning Archie animated series. Their most famous song, the insufferable "Sugar, Sugar," sold over six million copies and landed as number one on the pop chart in 1969.

And they were cartoons.

Let's ponder this for a minute. America fell in love with a fake, animated pop band. I wasn't immune to their phony charms either. Every Saturday, I'd plop my nerdy butt down in front of the TV, just waiting for The Archies to take the stage. When I heard "Sugar, Sugar" on the radio (over and over and over), I'd think of the merry madcap adventures of Archie, Reggie, those two identical (other than hair color) animated hotties Betty and Veronica (my version of Ginger and MaryAnne), and especially Jughead, that irascible beanie wearing, hamburger chowing, lovable rascal. To further tickle my naïve and gullible childish sense of cartoon band admiration, Jughead's dog, "Hot Dog," would sometimes conduct the band. Cartoon heaven!

Except in retrospect, it was cartoon hell. And when I grew up, I felt flummoxed, just as I suspect others of my generation did (although, then again, over half of America wants a convicted criminal as president, so I probably should give up on guessing what goes through their minds.). I destroyed my Archies' 45 single collection (although looking back, they might've been worth something), that's how deeply my sense of betrayal by cartoons went.

So I started thinking: what kind of monster would unleash such a propagandist ploy to subvert children's wills and turn them into a cartoon worshipping cult?

Don Kirshner, that's who. It turns out that Kirshner had put together a previous "fictional" band, The Monkees, in 1966. But unlike The Archies, at least The Monkees were real actors hired to be in the fictional band (and later, actually morphed into something not bad in their own rights). But this wasn't good enough for the evil Don Kirshner. The members of The Monkees started rebelling, getting uppity, and Don wasn't having it. 

Thus, he created the first animated pop band and the rest is history. Because Don knew that cartoons wouldn't pull a diva number on him. Oh, sure, he hired studio musicians (over twenty through the years) to sing and play instruments, but if they started getting big heads, boom! Fired and easily replaceable.

Poor guys. How would you like your claim to fame be that you sang in The Archies?

"Get out. You weren't in The Archies!"

"But...I'm the guy who sang 'Sugar, Sugar,' and--"

"Shut up! Everyone knows that was Archie Andrews! Liar!"

So, America, wake up! Don't get swayed by orange-haired, animated pop singers! And for that matter, don't be swayed by orange, vile, convicted criminal presidential candidates either.

Speaking of things that rarely make sense, consider fifteen year old Dibby Caldwell, the daughter of a Hangwell, Kansas mortician. Not much makes sense in Peculiar County; witches lurk in the shadows, a menacing creature haunts the skies, and the dead refuse to stay dead. Not to mention the fact that a mysterious killer stalks the streets. So come on down to Peculiar County and stay for a spell. Just don't set up roots, at least not roots six feet under.