The Archie Show: The Complete Series (1968)

Archie, Veronica, Betty, Reggie, Jughead and of course Hot Dog "The Archie’s" band, never fail to entertain audiences around the world! More than 60 years later Archie and his friends remain a staple of entertainment the world over, with timeless tales of the trials, tribulations and triumphs of teenagers.

archies

these are shows i remember as a kid. love to watch them over and over. August 18, 2008

The Archies Come To DVD

The Archies make their DVD debut in this 2-DVD set from Genius Products, which brings us all 17 original Archie cartoons from 1968.

Archie has a long history, first coming on the scene in 1941 as a character in PEP COMICS and continuing as one of history's most well-known teenagers (six and a half decades later, Archie is STILL 17 years old). This series, created by Filmation in 1968 as a relief from their superhero franchises (Lou Schemier mentions on an interview in this set that "if it had a cape, we did it"), is almost a straight translation from the source material, literally presenting Archie and crew as an animated comic, with the characters themselves speaking directly to the viewer and introducing their own stories. (This would carry over into both the ARCHIE'S FUNHOUSE and SABRINA THE TEENAGE WITCH series, creating a feeling of involvement in the show for the viewer.)

The series recounts the misadventures of one Archie Andrews (voiced by Dal McKennon), who lives in Riverdale and divides his time between classes at Riverdale High and hanging out with friends at Pop's Chok'lit Shop, the local malt shop and teen diner. His friends include fickle rich-girl Veronica Lodge (Jane Webb), stalwart and level-headed Betty Cooper (Webb again), incorrigible prankster Reggie Mantle (John Erwin) and hamburger fiend Jughead Jones (Howard Morris), plus Jughead's dog Hot Dog (McKennon again), who provides running "thought-commentary" on the various goings-on within the Archies. Most of the stories, which have a definite and possibly deliberate 1940s-50s small-town-life feel, begin innocently enough and escalate into chaos, with a resolution for all parties involved at the end. If you have ever read any Archie comics, you can watch one of these and basically figure out what will happen.

A unique feature (for its time) of this show was its dance-of-the-week and song segments, with various Archies demonstrating and teaching dances to viewers and the group performing songs as a rock band (called The Archies, natch). Most of the song segments predate modern music video by about 13 years, and can be accessed on a "jukebox" feature on the DVDs that allows you to play any song segment at leisure.

The package itself is quite nice, with colorful artwork and an interesting clear-plastic slipcover. The DVDs are designed to look like 45-rpm singles, and the package includes a comic book that reprints an EVERYTHING'S ARCHIE comic from 1969, in which the gang from Riverdale meets the collective brain trust of Filmation Studios (Lou Schemier, Norm Prescott and Hal Sutherland, all excellently caricatured). The video transfers are good for such an elderly series, but the colors are not especially bright.

If you are an ARCHIE fan you will enjoy this set, but the average viewer should be warned: this is very much a time capsule. An excellently presented time capsule, to be sure, but a time capsule nevertheless. Enjoy at your leisure. May 25, 2008

Everything's Archie!

Wow! What a blast from the past. I had grown up with Archie and I can't seem to stop for very long. I had collected the comic digests for a long time and then stopped for a while but then recently got back into it, I grab one or three in the checkout lines of a supermarket and read it until it's finished mostly after I get it with the need to go to sleep for work the next day out of my mind.

So as for the old cartoon. It is dated, that's for sure, there is what I call "cut and paste" throughout a lot of the episodes. (Cut and paste being: using the same animation to save money.) However, for those who liked it back in the day I think it'll bring back some memories causing you to laugh at either how stupid it is or that you just remembered having a good time watching the show.

The journey through memory lane starts at the menu screen where the "Everything's Archie" song is played with some animation of the opening and closing credits. There is nothing--to me, more enjoyable than hearing the song that I remembered the words too after so many years.

This review is personal, the 4 stars I give it are because I do enjoy it, but I'm also an animation snob and once you have quality Japanese Anime such as Cowboy Bebop, Eureka Seven or DearS, watching the Archie Show is like watching the trash that is on late-night on Cartoon Network--actually, Archie is way better than that.

I recommend "The Archie Show" to anyone who loved it growing up, even if it's to watch just once more, it is fun, memorable and enjoyable.

Later... April 23, 2008

Archie Music Videos Make 5 stars

I've actually have had this dvd set since the first week it was available. It was exactly what I had expected. The 12 minute shorts were silly and typical for saturday morning shows at that time. I really enjoyed the jukebox menu (except that you could not play all) It would play one video at a time then you would have to select another song. All sounded and looked good except for the last song on disc one called "Hide and seek". It must have been dubbed from a VHS source. It was compressed and had the looks of a video tape. It was great to see and hear these other great songs that get no radio play like Sugar Sugar. I,m actually tired of that song that I skip it on my Archie CD's. The Archies have always been fun to read and watch since I was a kid. I even have my older brothers Halloween Archie custume. I hadn't seen it in 25
years until last fall. Anyhoo, I plan on getting the next Archie dvd "Funhouse" and look forward to some other Archie music vidios. The Archie show is worth getting just for the music videos. I Highly recommend this DVD. April 5, 2008

Just as funny as the comics

This DVD is just as funny as the comic books. My only negative point was that the voices seemed to be a little sped up and high pitched. Overall it is a joy to watch and I got used to the voices. December 23, 2007

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