the archie show (1986)

The Archie Show is a Saturday morning cartoon animated series produced by Filmation. Based on the Archie comic books, created by Bob Montana in 1941, The Archie Show debuted on CBS  in September 1968 and lasted for one season. A total of 17 half-hour shows, each containing two 11 minute segments, were aired. Archie cartoons continued to be aired in various forms until 1978.



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.



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, future cartoons would utilize the canned chuckles until the early 1980s).



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.