SATURDAY COMICS - OUR MAN IN RIVERDALE

Well.... here it is, the first Saturday of the new year and I thought we'd do something a little bit different for "Saturday Comics".  Not completely different, just a little bit.

Instead of looking at a few TV characters as how they look in the Comic Book Universe, I thought it would be fun to take a look at a community of comic book characters and how they looked in several TV dimensions.  And since they're about to return to the airwaves in a few weeks on the CW, this seemed like as good a reason as any to look at Archie Andrews and the gang in Riverdale......

I think when most people picture Archie, Betty & Veronica etc. on the Toob, it's how they looked in the Tooniverse.  It's the TV dimension that most resembles their home in the Comic Book Universe.  I'm cool with that, because that's where we got one of my guilty pleasure musical numbers:

Never get tired of that; a reminder of simpler days when I first really started listening to the radio hits of the day....

It also is a good example of the Rule of Three in comedy, as Reggie, Archie, and that dog all got kisses from Sabrina the Teenage Witch.

Now, the Archies are coming back to TV in January in a show called 'Riverdale'.  But it won't be situated in Earth Prime-Time as that spot was usurped by a single pilot episode back in 1964.  Here's a scene from it:

Roland Winters, perhaps best known for playing Charlie Chan in five movies, played the principal Mr. Wetherby.  And the hardest-working man in Television, the late great William Schallert who passed away this year, was cast as Archie's father.

This isn't the full episode, but you get pretty much all the basics in this chapter from an interesting YouTube documentary on the translation of comic books to the screen, presented by Derek Crabbe:

So that's the official televersion for Archie in Toobworld, even though it was a one-and-done.  The Riverdale gang would then go on to several permutations in the Tooniverse before becoming live action again in 1990.

And this time they wuz all growed up!

But if you don't want to slog through all of that, at least watch this clip of the "adult" Jughead and Junior:

That TV movie, which was also a pilot for a TV show which never materialized will be relegated to The Land O' Remakes.

So now we have this new version on the CW.....

This looks like the Archie Comics have been molded in the likeness of 'Twin Peaks'.  I have no problem with that radical reboot as 1: I don't have a horse in this dog race, and 2: they've been playing with the basic concept of "Archie" for a few years now - giving it a zombie makeover and even encountering the "Predator", [I think.]

Since this will be broadcast on the CW, I'm placing 'Riverdale' in the Comix Toobworld.  I mean, how long are the Powers That Be going to resist the temptation to cross this show over with their other comic book related shows, even if they are from DC Comics?

And even if they don't.... Heck, the show had to go somewhere, am I right?

BCnU!