#SUGAR SUGAR ARCHIES GENIUS FULL#
#SUGAR SUGAR ARCHIES GENIUS TV#

Cut to the kids in the audience, enthusiastically registering delight and applauding the performers. Betty writes in her diary (always filtering Archie’s blistering comments to her that day through her own rose-colored glasses). No one sketch on the show lasts more than about a minute, and many segments are substantially shorter. I’m not sure what the big deal was, really. They also keep referencing the Giant Jukebox, though aside from being gigantic really didn’t interest me very much. What follows is a rapid succession of gags, quick skits, and a number of regular features, like seeing Big Ethyl’s latest attempts to capture Jughead. Then, as the show proper starts up, Archie and the gang continue performing for the same crowd, as if they are putting on a variety show. Archie’s Funhouse opens with the Archies playing a song for an audience of young, live action children.

#SUGAR SUGAR ARCHIES GENIUS FULL#

Obviously, this version of Archie kept up the Laugh-In approach, but expanded it now to a full hour. Sabrina’s show was Sabrina And The Groovie Goolies, while Archie got Archie’s Funhouse. The Archie Comedy Hour was another success for Filmation and CBS, and each of the main headliners got his or her own one-hour timeslot in the 1970 fall schedule. These segments on The Archie Comedy Hour were even scripted by two Laugh-In writers, guaranteeing the same combination of loony jokes and terrible puns.

#SUGAR SUGAR ARCHIES GENIUS TV#

Sabrina’s segments still didn’t complete the hour though, so two other segments were produced, called “The Funhouse” and “Side Show.” These segments were modelled after 1968’s TV sensation Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In, a live action show that focused on gags and recurring set-ups rather than stories. Sabrina had first appeared in comics in 1962, and was introduced to television audiences prior to the premiere of The Archie Comedy Hour in a half-hour special called Archie And His New Pals. To round out the hour, in addition to using previous Archie stories, they decided to bring in Sabrina, The Teenage Witch for two segments. First of all, the decision was made to expand the show in 1969 to an hour, and call it The Archie Comedy Hour. Rather than simply keeping to the popular formula of two stories and a bubblegum pop song, it was decided to do a few things differently. A huge hit in 1968, the next year nevertheless saw a total change in how the show operated. Another program that went through several versions was The Archie Show.

Think about how many versions of Scooby-Doo there have been- many of them the same as another, but some versions were very distinct. On Saturday mornings, however, even hit shows were sometimes massively retooled before being allowed back for the next season, and most were cancelled outright. For many series, you might be hard-pressed to pick out which season an episode belonged to, since many programs stuck to their original premises so strictly through multiple seasons. Only once its ratings began to slide would they order that a new character be born or the locale changed.

American television networks loved to keep things consistent when a show was hot. A show could see every clichéd plot, every possible contrivance, and use each more than once, until the audience was so sick of the show that it would ultimately be cancelled. In primetime television, particularly in years past, a hit show could be kept on the air almost indefinitely without even changing too much.

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