The Archie Show

Filmation's agent Irv Wilson approached Archie Comics co-owner John Goldwater about licensing the comics in 1967, and when Filmation founder Lou Scheimer first heard about it, he reportedly asked, 'What the hell is Archie? Is it something kids know?'

The show concept was pitched to CBS daytime executive Fred Silverman using comic books and was considered one of Filmation's cheapest yet most successful presentations; CBS bought it partly because it wanted an alternative to the action-heavy Hanna-Barbera cartoons being protested by parent groups like Action for Children's Television.

The Archie Show was deliberately designed to emulate the live-action series The Monkees by making rock music a core element of each episode, none of which was tied specifically to the plot.

Producer Norm Prescott recruited music executive Don Kirshner in 1968 to create the songs for the fictional band the Archies, with vocals provided by Ron Dante and Toni Wine rather than the on-screen voice actors.

The Archies' song 'Sugar, Sugar' topped the pop charts for four weeks in 1969, became the No. 1 song of the year on Billboard, and reportedly sold six million copies worldwide.

Filmation tried to reunite the cast of the 1940s Archie Andrews radio show, but Bob Hastings refused to reprise his role as Archie because he was upset about not being paid for extra voice work on The Adventures of Superboy.

Voice actress Jane Webb, who played Betty and Veronica on the animated series, had already voiced Veronica Lodge on the 1951 Archie Andrews radio show.

The Archie Show was the first Saturday-morning cartoon to use a laugh track, a choice that proved so successful it led most other animated series to adopt laugh tracks until the early 1980s.

Some material from the various Archie-related Filmation series is believed to be lost or destroyed after Hallmark Entertainment acquired Filmation's library in 1995.

A planned 1981 series called Hero High, which would have depicted Archie and friends as superheroes as part of The Kid Super Power Hour with Shazam!, was altered at the last minute because Filmation's rights to the Archie characters had expired during production and were not renewed.