![]() The series is hardly remembered as a high watermark of animation, and neither are the five Archies albums -billed to the cartoon characters but sung and played by uncredited studio players - recalled as anything but forgettable cash-in product for a Saturday morning cartoon show.Īnd yet the Archies continue being reanimated. But of all the Sixties artifacts to survive and prosper five decades on, it’s doubtful that anyone, even Kirshner, would have predicted the Archies would make that list. The cartoon series, which launched in 1968, just as The Monkees was being cancelled, had its dopy charms. 1 spot, where it stayed for four weeks it also became the biggest-selling hit of that year. Kirshner knew a hit when he heard it: In 1969, “Sugar, Sugar” (cowritten by Jeff Barry and Andy Kim) wound up knocking the Rolling Stones’ “Honky Tonk Women” out of the No. “That’s all because the Monkees wouldn’t do my song and that got me pissed off.” The band’s musical gatekeeper, the one most preoccupied with the TV-generated combo being allowed to write its own songs and play on its own records, Nesmith famously rejected “ Sugar, Sugar” - a bubblegum pop song as basic as it gets, brought to them by producer Don Kirshner.Īs the late Kirshner told RS in 2009, Nesmith’s dismissing of the song inspired him to turn to animation: “Mike said, ‘It’s a piece of junk–I’m not doing it.’ I came home and my son Ricky was reading Archie comic books.” Inspired by that sight, Kirshner flashed on turning the comic into a cartoon series - and having Archie, Jughead, Veronica and the gang perform the songs, instead of actual three-dimensional humans with opinions. ![]() ![]() Earlier this month, we lost the Monkees’ Michael Nesmith. In an utterly accidental way, a box set devoted to the Archies, the infamous TV cartoon band of the Sixties, couldn’t have arrived at a timelier moment.
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