I never read the Archie comics (or any comics for that matter, I was never a comic person-and turned 40 last month). But I did watch this show on Saturday mornings in the 1970s, and did like it. Veronica and Betty were a beautiful brunette and blonde contrast, Jughead the always hungry misfit, Richie the sly bad guy, and Archie the all American good guy leader. I think there were two other versions of it that occasionally aired and I'd also see, but did not like them as much. One involved a brunette girl named Samantha who was really a witch, and noone knew but Richie was always trying to expose her as such (if he saw the movie Splash he may have changed his mind on this!). And the other was when the characters were all living in 1776 and doing things related to when this country was fighting in the Revolutionary War. Anyone know what those two were, and if they were part of this cartoon, or another Archie cartoon (I think they were just part of this one)?
"I happen to be a vegetarian". Lex, from Jurrasic Park
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After seeing your reply I remember now it was Reggie, not Richie. And I remember you were also right about the witch show related to this, and her name was Sabrina. I am very aware of the 1960s live action sitcom starring Elizabeth Montgomery, and that was why I was thinking of Samantha (and I do remember they did appear on The Flintstones). But now I do remember the cartoon witch was Sabrina (maybe it was what the 1990s sitcom starring Mellissa Joan Hart). But you are right about both these things, thanks for clearing it up.
"I happen to be a vegetarian". Lex, from Jurrasic Park
hereminton: "I remember now it was Reggie, not Richie. And I remember you were also right about the witch show related to this, and her name was Sabrina. I am very aware of the 1960s live action sitcom starring Elizabeth Montgomery, and that was why I was thinking of Samantha (and I do remember they did appear on The Flintstones). But now I do remember the cartoon witch was Sabrina (maybe it was what the 1990s sitcom starring Mellissa Joan Hart)."
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Honest mistakes, all of them.
Richie Rich, the poor little rich boy, also of comic books, had an evil cousin named Reggie Van Dough.
Sabrina the Teen Aged witch was clearly modeled after Samantha of Bewitched, so again, it was very easy to confuse the two.
And yes, Samantha did appear in animated form on the Flintstones (wow, all we need now is a connection between the Flintstones and Richie Rich and it will have gone full circle!)
And the Melissa Joan Hart tv show was a live action version of the Sabrina the Teen Aged witch cartoon, from over 20 years earlier.
Hilda and Zelda no longer wore witches outfits, neither was homely, both were blondes (as opposed to Hilda's red hair and Zelda's green hair!), Zelda no longer wore glasses and Salem, formerly a red cat in the cartoon, now became a talking black cat, but they are both owned by Archie comics.
Interestingly enough, in the comic books, Hilda and Zelda were affected by Beth Broderick and Caroline Rhea's live tv appearances.
The comic book aunts became hip, wore stylish outfits, lost the witch getups and sported new wave hair cuts, but held on to their hair color! One orange and the other green, and Zelda still wore her glasses too.
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Bewitched is known to be modeled after a movie called Bell, Book and Candle starring Kim Novak, Jimmy Stewart, Ernie Kovacs and Elsa Lanchester, from 1957, I believe.
Archie comics had Archie's Madhouse from 1959, 66 issues, as well as annuals from 1962.
Having seen Archie horror stories, it is very likely that a beautiful teen ager named Sabrina appeared in one issue and had potential and would appear again.
By the way, she is listed as appearing in Archie's Madhouse #22, but the cover shows robots. There are witches on the cover of #25.
Interestingly enough, #27 shows a young girl who is unmistakeably Sabrina, but the cover joke is about doing what commercial ads tell you to do, nothing to do with witches.
She probably evolved, much the same way Liz Allen and Flash Thompson evolved from appearing in the first panel of Spiderman in Amazing Fantasy #15, or the Thing in the Fantastic Four evolved from rocky monsters and the like from earlier alien monster comic books.
And along the same lines of how Yakkee Doodle evolved from baby ducks being hunted in MGM cartoons (even tho there were baby ducks in all sorts of Tom & Jerry cartoons and hunting cartoons, Yakkee Doodle didn't officially come together until an appearance in an Augie Doggy and Doggy Daddy cartoon).
And much the same way that Yogi Bear and Snaggle Puss evolved from appearances in Huckleberry Hound cartoons (and how about how Huck gradually evolved from the earlier wolf appearances in MGM cartoons).
Yogi Bear's own Ranger Smith was simply a generic ranger who was always catching Yogi stealing the picnic baskets, but one version of Ranger Smith has him with a white moustache, and he gains and loses weight as well.
And we're not even going to talk about the transition of Elmer Fudd, from talking dog to little man with a big red nose to a fat man with a small nose.
Madhouse itself would evolve, apparently, from being an Archie character book, to random monster stories to finally a teen age rock group book, called Madhouse Glads, where they were four brothers, then back to monster stories in the 1970s.
Apparently thinking it had potential for an amusing name, characters would randomly say 'Clyde Didit' in Madhouse comics, then Clyde Didit became a hippie guitarist in Josie comics, Clyde failed to make the transition to the cartoon, then one of the Madhouse Glad brothers would become Clyde. I would have to dig the book out to see what exactly his name was. I don't think it was Clyde Didit, but it may have been.
And I think it is rather obvious that Archie's Madhouse is clearly modeled after Alfred E. Newman's Mad Magazine.
Archie comics didn't create the witch persona, not even the one named HIlda. They just used it for Sabrina's aunt.
There probably was an appearance of a witch named Hilda, with red hair, and the cat was probably black as well. Likewise, Archie comics didn't create the witch having a black cat.
No doubt, the cat was changed for the cartoon, as red would be more appealing visually in the animated form, just as he would become black for the live action show, probably because it wasn't as noticeable that the cat was fake when it was black as opposed to red.
Now whatever the reason was to launch this character in her own comic book (1971) and cartoon, approximately the same time, who knows?
Probably because of the success of Archie (1968) and Josie (1970), and with the fading of Bewitched from the airwaves, Sabrina was no doubt going to pick up that slack.
Looking over how the characters evolved, its interesting that IMDB lists the characters from the 1971 cartoon by names that came about from the Melissa Joan Hart show (the characters in '71 were never called the Spellmans) and likewise, Della, head of the witches council, would become Drell, a man played by Penn jillette.
The 1960's/1970's Filmation cartoons showed Sabrina as a Marilyn Munster type of person.
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Also worth noting, the role of Samantha Stephens was first offered to Tammy Grimes, who would have had to color her hair considerably to be blonde like Sabrina in the Madhouse comic books.
Alexandra Cabot would first appear in #8 of Josie with no powers, then about the time of the cartoon, she would get her witch powers, but Alexandra in the cartoon never displayed any witch powers!
No doubt, Alexandra becoming a witch and Sabrina stepping out on her own both had to do with the sliding of Bewitched in the ratings, clearly to pick up the slack.
Another way that Sabrina and Hilda and Salem all no doubt evolved in Archie's Madhouse comics is probably similar to what happened with a black woman in the early 1970s named Misty Knight, who appeared in titles such as Deadly Hands of Kung Fu, but was also at one crucial time, rooming with Jean Grey of the Xmen.
Misty Knight was first named and introduced in Marvel Premiere #20 or therein, circa 1975, by Tony Isabella, but a later retcon by John Byrne and Chris Claremont (who wrote Misty Knight as Jean Grey's roomie) would divulge that Misty actually 'appeared earlier' as a random black woman who was saved from a mugger by Spiderman and the Torch in marvel Team Up #1, circa 1972, so the character appeared actually three years before she was introduced!
I also suspect that with Alexandra Cabot in Josie becoming a witch and the introduction of Sebastian as a warlock who was turned into a cat (or he was a Cabot ancestor who was in the cat, whatever) was meant to be in the cartoon, but at the last minute, somebody changed their minds left and right.
it seems comic books went out before tv appearances, so the comic book was done before the cartoons came about on tv.
Somebody probably changed their minds and realized 'hey, we already have a witch in the comic book with Sabrina in Madhouse comics, so why not go with a good witch instead of Alexandra as a bad witch?'
It was never mentioned that Salem was supposed to be a warlock in the cat in the old cartoon, by the way, so the idea for Sebastian was taken from over 30 years ago and applied to Salem, it seems.
radioguy222: "<<The comic book aunts became hip, wore stylish outfits, lost the witch getups <<and sported new wave hair cuts, but held on to their hair color! One orange <<and the other green, and Zelda still wore her glasses too.
Was there an in-story reason for this in the comic books or did they just
change the way they looked without any in-story explanation?
Not that one's really needed for that type of change."
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I didnt buy that book. Clearly it was simply an updating of the characters in the printed form.
Melissa Joan Hart, Beth Broderick and Caroline Rhea may have been distinctive enough as three skinny blondes for a light-hearted comedy, but clearly in the still medium of comic books, there was no way three blonde women were going to entice readers, especially if there was going to be a complete and total disregard to the earlier depictions of the aunts Hilda and Zelda. They could change their outfits and style their hair, but peroxide their do's?
Not a good idea, unless it did happen later on, which I wouldn't be surprised.
By the way, if the idea emerged in the tv show that Salem was a warlock turned into a cat, this was originally the idea that was to be applied to Sebastian in the 1970 Josie and the Pussycats cartoon, when Alexandra was to become a witch.
No idea if Sebastian being a warlock or Alexandra being a witch was ever even considered for the cartoon, but it did appear in the comic books.
It looks like the idea was proposed with Alexandra for whatever reason, then it was dismissed in the cartoons, or maybe Archie said 'wait a minute, we already have this blonde witch in the Madhouse comics, lets go with her' but Alexandra had already been revamped in the Josie title.
And I bought #27 of Madhouse with the unmistakable Sabrina on the cover, tho she doesn't appear in the book, it seems by this time, Hilda was to be a regular fixture, with her own little monster section.
#4 of Archie's Madhouse had the ARchie gang in the stories, but by #27, they were virtually kicked out. None of them appeared.
But Hilda in this incantation looks nothing like she did in the '71 cartoon or Beth Broderick. She is the ugly green witch.
My Mom and Uncles had all the original comics back when they were in print. I caught this show later but my first introduction to Archie was via the short-lived 80's animated series that I would like to see made available again.
Try not to take life too seriously, no one gets out alive.
I do remember that show. Believe it or not, the belief was the kids there were supposed to be somewhere between Little Archie and the regular teen-aged Archies. But if Archie is perpetually 17, and let's say Little Archie was, oh, 10, then those were supposed to be 13 or so?
I can kind of believe that.
Biggest standout to me was Veronica became something of a Valley Girl and Dilton became a black kid (tho his name wasn't Dilton, it was just a brainy black kid).
Other than that, I really don't recall anything about this version.
I did however watch some of the recent ones, Archie's Weird Mysteries, which seemed to be wanting to cashin in on Scooby Doo mania.
Ironic that, since Archie was used to create the Dobie Gillis characters (Archie = Dobie, Jughead = Maynard, Betty = Zelda, Tuesday Weld and Warren Beatty were Veronica and Reggie, respectively)
Then the Dobie Gillis characters were used to create the Scooby gang (minus Reggie).
Archie in the beginning was modeled after Mickey Rooney in the Andy Hardy movies, and only Betty and Jughead were there from the start.
Betty, apparently was modeled after Judy Garland.
That then becomes especially interesting as Judy Garland became a gay icon, 'Zelda' from Dobie Gillis is gay and there were jokes about Velma being butch as well.