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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. Earlier this month, we lost the Monkees’ Michael Nesmith. 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.

As the late Kirshner told Rs...

Chris Cummins Jan 24, 2017

A look-back at the previous attempts to bring Archie to TV before they got it right with Riverdale...

When Riverdale premieres on the CW on January 26th, it will mark a milestone for Archie Comics - the first time in the company's 75-year history that its characters will truly shine on television. A mix of gleefully ridiculous kitsch with standout performances and some truly smart writing, the series is poised to be 2017's breakout TV hit.

See related Shane Black: a career retrospective Zack Snyder interview: Batman V Superman

That said, it took a while for Archie to get to this point. There have been many attempts to bring Archie and his friends to TV before, but these all suffered for either being shoddily animated (the various 1960s cartoons), misguided (1990's Archie: To Riverdale and Back Again), or just plain, um, weird (the X-Files cash-in Archie's Weird Mysteries...

Prime time television in the 1950s and 1960s was packed with family situation comedies, including Hanna-Barbera’s takes on The Honeymooners in the form of The Flintstones and The Jetsons. By the dawn of the 1970s, those situation comedy tropes began to permeate Saturday morning cartoons as funny animal and super-heroic fare began to wane. Then there came Scooby-Doo, the first truly original and fresh concept in ages. The four meddlesome teens, their charismatic canine companion and van became the template for many imitators.

I can therefore imagine the brain trust at H-b trying to find new variations on the successful theme. The idea of combining elements a mystery solving family was a natural but how they ever settled on Charlie Chan and his dozen children remains an, ahem,. mystery.

The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan debuted in 1972 on CBS and was derived from Earl Derr Biggers literary sleuth,...

Sometimes when I've got TV on more for background noise than for entertainment purposes (hello "Criminal Minds" marathons!) I tend to notice certain commercials more frequently. One of the commercials, or series of commercials really, that I've been noticing more frequently these days is the State Farm commercials with the dark haired tall guy who wants to tell you all about how awesome State Farm is, except whenever all these commercials come on all I can think is "Why Are You So Creepy?!?" I can't quite pin point what I find so off putting about him, but it doesn't help that the first commercials I saw with him involved him looming around while stuff happened to other people and then twisting it in a way that related back to car insurance and made him sound like a car insurance obsessed stalker. The fact that he's constantly smiling doesn't make the whole thing any better.