Remembering Archie Andrews and the day he was spanked
Archie Andrews is a typical small-town teenager (well,
“typical” for the 1940s when he was created). He started as a comic book
character and quickly grew to encompass radio, television and even a pop music
band.
He is an iconic figure in the United States, but much
less well known in Britain. You can read chapter and verse on his biography here.
Many of the stories revolve around his adventures at
Riverdale High School where he is often in conflict with its principal, Waldo
Weatherbee. The drawing above from Archie and Me No 2 demonstrates some
of the frustration the principal continually feels. Had Archie been a character
in a British comic from that era he would undoubtedly be bent across that chair
having his rear end warmed with a cane, rather than seated for a talking to.
But traditional school discipline was not a feature of the Archie stories.
Well, that’s what was generally believed.
However Johnathan
(not to be confused with Jonathan, the artist who we met here)
discovered a rarity. It was from Archie No 109.
Johnathan published a post on his blog Living Between
Wednesdays in July 2010. He says, ‘The set-up: Archie has a gig
as a DJ in daily school assemblies, but power has gone to his head and he’s
started accepting bribes from students to play their original compositions and
thus catapult them to, uh, regional fame.
‘The payoff: Mr Weatherbee brings in Mr Andrews to
settle things once and for all.’
The story doesn’t end there. The recording equipment
was on during the spanking ...
‘And so, at the All-New, Corruption-Free Archie
Andrews Lunchtime Music Spectacular the next day:’
Thank you Johnathan for finding this gem of cultural
history.
Picture credits: MLJ Comics.
For more posts in the ‘Remembering’
series, click here
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