Main Cast: Andy Rannells, Camille Schmidt, Danielle Young, Paul Sosso, Ben Beck
Release Year: 1999
Run Time: 30 minutes
Plot
One of the first animated series seen on the PAX network, Archie's Weird Mysteries combined the familiar Archie comic-book characters created by John Goldwater and Bob Montana with a format straight out of Scooby-Doo. On this one, Archie Andrews and his teenaged pals, Jughead, Veronica, Betty, Reggie, and Dilton, investigated mysteries for their high school newspaper, and generally solved them in their usual "meddling kid" fashion. Debuting October 2, 1999, Archie's Weird Mysteries yielded 40 episodes, but only 39 were shown during the original PAX run; the 40th finally aired when the series was picked up for rerun syndication. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Cast
Andy Rannells - Archie Andrews
Camille Schmidt - Veronica Lodge
Danielle Young - Betty Cooper
Paul Sosso - Reggie Mantle
Ben Beck - Dilton Doiley
Tony Wike - Mr. Weatherbee; John Michael Lee - Mr. Lodge; Ryle Smith - Pop Tate; Jerry Longe - Smithers
Archie's Weird Mysteries was a traditional animated children's television program, based on the continuously successful Archie comics. The series premise revolves around a Riverdale High physics lab gone awry, making the town of Riverdale a "magnet" for B-movie style monsters. The series is meant to be a spooky comedy.
The show is distributed as meeting the FCC's educational and informational children's programming ("E/I") requirements, and is used by commercial stations in the United States to meet this guideline. Produced by DIC Entertainment, the show was initially shown mornings on the PAX network, often with infomercials bookending the program. The following season, its repeats were syndicated to television stations throughout the US, as a way to comply with mandatory E/I regulations.
The theme song was written and performed by Mike Piccirillo. Musical underscore composers were Mike Piccirillo and Jean-Michel Guirao. The Riverdale vampires story arc episodes were put together and released on VHS as Archie and the Riverdale Vampires.
In 2003, a movie The Archies in Jugman was released that seems to be a follow-up to Archie's Weird Mysteries, even though it was not advertised as such. It features the same character designs, much of the same crew and voice cast, and the same theme of weird events happening to Archie and friends (this time, they discover and thaw a frozen caveman who looks like Jughead).
Archie Andrews, redhead student at Riverdale High, reporter for the school newspaper
Veronica Lodge, a raven haired, very proud, rich and stubborn girl who is in love with Archie and is also friends with Betty.
Betty Cooper, the blonde girl in love with Archie who's general nature is kind and caring.
Jughead Jones, Archie's life long best friend who loves to eat.
Dilton Doiley, a nerdy genius who usually helps Archie and the gang save the day.
Reggie Mantle, an egotistic but nice person, who Archie normally does not get on with very well, but nonetheless they still are friends.
Non Student Characters
Mr. Weatherbee - Principle of Riverdale High
Lucinda - practices voodoo magic; provides advice to Archie when he needs it regarding the supernatural; creates potions for those individuals in love.
Pop Tate - Owner and operator of the "Pop Tate" shop.
Mr. Fisk - CEO of ZoomCo who, after discovering that his Zoom energy drink contains a mutant formula that causes some people to mutate into a moster, tries to bribe and stop Archie from telling the world on national TV. He convinces Archie not to go to press as doing so would destroy his company and many new jobs for Riverdale.
Dr. Beaumont - caretaker and owner of an odds/super natural/curiosity store. Provides advice to Archie and friends as he solves Weird Mysteries.
Selected monsters, ghosts, and other supernatural characters
a swamp monster, who lives in an old Riverdale swimming hole
Frankenstein's monster, who "hangs out" in Lover's Lane
mad scientists
werewolves (and werewolf-like creatures that change when they drink a certain energy drink)
Quiet Violet - she used to a very strict librarian when Jughead was young. She scared Jughead so much when he was young that he stopped going to the library. As a ghost, she haunts the library.
Monster "Archie" – Archie gets turned into a monster when he drinks a new energy drink called "Zoom".
Monster "Stevenson" – Stevenson, a health and workout advocate, gets turned into a monster when he drinks a new energy drink called "Zoom".
Genii - escapes from a urn in Dr. Beaumont's store into Archie's laptop. Reggie, in turn, uses the laptop and is granted three wishes; after which, the Genii is set free and begins to wreak havoc on the city.
Comics
An ashcan comic book tie-in also titled Archie's Weird Mysteries was published in 1999, leading to an on-going, regular-sized series (also titled Archie's Weird Mysteries) in February 2000. "Weird" was dropped from the title with issue 25 (signaling the end of the tie-in with the TV show) and the series was canceled with issue 34 after 10 issues of doing straight mystery stories with no supernatural or science-fiction components.
