Archie's Weird Mysteries
Archie's Weird Mysteries is a 1999-2000 French/American animated television series based on the characters by 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 distributed as meeting the FCC's educational and informational children's programming requirements, and is used by commercial stations in the United States to meet this government guideline. Produced by Les Studios Tex and DIC Productions, L.P., the series was initially shown mornings on the PAX network, often with infomercials bookending the program. The series eventually premiered in France on M6 on January 19, 2000.
The following season in the US, its repeats were syndicated to television stations throughout the United States, as a way to comply with mandatory E/I regulations. The series would later be part of the syndicated DIC Kids Network block, also to comply with E/I regulations.
Voice cast
Main
- Andrew Rannells as Archie Andrews, a redheaded student at Riverdale High, reporter for the school newspaper.
- America Young as Betty Cooper, a smart girl-next-door who is sweet, caring and in love with Archie and is best friends with Veronica.
- Camille Schmidt as Veronica Lodge, a beautiful, popular and rich cheerleader who is best friends with Betty, who she also shares a rivalry with for Archie's affection.
- Chris Lundquist as Jughead Jones, a funny, quirky and geeky guy who loves food and is Archie's best friend. He does not like girls except for Betty, and he and Veronica are usually at each other's throats.
- Paul Sosso as Reggie Mantle, a self-confident, popular, rich jock who has a crush on Veronica and is frenemies with Archie. He's the uncle of a girl named Amy who is revealed to be his niece.
- Ben Beck as Dilton Doiley, a nerdy genius who is friends with Archie, Jughead, Moose and Betty who usually helps the gang save the day.
Supporting
- Tony Wike as Mr. Waldo Weatherbee, the Principal of Riverdale High.
- Moose Mason - High school jock and Archie, Jughead, Dilton and Betty friend and boyfriend of Midge.
- Lucinda - Practices voodoo magic; provides advice to Archie when he needs it regarding the supernatural; creates potions for those individuals in love.
- Ryle Smith as Pop Tate, the owner and operator of the "Pop Tate Chock'lit Shoppe" shop where Archie's friends hang out and friend with Archie and the gang.
- Mr. Fisk - CEO of ZoomCo who, after discovering that his Zoom energy drink contains a mutant formula that causes some people to mutate into monsters, 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.
- Jerry Longe as Dr. Beaumont, the caretaker and owner of an odds/supernatural/curiosity store. Provides advice to Archie and friends as he solves Weird Mysteries.
- Longe also voices Smithers, Veronica's cynical butler. He is aware of the supernatural but only shows any interest in waiting on Veronica.
- John Michael Lee as Mr. Hiram Lodge, Veronica's father who is disapproving of Archie.
- Ms. Geraldine Grundy - Also known as "Ms. Grundy". The teacher of Archie, Veronica, Betty, Jughead and Reggie. She has feelings for Mr. Weatherbee.
Episodes
Selected monsters, ghosts, and other supernatural characters
- a sea monster, who lives in an old Riverdale swimming hole
- a mummy in a museum exhibit
- werewolf sheriff
- mad scientists
- a 50-foot Veronica
- vampires
- giant beetle
- UFOs
- zombies
- "Stanley 9000"
- mutant crocodile
- man-eating worm
- super smart rats
- super smart teen
- giant cockroaches
- Tapioca Pudding Glob
- alien potatoes
- insane artificial intelligence in Archie's car alarm,also in Archie's Car Named Betsy.
- ancient wish-granting artifacts gone haywire
- Ghost of Quiet Violet - she used to be a very strict librarian when Jughead was young. She completely scared Jughead away 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".
- genie - escapes from an urn in Dr. Beaumont's store into Archie's laptop. Reggie, in turn, uses the laptop and is granted three wishes; after which, the Genie is set free and begins to wreak havoc on the city.
- Reggie Droid - After Reggie points out to two aliens who've abducted him that his friends will know he's missing, the aliens make a droid clone to cover up Reggie's absence, but to ensure his friends find him, Reggie lies about his personality traits, thus creating a nice version of himself. In case of discovery and revealing his creators to other Earthlings, the droid has a nuclear bomb inside him.
- Evil Trogs' Leader and his Trogs in "Virtually Evil"
- Mega-Mall of Horrors.
- Maria Nacht - she haunted Archie, Betty, Veronica, and Jughead in their dreams
- Arnie - haunted Big Ethel in her dreams.
- Evil Sentient Humanoid-Like Talking Bees.
Production notes
Comics
An ashcan comic book tie-in also titled Archie's Weird Mysteries, written by Paul Castiglia, pencilled by Bill Golliher, inked by Rick Koslowski and colored by Stephanie Cofell was published in 1999. This led into a February 2000 launch for an ongoing, regular-sized series with the same creative team. "Weird" was dropped from the title with issue 25 and the series was canceled with issue 34 after 10 issues of doing straight mystery stories with no supernatural or science-fiction components.Home media releases
United States
United Kingdom
Australia
All the Australian DVDs were released by MRA Entertainment.| VHS/DVD name | Episodes | Release date |
| Volume 1 | Attack of the Killer Spuds Me! Me! Me! Driven to Distraction | 2005 |
| Volume 2 | Attack of the 50-Foot Veronica Invisible Archie The Haunting of Riverdale | 2005 |
| Volume 3 | Curse of the Mummy Fleas Release Me Mega-Mall of Horrors | 2005 |
| Volume 4 | The Jughead Incident Virtually Evil Zombies of Love | 2005 |
| Volume 5 | Brain of Terror Twisted Youth Compu-Terror | 2005 |
| Volume 6 | Monster in the Night Misfortune Hunters Ship of Ghouls | 2005 |