It's possible they'll use the same one from the recent Mark Waid-Fiona Staples comics: http://comicsalliance.com/jughead-jones-archie-2-preview/ As for the, err, original origin, I found this Snopes message board discussion, and apparently it's an early 20th-century slang term for a fool or a dumb, lazy person, perhaps derived from a slang term for a mule. It might also be a reference to the comic-book character's narrow head and protruding ears, like the handles on a jug. Isn't it mostly Veronica who's dropping those references, though? I think the point is that she's making a lot of esoteric film references the other kids don't get, to highlight that she's from a different world and social stratum.
Well, it was Kevin who referenced Montgomery Clift and there's been no indication that these references are flying over the other kids' heads. Archie and Betty are not exchanging puzzled looks or blinking in confusion. If that's supposed to be the point, it's not coming off. (To be fair, the "Mildred Pierce" reference was made by Veronica's mother.) Plus, at the same time, there seems to be an odd dearth of contemporary references. No jokes about Justin Beiber or Lady Gaga, or winking allusions to Twin Peaks or Dawson's Creek or whatever. It's like these kids spend all their time watching TCM instead of YouTube.
Well, I guess it's appropriate for Riverdale to be set in a stylized, timeless alternate world where nostalgia and modernity go hand in hand. That's kind of the whole point, really -- you can modernize Archie to make it more relatable to new audiences, but the main reason to do so in the first place instead of creating something new is the nostalgia, the appeal to the timeless core elements that have endured more or less unchanged since the 1940s even alongside the striking progressivism and experimentation that Archie Comics has embraced over the past quarter-century or so. So that kind of deliberate anachronism is the cultural-reference equivalent of something like the 1990 The Flash or Batman: The Animated Series (both of which were emulating Tim Burton's Batman, though Max Headroom did it first) where you had 1940s cars and Art Deco designs coexisting with modern computers and cell phones. Netflix's A Series of Unfortunate Events does much the same thing -- timeless setting and vintage cars and clothes alongside modern technology and wink-nudge in-jokes about streaming television. One other blending of nostalgia and modernity: Josie and the Pussycats doing a hip-hop version of "Sugar, Sugar," the 1969 hit song from FIlmation's The Archie Show, and not offering any excuse about it being a cover of an old song like they did at the dance in the pilot. Plus of course there's Jughead's hat, a strange attempt to approximate his original whoopee cap (a beanie typically made by cutting the brim of an old fedora into a crown shape) using a more modern knit cap. I wouldn't be surprised if the show continued to lean into that kind of anachronism.
I note that Riverdale still has a drive-in movie theater, but the marquee says it's "Closing Soon." So, a bit of nostalgia leavened with modern-day reality.
Yeah, and Jughead's narration in the pilot suggested that Riverdale is supposed to be an idyllic community that's been frozen in time but is now getting an uncomfortable dose of reality thanks to the murder.
As hard as I tried not to be, I'm almost hooked on this show.. It's keeping my interest peaked... I'm convinced that Ms. Grundy has a secret agenda going on here, and not just a Mary Kay Letourneau complex...
And speaking of modern-day references, Jughead hasn't made a Mary Kay Letourneau crack yet? Or referenced a similar plotline on Dawson's Creek? Are there any old black-and-white movies about a hot female teacher seducing a naive youth?
http://www.popsugar.com.au/love/10-Student-Teacher-Romances-Movies-42830614#photo-42830613 After I added "black and white" to the search criteria, I just wound up with a hundred results about To Sir with Love. Although My Tutor from 1985 popped up as the oldest movie on the list. Has any one said "Hello Benjamin"? Is Archie 16, 17 or 18, because Riverdale might be one of those weird states with an embarrassingly low age of consent.
Not really. Exploring the sexual dynamics of the relationships isn't something Archie Comics could really do until recently; it went against the whole ethos of the comics. Canonically, they're best friends, occasionally jealous best friends. Personally, I think "the Eternal Triangle" is strongest on its Archie-Betty and Betty-Veronica sides, with its Archie-Veronica side as the weak one. In the show, I think he's meant to be 15 or 16. He's a sophomore, which is why he's surprised when he's offered a spot on the varsity football team.
This is a difference from the comics. There he and the whole gang, Jughead, Dilton, Moose, Chuck, Betty, Veronica, Midge, Ethel, Nancy, even Cheryl Blossom, are supposed to be 17yo seniors in their second to last semester of high school. Always 17 in the fall semester of their senior year.
It's hard to justify keeping live-action characters as ageless as cartoon characters, so high school-based shows like this seem to have a tendency to start their characters out as sophomores so they can get three seasons of high school out of it. Buffy and Smallville both did that, IIRC.
True. It does get a little weird when the actors get up around 30, or even start there, while still playing 16/17. If I remember correctly, Gene Anthony Ray actually quit the Fame TV series because he felt it inappropriate for an actor over 30 to be playing a high school student.
Parts of this episode really made me love this show. It was awesome to see a story about girls standing up to slut-shaming and misogyny, and Veronica was really awesome when she put Cheryl in her place in defense of the other girls. It's really impressive what they're doing with her -- she's the most heroic character on the show, even though she really embraced her more classic, prideful and devious diva personality here. But she was doing it on behalf of other girls, not just herself, so that's what made it admirable. Although it got pretty dark once Betty got involved and took it over the line -- that girl ain't right. Indeed, there was a theme throughout the whole episode of people standing up for their dignity and refusing to be treated as second-class, like Josie's speech about the Pussycats' experience as black female performers, and even Archie's confrontation with his dad about not respecting music as much as football. There was a lot here that I really liked. We even got Betty protesting her mother's biased yellow journalism and trying to do better with the school paper. (Although I certainly hope they blurred the names of the people listed on that page from the playbook before they printed the photo.) The part I didn't like was how they rather clumsily wrote a Cover Girl makeup commercial right into the episode, in the lipstick scene with Betty and Alice. I hate that kind of product-placement scene.
Betty has always been a bit nuts. See, for instance, "Betty Cooper is a Psychopath." I was a bit creeped out by Edith at the end, and I was wondering if this was all a set-up by Edith to destroy Chuck and his posse for reasons unknown, using Betty and Veronica as her agents of destruction to keep her hands clean. I'm surprised that Betty's article was even published. Schools have the right, per the Supreme Court, to censor student journalism, and Weatherbee could have spiked Betty's article. Beyond that, I'm surprised that Weatherbee even acted on the article and didn't brush it under the carpet.
You mean Ethel? I didn't see anything creepy about it. She was a shy, plain-looking girl who's no doubt been humiliated and bullied for years, she found the courage to come forward, and she was satisfied to see one of her abusers put in his place. "Reasons unknown?" The reasons are self-evident to anyone who's ever been bullied or victimized or socially outcast. Not that I agree with turning the bullies' own methods back on them; that just perpetuates the cycle of abuse. But I certainly don't see anything sinister in her motives. What's sinister is the cruel entitlement of the jocks, the way they see women as playthings to be used and humiliated, and the double standard by which society thinks boys are entitled to enjoy sex but girls deserve to be punished and shamed for it.