shake flake

Midge's dress has been pulled up.

Go-Go Woe

It is not clear Betty is a member of the band.

square flair

A real signal for the passing of the 60s, as come 1974 groovy is out. Replaced by Groovie.

Archie once wanted to be called "chic".

the alley cat

"Late Date"

They remove the hand in the second panel instead of continuing modified meaning for hand gestures.

Two for teenese

Does'nt.

Teenese

The Wiggles.

This is cutting out what is effectively an Alice in Wonderland reference, the Queen of Hearts yelling that for any infraction.

I don't suppose Miss Grundy is taking it literally. To be sure --

Jerk is out. Replaced by punk. Curious deletion, curious replacement.

introducing the Little Archies

This is very close to being concurrent with the first appearance of The Archies proper, or the initial Archies as strained surreal Monkees take-off, not the Archies we came to know with a Monkees cast-off song as biggest hit single of 1969. Interestingly, Betty is a part of the group here. The next issue of Little Archie would drop back to the trio of Little Archie, Jughead, and Reggie and notably in the red vaudevillian outfit of their big counterparts. Dilton would get a stint playing for the Little Archies before Little Betty and Veronica come on, with them relegated to a stint of little go-go dancing alongside a monkey in the meantime. I suspect an editorial edict from on high -- "Okay, Dexter Taylor. The Little Archies. Go!" -- and an initial lack of coordination. Or, he would have to do a course correction after the first Archies come out, though not fully into that premise. On why Betty needed to be here, it was necessary for plot purposes as they recycled a premise done twice before getting at a visual gag deployed even before that (everyone take the stage as Jughead!)

The role of Mr. Weatherbee is taken over by Pop Tate.

one fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish.

Note one change in reaction between Weatherbee and Pop Tate -- the nuthouse dropped in favour of retiring to tropical island. No allusion to violence.

To be fair, Betty would be selected to be a part of The Archies before Veronica at least in one story, so on that score The Little Archies accidentally forecasts The Archies proper.

Dream On

all in on disco skating

disco dancing

I really don't know what they were calling disco dancing in 1986. And the gal Moose is dancing with does not strike me as the type for disco dancing anyways.

Blackboard Boy

Swensen. Svenson.

And stuttering is out.

The story confuses me. Reggie and Jughead end stuck in the walls of the building. They scare Betty with cat noises. Miss Grundy tells Betty there are nice in the walls. I detect no real reason for a moral punishment of being banished into the school walls, nor any ironic reason. It is a series of random events that end in horror for a couple elementary school kids.

"George to the Rescue"

This is version 3 of a plotline I covered here, and one that pulls apart the script and plants the story into elementary school. The parakeet now goes to Archie, and he brought it for Show and Tell. Nice detail of kids' drawings in the back, though more haphazardly hung than I remember. We do have an intercession here, Miss Grundy is the one bemoaning the budgetary constraints that won't put up bird feeders.

Shifting plot points. Jughead is just leaving the bird out in the tree for the day. Little Archie and Little Jughead seek to rescue the bird after Little Jughead let's it get away. This leads to Mr. Svenson questioning his sanity because -- after Archie and Jughead manage to get the bird -- there is no bird. In the original 2 variants, Mr. Weatherbee reaches that conclusion by himself.

Though the janitor is unnamed at this point in time.

The Little Archie version drops the cold expression on the part of Grundy. It strikes me too that this expense would have to be coming out of Mr. Weatherbee's pocket. Everyone in the Little -verse classroom is excited by the news. Including Funny Ear Kid.

win a doll

One curious thing on the recoloring --they decided that the blue gleam streak in Betty's skirt/ shorts was a slit.

brotherly love

Clearing out reader fashion credits leaves a lot of empty space.

Fabric added to Cheryl's Goo Goo Dolls, I mean Go-Go Dolls concert going outfit.

Testing 1-2-3...

Hippie shirt toned down. Comma added in Betty's rejection of homicide.

No more Mr. Nice Guy. Indefinite article changed to fit to vowel.

Turn on turned off.

Out of Print