The New Archies, Segment 19 – Loose Lips Stops Slips

Writers: Eleanor Burian-Mohr & Jack Hanrahan
Director: Jim Simon
Original Air Date: Saturday, November 14, 1987 (assumed)
Length: 11:21

I’m sorry that this is so late.

What the hell is up with the weird episode titles in this series?

The segment opens with Ms. Grundy announcing a statue-raising this Saturday.

Riverdale Junior High School has decided to award a smaller statue of the town’s founder. This news unrealistically gets some excitement out of some of the students. It will go to a student that proves to be an outstanding citizen.

While Ms. Grundy’s talking, Archie’s playing with a rope. Ms. Grundy has to fight for his attention.

Ms. Grundy, as always, expects someone from her class to win. She then goes back to teaching long division with remainders, something that I’d expect in an elementary school, not a junior high school.

Meanwhile, Jughead’s playing a (color) Pac-Man rip-off watch game. He then takes out some uncharacteristically healthy food (an apple and a banana) to eat. He turns around to ask Archie what he’s doing. Archie’s practicing knots for his Raccoon Ranger merit badge. He wants Jughead to cover for him, and Jughead agrees. This two aren’t exactly being quiet. It’s not like the class in general is being loud. Even Ms. Grundy isn’t talking. Why isn’t she calling them out on their shit?

The recess bell rings, and Archie just fucking gets up and leaves without permission from Ms. Grundy. Not only that, but…

Yeah, it’s as stupid as it looks. Jughead laments the loss of his (uncharacteristically healthy) snacks.

After school, Betty says she’ll talk with her folks and meet Veronica and Amani at the old-age home. Amani and Veronica basically admit they’re doing this to get the (one) statue (which goes to only one person), but, really, why would they fucking care about this? Anyway, Veronica shoves her way past some people to do some “good deeds”. Ha.

Reggie chews out a delivery person for being late.

He angrily vows to tell his father about this treatment.

Moose doesn’t know what he’s gonna do for a good deed yet. He opens the door for Reggie and offers to help him with the newspapers, but Reggie is paranoid about Moose stealing his good deed.

Moose then offers to help Eugene with his books.

Reggie is passing out free newspapers to all of the teachers – after school. I’m pretty sure that someone usually buys a newspaper and puts it in the faculty lounge at the beginning of the day to read. Anyway, Ms. Grundy cuts some coupons out of the newspaper and says kissing up doesn’t count as a good deed. Reggie’s disappointed and starts to leave, but Ms. Grundy wants Mr. Weatherbee’s shopping section. Reggie has an “Aha!” moment. Um, that doesn’t mean you’ve succeeded, dumbass.

Archie comes across the coach changing a flat tire on his truck and offers to help, but the coach declines (probably for legal reasons). The coach named his truck Ol’ Betsy, which has historically been the name of Archie’s car in the comics.

Archie insists on helping, anyway, after the coach expresses a concern about the jack holding. Helping, for Archie, means tying a slipknot around the other side of the truck and then tying the other end of the rope around a tree. Archie gives a tug, and…

No.

NO.

“What the fuck did you do, asshole?!”

The coach chases his tire across the soccer field. The tire goes through a net, making a hole. Yeah, no, soccer nets are way more durable than that. But that’s not the main problem with this moment. Check this shit out:

The animation is so shitty that the hole doesn’t appear until a frame after the tire passes through the net.

After this debacle, the coach refuses Archie’s offer of the rope to help him out (yeah, seriously, Archie thinks the fucking rope is gonna help) and tells him to get the fuck away from him.

So Archie’s walking along, dejected, and he’s still carrying his stupid rope around.

He stops when he hears horrible “singing” coming out of the local old-folks home.

Of course, the girls would be behind this assault on peace and quiet.

We never actually see the old folks, but here’s something to consider: if time passed normally after the series ended, all of them would be dead by now.

Ethel is having fun and wants Archie to get in the spirit. She’s getting free noms in exchange for her good deeds, though, so she’s biased.

Moose lifts up the front of some dude’s car (which I guess got a little too close to the crosswalk), allowing two kids to cross the street. Wouldn’t it have been easier to just let the car drive past? The kids can wait. More importantly, though, why the fuck are two little kids crossing the street unsupervised?!

Anyway, Moose carelessly drops the car when he sees Archie and wishes he knew what to do for his good deed. So…that wasn’t it? Moose just randomly came across a car at the intersection, thought “It’s too close to the crosswalk”, and lifted it, so two slow-walking kids could pass by without having to go around it?

Archie basically answers this by saying “Moose is always doing good deeds.” Since when? That’s not exactly a character trait that Moose is known for.

Anyway, Archie considers moving to Bora Bora, because not being able to do a good deed to win a stupid statue means he can never show his face in Riverdale again.

Admittedly, this is a nice shot.

Anyway, the next morning (I guess), Archie decides to start his “good deed-doing” early, believing everybody will love him.

He’s too busy playing with his stupid rope that he knocks over a trash can.

This simultaneously wakes up all of the neighbors, who promptly turn on their lights and complain…

…and throw shoes at Archie, creating more noise.

As Archie picks up the trash can, he knocks the other one over, and it rolls down the street. Still, Archie says he can’t give up.

For fuck’s sake, dude, just run after it. You’re not gonna catch a rolling trash can with a lasso.

See?

Later, Archie’s walking along, dejected, and gets into Ms. Grundy’s flower garden and begs her for to help out of desperation.

He pulls “weeds”, actually flowers, and he was kneeling on other flowers, so she removes him.

He offers to water her garden, but she wants to do it herself. He offers to untangle the hose, and…

No.

NO.

NO!

For fuck’s sake…

Ms. Grundy is pissed and goes to change clothes before class. Archie’s all excited about how the water made his knots tighten and shrink up, but she doesn’t give a shit.

Archie decides he was right the first time: he is gonna move to Pago Pago. Um, I think the writers made an error.

Later, Archie shows up to class and tells Ms. Grundy that he put the hose away. She thanks him and says they were just reviewing the class’ good deeds.

This is Eugene’s “lovely display explaining the universe”. Yeah, no, it’s bullshit. Even Ms. Grundy sees it, because she wants Eugene to actually give an explanation and gets this in response:

Reggie’s flowers, bought with the family’s credit card, bomb as well.

Betty planted seedlings for the garden, which was last seen floating down Main Street. The class yucks it up. What happened to volunteering at the old-folks home?

Anyway, the class laughing makes Archie feel embarrassed for some reason.

Veronica points out the clean chalk board. I notice Smithers has been dyeing his hair.

Jughead again uncharacteristically takes out an apple to eat, and Ms. Grundy confiscates it, claiming it’s for her. The class yucks it up.

Ms. Grundy, ostensibly addressing the entire class, tells Archie to not lose heart.

The video that I have cuts to black for 8 frames. I don’t think a commercial break was meant to go here, and the running time isn’t any shorter than usual, so I think all that’s missing is a scene transition of some sort.

After school, some of the gang are hanging out at Pop’s. Veronica thanks Eugene for helping with her homework.

She then sarcastically thanks Jughead for finishing her lunch.

Reggie arrives and says they’re having a banana split on him.

Archie’s beat him to it, though. This earns Archie cheers from his friends, but then…

…Archie trips over his stupid rope, which he’s still carrying around with him for whatever fucking reason, and gets banana split over everyone (except, it seems, for Eugene, who disappears for the rest of the scene). Veronica freaks out about her dress despite not wearing one.

Archie guesses Reggie was right (the split is on him).

Reggie looks like he wants to kill Archie (and I don’t blame him).

Later, at Archie’s house, he’s still obsessing over his stupid rope.

Betty asks him to come over and help her, Veronica, and Amani…sweep the lawn, but he says he’d only jinx them.

Ethel, who’s washing someone’s car, gets in a burn. Archie doesn’t care.

Moose rescues a girl’s cat from a tree and is unaware he’s been doing good deeds. Ha.

Archie says he’s gonna move to Walla Walla. I guess Archie constantly changing where he’s gonna move to is the running “joke” in this segment.

Reggie is delivering newspapers (after school?) for someone named Winston, who has the chicken pox. Reggie believes the statue is his. Archie tries to lasso the newspaper out of the roses (where Reggie had thrown it), but…

Archie says Walla Walla’s too close, and he’s moving to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. This running “joke” isn’t funny. Did the writers just want to name a bunch of cities?

Later, Betty and Jughead show up at Archie’s to notify him of the statue-raising. Archie’s convinced he’ll jinx it.

Betty ain’t puttin’ up with that shit.

She mentions they haven’t seen him since those shopping carts got away from him on Baxter Hill. Say what? Did the segment just skip over a bunch of time?

At the school, a crowd has gathered to witness the statue-raising.

Mr. Weatherbee is testing the microphone and gets some feedback. He reacts sensibly like this:

Dude, chill.

He talks about the difficulties of raising the statue of their “beloved” founder, Horace Riverdale. Some random people in the crowd gasp when the statue is almost dropped. Mr. Weatherbee asks for the crowd’s complete silence. The guy raising the statue basically yells at them to shut the fuck up.

He then declares the rope’s gonna give and runs the fuck away.

Archie wants to hose down the rope. Mr. Weatherbee protests, but one of the workers says he’s right.

Archie manages to hose down a lot of people before getting to the statue. Ms. Grundy yells, because…this is most unorthodox?

The audience is in awe as the statue is successfully raised.

Ms. Grundy’s had a hell of a difficult time trying to decide who’s worthy of the stupid little statue.

The kids are excited to learn who it will be. Only Goddess knows why.

Guess where this is going.

Okay, a slight twist. The crowd yucks it up.

Anyway, Archibald Andrews is the winner. Yay. Jughead and Betty escort him to the stage.

Of course, it can’t go off without a hitch.

“Woe is me. *sigh*”

This segment was pretty dull. The bits with the rope were barely made relevant in the end. The statue was something that few (if any) actual kids would care about winning. Why would this suddenly be a competition, anyway, instead of being awarded to whichever student has shown to be a good citizen over, say, the current school year? Why wasn’t Mayor Melvin at the ceremony? Lastly, what the fucking fuck was up with the episode’s title? It has absolutely nothing to do with the story!

Tune in next Wednesday!