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Saturday, December 26, 2015

New Archies Reviewed - Episode 12A: Jughead's Millions

Greetings, and happy Boxing Day to you! 

I know some of you will be braving the crowds to do some Boxing Day shopping, but I don't believe in Day After Christmas sales.  So, that's why I'm spending today doing a New Archies Reviewed blog post instead to risking life and limb to get a deal on a new television.

Besides, the one I got a year ago is working awesome!

So, we've only got four 12-minute episodes to go, and I'll be honest with you.  This one's not my favourite.  It's probably the only one starring Jughead that I thought was just...meh.  But, I have to review it.  It's only fair.



Here's Episode 12A:  Jughead's Millions.  How he accumulated these millions...well, you'll see.



For now, we're treated to a bitching session among the students of MS. Grundy's class about how unfair it is to be a kid in the 1980s, and how parents and adults are so demanding and how they expect them to be perfect little angels, and well...basically they sound no different from the teens of 2015, except that in 2015, the kids use emojis and text messages to voice their displeasure.



Well, MS. Grundy is tired of hearing her students complaining (and tired of Jughead eating in her classroom), and so she assigns a project to her whole class dealing with adult responsibilities.



And just like that, she pronounces Archie and Betty husband and wife!  Pretty sure you need to be ordained before you marry people off, but whatever the case, it makes Reggie and Veronica giggle like mad, knowing that their partners in "Future Shock" will have to suffer with each other.



The laughter stops when MS. Grundy declares that Reggie and Veronica will be Archie and Betty's children.  Sheesh, what did Archie and Betty do to deserve such spoiled brats as kids? 



MS. Grundy hands Jughead the next assignment along with a five dollar bill.  His mission?  Invest the five dollars in the stock market.  Sounds simple enough.  I hope Jughead doesn't spend it all on cheeseburgers or something stupid like that.



As for Eugene, Moose, and blink and you'll miss her Amani, MS. Grundy makes them learn responsibility by taking care of a baby.  But instead of one of those baby dolls that you see in high school home economics classes, MS. Grundy opens up the closet and out pops a baby goat who proceeds to eat everyone's homework.  Because keeping livestock locked up in a coat closet is a perfectly reasonable thing to do in A JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL!  Seriously, Grundy.  You're better than this!

The bell rings, and Archie and Betty accompany Jughead to the Riverdale Stock Exchange to invest his money in the stock exchange, while Veronica and Reggie complain about being Archie and Betty's children.  But they plan on being totally miserable human beings so that Archie and Betty will ditch them and earn a failing grade on the assignment.

In short, Reggie and Veronica vow to be themselves.



Jughead meets with the financial advisor and while the advisor gives some suggestions about what stocks to invest in, Jughead has found the perfect stock.



Son of a batch of cookies.  Cheeseburger Enterprises?  You mean to tell me that Jughead DOES invest in cheeseburgers?  Sigh.  At least with the stock price being a dismal one cent a share, he can get 500 sheets of worthless paper - which is actually more than buying a 500 pack of lined paper at Walmart.  You know, I'm thinking too much into this cartoon.  Stop it, Matthew.  Stop it now.



Of course, Reggie and Veronica don't make it easy on Jughead.  Reggie sticks his gum on the keyboard of the computer which causes our financial advisor to get stuck.  Archie punishes them by making them stand in the corner.  Wow, way to get firm, Archie.



Reggie then pushes some sort of button that releases a sea of ticker tape across the whole office.  Seriously, it's like Dick Clark's Rockin' New Years Eve '88 has exploded all over the office.



But amidst the sea of paper and chaos caused by the world's brattiest kids comes a revelation.  Cheeseburger Enterprises has become one of the world's most improved companies, and the stock prices have turned Jughead's five dollar investment into a million dollar windfall for our beanie-headed needlenosed slacker!



Reggie and Veronica soon realize that Unky Juggie is now worth more than they are, and they start celebrating good times.  But Archie says "Come on", and lets Reggie and Veronica know that Jughead would rather save the money.



To which Jughead responds by telling Archie to stuff it, and proceeds to spend, spend, spend...which Reggie and Veronica are only happy to oblige.  Betty pipes up by saying that Jughead might be overdoing it with the spending, which Archie agrees by saying "the little woman's right".  Wow, Archie...just wow.  Neanderthal, much?

Of course, Jughead - never knowing what it really is like to be rich - doesn't listen, and before you know it, he's opened up his own...



...WRESTLING ARENA?!?  The kids do realize that this is a school assignment, right?  I'm sure MS. Grundy wouldn't approve of this.  Hell, if anything, MS. Grundy should be the one with the fortune since it was her money that Jughead invested.  Then she can take off and leave her students behind for good until her students manipulate her into coming back.

I hate this show sometimes.



Okay, so at Jughead's arena, Jughead introduces his friends to his three new female wrestlers, who kind of look like Madonna, Valerie from "Josie and the Pussycats", and Lilo from "Lilo & Stitch".  The wrestlers look tough, but sexist Reggie has to make fun of them saying that he doesn't think they look so tough.



They respond by picking Reggie up, spinning him around the ring, and...



...tickling him with feathers?  Well, it's unusual, I'll grant you that.



Of course, Papa Archie catches Reggie before those mean girls tear out his spleen, and informs them that they will be going to Jughead's mansion for dinner.  Wait, Jughead has a new mansion?  Just how far is Jughead going to take this?



And, how bratty can Reggie and Veronica get?  It's bad enough that Jughead bought them ponies, but for them to ride them in the house?  Seriously, what point is this episode trying to make?  People who become rich also become stupid?

Oh, and because we can't forget about Eugene, Moose, and Imani Armani Anchovy Amani, we see that the goat has found its way to Jughead's mansion and starts to eat Jughead's lunch...



...as well as a lampshade and a 60 watt light bulb.  Yep, PETA's not going to like this one bit.



Meanwhile, Archie and Betty (who are seriously getting so screwed in this project), are finding that their cooking skills absolutely suck (though Betty's improves a lot when she goes into high school), and Archie slipping on a pot of bubbling over rice just shows just how standards for this episode are slipping.

Reggie and Veronica ride their ponies into the kitchen and their ponies throw them into the dining room table.  I'm so glad this is a cartoon series...otherwise that sentence wouldn't make sense.

But of course, Filet Mignon Reggie and Caviar Veronica think that Archie and Betty could stand to take cooking lessons put on their best Gordon Ramsey impersonations and tell them IT'S RAAAAAAAAW and that nobody would eat it.



Well, except for maybe the very hungry caterpillar goat.



And, just for no reason at all, Veronica throws rice all over Jughead, who has come into the kitchen to inform everyone that he will be interviewed for a television show that is based off of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous with a host that is like Robin Leach, but isn't.  Okay, is this episode over yet?  I don't know what's happening anymore.



What is happening is that Jughead is standing by the pool with the host of the show, telling him that cheeseburgers got him his fame and fortune, and I roll my eyes just a little bit more.



But wait.  A telegram comes for Jughead, because it's the 1980s and telegrams were in vogue back then.  Seems like Cheeseburger Enterprises has gone bankrupt, and all of Jughead's fortune has been wiped out.



The repo men come and take all of Jughead's possessions.  The bank comes and changes the lock on the house.  The wrestlers knock down Jughead's Wrestling Arena.  The animal handler takes back the ponies, which cause Reggie and Veronica to whine even more. 



And to add insult to injury, the goat knocks everyone into the pool, leaving Jughead a literal washed-up has been.

I guess this means that Jughead gets an F on the school project, huh?



But, all the kids did learn one thing.  They learned that being adults is hard work, which is why they make a vow to never age beyond seventeen for the rest of their existence.  I'd say that's a reasonable goal, considering the subjects.

But Reggie and Veronica are still upset that Archie and Betty treated them so badly, and how they lost their ponies, and they want to finish the assignment by letting them be the parents, and having Betty and Archie be their kids. 



Of course, MS. Grundy is wise to their scheme, and announces that she has two concert tickets for a rock show and since the parents are too busy to do household chores, Archie and Betty get the tickets instead!  Sure, way to stiff the rest of the class there, Grundy.



Reggie then decides that he wants to go back to being a kid and swipes the tickets from Archie's grasp...



...only for the goat to eat the tickets instead.



And everyone laughs closing out the episode.  Never mind that nobody gets to go to the concert, and that MS. Grundy just lost a hundred bucks.  The goat made everyone miserable, so let's laugh instead.

You know what, I'm not even going to comment on this episode any longer.  The whole thing made no sense from beginning to end.  It almost felt like they stitched together all of the deleted scenes from other episodes to make this one.  It's not the worst New Archies episode made, but it's really, really bad.

Next week, it's 1988 2016.  Let's celebrate it with another doppelganger story.  But unlike "The Prince of Riverdale", this one is much better of a tale.

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