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Which stories could and couldn't occur in the current timeframe?

Started by Tuxedo Mark, April 18, 2016, 05:43:07 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Tuxedo Mark

This is based on a thread that I'd originally posted on August 29, 2012.

With the timeline constantly sliding forward, the gang is born one year later each year (assuming they're now seniors, I'm guessing the "current gang" was born in 1998).

So which stories from the past just couldn't work at all today (or could work but would have to be updated)?

Generally speaking, I'd say anything dealing with outdated tech or fashions.

Any stories where, for example, the gang goes to the video arcade or video rental store or gets cable or the Internet for the first time. Cable's in decline; it's all Netflix and Redbox now.

Assuming two years' worth of stories (junior and senior year and the summer vacation in between) and that the characters are graduating this year (until the next slide happens), certain stories could no longer occur, such as the gang meeting The Veronicas (Veronica was taking helicopter lessons in the story, but she'd be way too young in 2005-6 now) or Michael Jackson (he died before they entered middle school).

There are the stories where Cheryl is interested in the "Sugar Girls" (obviously meant to be the Spice Girls), even joining the group, and Veronica hiring "N'Sing" (N*Sync) to play at the mansion. I can't imagine either girl being interested in either group today.

Oh, and there was that time that Veronica won $1,000,000 on "Who Wants to Win a Million Bucks" (and was bored by it!). Even if we accept the rather obvious need for Veronica to be 18, Regis was the host, so, even if it did still happen, someone else would have to be the host.

The Riverdale gang attended the premiere of Josie and the Pussycats' movie, and the actual 2001 movie poster was inserted on the theater wall. Even if J&P did come out with a movie in the Archieverse, different actors would be playing them. However, that might not have been what they were going for at all. Maybe they meant Josie, Melody, and Valerie really do look like Rachael, Tara, and Rosario.

This is likely a noncanonical gag, but Sabrina was watching the live-action Sabrina series (starring Melissa Joan Hart) and mocking the concept. Needless to say, it wouldn't happen to today's Sabrina.

I have a feeling that the Freshman Year storyline was written to occur in the present day instead of the past. Of course, today's gang wasn't even in middle school when that story was published!

The sequel storyline (when did that come out?) starts with a framing sequence of Betty typing in her diary. Yeah, she's now keeping her diary on her computer. She then finds her old diary from freshman year and notes it was back when she was still writing in a real diary. I like that. Of course, even that's outdated by now.

Then there are the stories where the gang is talking on household corded phones (and their parents eavesdrop on their conversations) or using payphones. Those would no longer happen, since they all have cell phones now, and, contrary to what Maroon 5 seems to think, payphones seem to have entirely vanished.

Heck, there was a story where everyone was wondering whose cell phone was going off, and Betty smiled and said "I know it's not mine!" That's outdated now, too. You can get a decent touchscreen Tracfone for, like, $20. That's, like, probably one night of babysitting for Betty.

Any stories where they're listening to records or cassette tapes. Heck, even CDs are becoming obsolete. If they do still buy CDs, they can just rip the songs and put them on their MP3 players or iPods.

Any story dealing with Y2K. That now became obsolete before they entered kindergarten.

Any story where Betty is playing a tambourine in The Archies. Assuming the gang formed The Archies when they started high school, they would have started playing in 2012. No self-respecting 21st-century girl is going to settle for a tambourine. This is especially bad when we consider a 2005-6 story in which Betty learns to play every Kiss song on electric guitar and then jams on-stage with the band as their guest guitarist.

I did see a story in a digest around four years ago in which Betty is playing an electric guitar in the band, and no one calls any attention to it.

Really, though, The Archies need to update their music as well. The xoxo, Betty and Veronica novel, "We're With the Band", had them still singing "Sugar, Sugar" in 2011 (and Betty's playing the tambourine, of course).

There was a Cheryl story in 1999-2000 called "P.I.P." where she, Betty, and Veronica form a bodyguard service to protect celebrities. Okay, let's say they're 18 (which they'd legally have to be). They get hired to protect Christina Aguilera during one of her concerts. I don't know what her popularity's like these days, but somehow I doubt this story could still occur (or it could but with Taylor Swift instead).

There was a 1-page advertisement story that had Betty becoming the Super Nintendo Champion of Riverdale. While that could, I suppose, technically still happen (due to retro gaming, thanks to the likes of AVGN), it really wouldn't be anything to gloat about at this point.

Any story in which Archie is driving his original car (it was like a Ford Model A or something like that). No 21st-century teen is going to be driving a collectible antique like that (despite LWA's "explanation" that it's a family heirloom that Archie drove until he graduated high school, which contradicts current stories). The Cheryl Blossom Specials, which reprinted 1980s Cheryl stories as flashbacks, in effect claimed Archie drove that old car before Cheryl moved away for the first time.

I remember a story from years ago where Veronica was revealed to have been childhood friends with Paris Hilton. Of course, the real-life passage of time has resulted in a large age difference, making that story impossible now.

Kevin Keller #4 (the London Olympics issue) couldn't have occurred either, since that happened during the summer between eighth and ninth grades in today's continuity.

There was a 1999 Cheryl story called "Friendly Fire" where Veronica publicly humiliated Cheryl, who was a guest on Betty and Veronica's local public access cable show (yes, seriously), "Teen Talk". While the studio audience saw it (as well as Cheryl running out of the studio, crying in embarrassment), it enraged Betty, who confiscated the video tape (I guess the show wasn't live) from Veronica and brought it to Cheryl as a peace offering (they then became friends). The story could happen today - but only with extensive modification. "Teen Talk" would be a YouTube series. Cheryl could appear in person or via Skype. The Internet would see it. The only thing that Betty could do for Cheryl is delete the upload from their YouTube channel.
BV-kiss-small
Riverdale Reviewed
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Every episode of "Riverdale", "The New Archies", and "Archie's Weird Mysteries" reviewed.
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irishmoxie

These 90s and early 00s celebrity and fad stories sound awesome. Do you remember where they were from? Archie and Friends?

DeCarlo Rules

All of the above stories offer ample proof that the lifespan of Archie digests is fated to end soon. While the outdated stories have always existed since the digests first began, in more recent decades the rate of change in technology and pop culture has only increased, while the "input" of newer stories that can be fed into the digests has slowed, and has now practically ground to a halt, with a mere 20 pages of new classic Archie stories per month. Somehow even that small lifeline seems like merely a temporary transitional hesitation of the part of ACP, just a short pause while they determine the ultimate acceptance of the New Riverdale. I seriously doubt that Dan Parent will still have work with the company in a year or two. That means the bulk of stories reprinted in the digests can only continue to become more and more dated, forcing the editors to be more and more selective to avoid those stories with dated references. That will mean even more repetition of the same reprints over and over again, and a reduction in the number of digest titles and their frequency and/or page count inevitably will follow. Five years from now they're likely to be down to only one or two digest titles.

invisifan

So "no self-respecting 21st-century girl is going to settle for a tambourine."
...

Any stories where they're listening to records or cassette tapes.
:2funny:

DeCarlo Rules

Quote from: invisifan on April 19, 2016, 02:11:27 PM
So "no self-respecting 21st-century girl is going to settle for a tambourine."
...

Any stories where they're listening to records or cassette tapes.
:2funny:

Never mind the tamborines. Some people would say that the fact that Betty continues to date Archie despite his treatment of her is proof enough of a lack of self-respect. But that's just another one of those things that don't really work when you shift the context from that of a lighthearted, cartoony, humorous comic to a more serious tone, like Big Moose beating the crap out of people -- as a cartoon it's funny, but in a more realistic context it's just tragic/sad.

steveinthecity

One thing that will eventually go by the wayside is Archie or Betty fixing their own car.  Maybe Archie will hang on to that 80's Ford for a few more decades, but newer cars don't really lend themselves to a regular gearhead getting under the hood with a rag and some wrenches to do a tune up or troubleshoot a problem.  The toolbox of yesterday is becoming obsolete as cars become more sophisticated.

Another disappearing gadget is the iPod as people more and more use tablets or smartphones to listen to or view the same media. Heck, it seems just like yesterday the Archie art department was redrawing Walkman's, cd players, and editing word balloons to the "new" iPods and MP3 players before reprinting those ancient 80's and 90's stories in the digests.

Also, not really a "couldn't", but more of a "won't" is showing the adult male characters smoking, whether pipe, cigar, or cigarette.

Another "won't" I've thought about is the lack of cartoon violence shown or implied since maybe the 90's(?).  On a whole, are our societies that much more peaceful now than in the 50's and 60's when our cartoon characters were beating on each other, being filled with buckshot, having rocks or anvils landing on their heads, fired from cannons, falling off cliffs, or the neighborhood dog biting off a chunk of their posterior?
Comics!

DeCarlo Rules

Quote from: steveinthecity on September 24, 2016, 01:36:16 AM
One thing that will eventually go by the wayside is Archie or Betty fixing their own car.  Maybe Archie will hang on to that 80's Ford for a few more decades, but newer cars don't really lend themselves to a regular gearhead getting under the hood with a rag and some wrenches to do a tune up or troubleshoot a problem.  The toolbox of yesterday is becoming obsolete as cars become more sophisticated.

Depends on how serious of a motorhead you are. It's not so much that the toolbox is obsolete. Wrenches and screwdrivers haven't changed much, although now most are available as power tools. It's just that you require a whole new toolbox full of electronic diagnostic tools to get the job done. Cars are more difficult to repair at home for several reasons, but it still can be done. One is the electronic sensor chips that indicate faults, that you need a special gadget to read the error message and reset. Another is that since cars started being designed on computers, every available square inch under the hood is crammed together with very little space left to get your hands or tools in there, necessitating a complex series of removing components to get at other components. So you do need a wider range of tools, more knowledge, and the time and patience to disassemble and reassemble things in a complicated step-by-step process. Understandably, most teenagers couldn't be bothered to learn or take the time, unless they're pretty serious about their cars.

Quote from: steveinthecity on September 24, 2016, 01:36:16 AMAnother "won't" I've thought about is the lack of cartoon violence shown or implied since maybe the 90's(?).  On a whole, are our societies that much more peaceful now than in the 50's and 60's when our cartoon characters were beating on each other, being filled with buckshot, having rocks or anvils landing on their heads, fired from cannons, falling off cliffs, or the neighborhood dog biting off a chunk of their posterior?

I don't think our society is any more peaceful than it was back in the 50's and 60s, nationally or globally. If anything, it's less peaceful. But our entertainment, or should I say specifically, children's entertainment, certainly is -- and that gives a very skewed impression of the real world, although there are very real special focus groups lobbying for changes in societal standards of behavior, especially with regards to children, for example in the last couple of decades an increasing movement to increase awareness of and no tolerance for bullying. That alone won't make it go away entirely, though. It's the kind of thing that varies from one culture to the next. England and Japan have very different culturally-based "standards and practices" for entertainment, again with a major emphasis on children's entertainment. Overall though, parental pressure groups have definitely delivered a metaphorical whack with a giant cartoon mallet to fantasy-based violence (especially as portrayed in a humorous context) in children's entertainment.

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