Back in the mid- to late 90s, when the Internet was fairly young  , I remember at least a couple of stories where the whole joke was that Reggie or Veronica had started their own personal websites.  Once it was the whole joke on a digest cover: Archie and Betty (I think) were looking at a computer saying "I can't believe it!  Reggie has his own web page!" and on the screen you could click to see photos of Reggie, lists of his favorite things, etc.   Back at this point only businesses and celebrities had their own web pages, so it was considered incredibly vain and narcissistic for Reggie to think anyone in the world would care to look at his photos and faves.  This just goes to show how hard it was to foresee the age of MySpace and then Facebook.  Reggie and Veronica weren't narcissists-- they were pioneers!

There were also a few stories in the 70s/80s where Veronica (or Archie's mother, in some cases) made Archie get a beeper so she could reach him whenever she wanted, and the whole gang laughed at him for being her constant beck and call.  Back then, it seemed like a preposterous imposition to make someone (other than maybe a doctor) carry around a little gadget in order to be reachable anytime, 24/7...

Can anyone else think of examples of jokes that fall flat nowadays because of changes in technology (or attitudes) over the years?

And, here's my contribution!



Most of us who are here probably get this reference...most anyone born after 1999...won't.

Betty's so new to browsing the Web that she's using a left-handed mouse with her right hand!

Aw, they stressed the wrong word in Betty's sentence.

Quote from: Captain Hero on January 31, 2011, 09:53:29 PM

Betty's so new to browsing the Web that she's using a left-handed mouse with her right hand!

Quote from: Captain Hero on January 31, 2011, 09:56:04 PM

Aw, they stressed the wrong word in Betty's sentence.

Do you normally pick Archie comics apart just for the fun of it, man?

I love these covers.  For me their like little time capsules.

Well ,even if some of the jokes are outdated, I think they should be reprinted as is (sorry, already said this in the other thread XD).  Maybe they could just include the year somewhere in the credits so people understand the context a bit better.

Here's another example:



In the age of Photoshop, it's no news to any of us that pictures can lie.  Just think of all the mischief Reggie could get into with digital imaging tools, as opposed to just scissors and tape.

OT question: Do you have the other page, or is this just a one-page gag? 

This was just a one-pager. It does seem like it could have been longer, though.

Yeah... must've been the one-pager's layout that confused me... 

IIRC, there was a Betty & Veronica Pin-Up in the early 60's (it might be in Afroman's gallery  ) that had Betty saying something among the lines of...
"I tire of those young celebs... I'll settle for oldies like Bobby Rydell!".
This joke would never be reprinted in a new digest w/o changing it somewhat.
In fact, jokes that directly name a celebrity of a certain era (1960's, for example) are bound to fall into the category of "jokes that just don't work anymore".