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* OneMillionBC: The series of "Caveman Archie" stories with prehistoric versions of Archie and the rest of the Riverdale gang.
* NinetyPercentOfYourBrain: In a story, Archie recites this statistic to his friends. Moose exclaims that 10% is "almost less than half our brains". Archie muses if the statistic is too high in some cases.
* AbhorrentAdmirer: Big Ethel for Jughead.
* AccidentalAthlete: One story has Archie and Betty walking by the football field while the team is practicing. Archie says that if they were [[DiscussedTrope in an old movie]], a stray ball would fly in his direction and he'd kick it it fifty yards, thus earning him an instant spot on the team. To Archie's chagrin, when a stray football does make it their way, it's ''Betty'' who kicks it straight between the uprights. It seems that "they don't make old movies the way they used to."
* AccidentalHero: A comic had Jughead failing as a security guard until he tripped and fell on a guy who turned out to be a shoplifter.
* AccidentalProposal: In one of the Xmas issues, Moose shows Jughead a jewellery store window with a birthstone ring. He then asks Jughead to find out from his girlfriend, Midge, if she'd like that ring for Christmas. So later, Jug casually asks Midge if she would like the ring in the store window. Midge kisses Jughead and runs off in ultimate excitement. Turns out the jeweller had since placed a diamond engagement ring in the birthstone's spot. Since Moose was normally so jealous that he was known to hospitalize other guys for merely talking to Midge, Jughead was now seriously in deep doo-doo.
* AddictionDisplacement: In an [[TheEighties eighties]] [[VerySpecialEpisode story]] on the dangers of smoking, three teenagers unintentionally create a false fire alarm by chain-smoking in the boys' washroom at school. At the end, they apologize to the principal, Mr. Weatherbee, and inform him that from now on, whenever they have nicotine cravings, they'll chew gum instead.
-->'''Weatherbee:''' Egad! Another habit I don't approve of. Oh, well. You win some, you lose some.
* TheAllegedCar: A running joke on Archie's jalopy.
** [[TakeThat It's a red Ford (a Model "T" in the classic strips and a Mustang converable in the modern ones): "Found On Road, Dead."]]
* AllGuysWantCheerleaders: Multiple cover have Archie (and some boys) show interest to cheerleader, often Betty and Veronica, and easily distracted by them during the games.
* AlliterativeName: Archie Andrews, Jughead Jones, Dilton Doiley, Coach Clayton, Trula Twyst, Evelyn Evernever, and a few others. Some are nicknames or titles, but it still fits. And possibly the best example in this group: Marmaduke Merton Matowski "Moose" Mason.
* AluminumChristmasTrees: Surprisingly, Jughead's trademark beanie was once a ''real'' fashion accessory of 1940s teenagers called a "Whoopee Cap": teens would cut their father's old fedoras into the jagged-edge rim shape, pin buttons on it, and wear them as a fashion statement. Long before that, this style of hat was popular among adult factory workers and mechanics. Nowadays, it has mutated into a form unique in itself, no longer much resembling the real-life version, and just makes Jughead look like a [[http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/12/18/comic-book-legends-revealed-186/ kook.]]
* ArtEvolution:
** There was a massive one in the late 1960s, coinciding with Dan [=DeCarlo=]'s promotion to the artist for nearly all Archie comic covers. Soon, all the new artists were mimicking his style as the 'base' Archie, though a few older artists continued to draw their own way. The shift to the unified "house style" was total enough that the clothing styles are all that can define most stories from the 1960s until now, when a few more "out there" artists like Fernando Ruiz have put their own stamp on the "[=DeCarlo=] Style".
** Then there's the "Dynamic New Look" art style, which goes for a more realistic approach. It's only used for specific story arcs, though.
** ''Comicbook/SabrinaTheTeenageWitch'' and ''JosieAndThePussycats'' both went through "manga-style" stretches.
** As of 2015, Archie ended their old Archie series that had been going for over 600 issues with a brand-new series with a completely new look.
* ArtisticLicenseSports: One story involves a new kid in town coming out of nowhere to become the star player on Riverdale's baseball team, playing shortstop. His leg is then badly injured when a player on a rival team spikes him, but he reinvents himself as an ace pitcher and leads Riverdale to the championship. It would be a great story if it wasn't utter bullcrap. As anyone who's ever pitched at any level could tell you, it is impossible to pitch on an injured leg, at least with any degree of competency.
** In another issue where Betty becomes a race car driver, the flag bearer at the racetrack waves a checkered flag at the start of her first race. The checkered flag is supposed to signal the end of a race.
* AsleepInClass: One time ([[RecycledScript or maybe more]]) Jughead painted eyeballs on his eyelids so he could sleep in class and look like he wasn't sleeping.
* BaitAndSwitchComment: [[http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/andswitch1_1088.jpg This sequence]]. "I'd like to compliment you on your good work... WHEN YOU DO SOME!"
* BannedInChina: {{In-Universe}} example. Veronica [[http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/veronica_banned_bikini_7152.jpg proudly shows off a bikini she bought]] that had been banned in Boston.
* BarbieDollAnatomy: There is not one person in the universe who knows what a nipple is.
* BatmanGambit: Reggie and Veronica played a prank on Archie by making up a story about how Mr. Weatherbee was looking for him. Then Weatherbee turns up and he really was looking for someone, to represent the school on a trip to the capital. After Archie recommends Reggie and Veronica, Weatherbee sends various messengers to summon the two to his office (the first of which is Archie himself), but Reggie, thinking that Archie is playing the same gag on him, rebuffs them each and every time. Weatherbee eventually gets fed up, and trails the next messenger, so when Reg and Veronica ignore the summons one last time, he was there, and he sent them off to detention.
* BeautyContest: Beauty contests, often of an impromptu sort, were a staple of stand-alone ''Archie'' stories during TheSeventies and TheEighties in particular. Most often, they took place at the [[BeachEpisode beach]]. A frequently-used premise had the contestants -- which nearly always included Betty and Veronica -- attempt to sweet-talk the judge(s) -- usually Archie, and sometimes Reggie as well -- into voting for them. If Midge was a contestant, this inevitably meant her boyfriend Moose threatening the judge(s) into voting for her (a reversal of the usual GreenEyedMonster Moose plots where merely glancing at Midge from a distance would earn Archie or Reggie a curb stomp).
* BerserkButton: Jughead kicks ass on a pair of robbers when they try to steal the Chocklit Shoppe's hamburger supply.
* BettyAndVeronica: The TropeNamer.
** The interesting thing about them being that Betty and Veronica are ''inseparable best friends''. They have each other's backs 99% of the time, it's just that they both want the same guy (and he's head over heels in love with them both). Stranding the three of them on a deserted island would either lead to murder… or it might be their private idea of Heaven.
** In one comic, Veronica states that they only fight over unimportant things, like boys.
** It was also originally the TropeNamer for ThirdOptionLoveInterest, back when it was known on this wiki as The Cheryl Blossom, after the aforementioned character.
* BettyAndVeronicaSwitch: Interestingly, despite being the TropeCodifier for Betty and Veronica relationships, it gets blurred once [[spoiler:Betty tries to kill Archie in an issue.]]
* BigEater: Jughead is pretty much the biggest example of this in all fiction.
* BigFancyHouse: The Lodge Estate, home of the insanely wealthy Veronica Lodge.
** The Blossom Mansion, Cheryl Blossom's home that's so large it has a tram just to get to Cheryl's bedroom in the "west wing". Archie even comments how her house makes The Lodge Estate look like a ''cottage''.
* BlondeBrunetteRedhead: Betty, Veronica, and Cheryl, since the latter's debut. Betty, Veronica, and Archie, of course. Or [[ComicBook/JosieAndThePussycats Melody, Valerie, and Josie]].
* BoyishShortHair: Cricket and Midge.
* BrandX: Done frequently, with many exceptions. See SubliminalAdvertising, below.
* BratsWithSlingshots: Veronica's (seemingly forgotten) cousin Leeroy, also frequently used by kids in general
* BreakingTheFourthWall: Frequently used – characters will "talk to the audience", and several #100 issues will have the characters deciding exactly ''how'' to celebrate their "[[MilestoneCelebration 100th issue]]".
* BreakUpMakeUpScenario: Soooo many...
* BroadStrokes: One theory about the comics is that they all take place in parallel universes, which would nicely take care of plenty of {{Canon}} problems, along with the many comics that seem to be almost [[AesopAmnesia complete duplicates of previous plots]].
** [[NotAllowedToGrowUp Not to mention the age problems]].
** The first issue of ''ComicBook/LifeWithArchieTheMarriedLife'' actually includes a display of an ''Archie'' {{multiverse}}. Dimensions include "The Happy Days of the 1940s-50s", "The Fantasy World of Little Archie", and "Archie's New Look," among others.
* ButterFace: Big Ethel, in her early days. Eventually FailPolish set in big time, to the point that in the '90s she was downright attractive with just a bad Pebbles Flintstone haircut.
* CallingMeALogarithm: Moose has a very limited vocabulary.
--> '''Moose''': "Duhhh hey! Who are you calling an Idiom!?"
* CanonForeigner: For "The New Archies", a version featuring the group set in their middle school era, the characters of Amani and Eugene were created. "Fangs" Fogarty and Ambrose appear in the elementary-setting "Little Archie". None of the four made it to the mainstream continuity in anything other than a one-shot or cameo.
** Ambrose's absence in the main stories is explained once by him moving away. There is one main story where he comes back for a visit and rekindles with Archie.
* CanonImmigrant: Betty's older siblings, Polly (a reporter) and Chick (a spy). Both debuted in the ''Little Archie'' stories of Bob Bolling when older teens were needed for the kiddie-based tales. Later on, Kathleen Webb added them to the mainline continuity as successful siblings who'd moved out of the Cooper household. ''Betty's Diary'' stories made the most use out of them- otherwise it [[DependingOnTheWriter depends on the writer]] (they weren't even at her Future Wedding!).
* CaptainGeographic: Some of the superheroes.
* CavalierConsumption: Jughead is normally apathetic and somewhat aloof. The only thing he openly takes seriously is food. This results in his eating during serious discussions, with other characters getting annoyed at him. However, more often than not he really is paying attention and is simultaneously thinking on two levels: About his food and about the discussion at hand.
* CelibateHero: Jughead doesn't so much hate women anymore as he is simply not interested in romance, believing it complicates a guy's life and taxes his funds. This doesn't keep girls from hitting on him, though. Big Ethel is usually the one who pursues him, although in one story all the girls in Riverdale pursued Jughead because he was the only guy ''not'' wearing an overpowering cologne at a school dance, much to his chagrin. His blatant misogyny was altered by 1989 into being conflicted problems over women, as he had many romantic liaisons during the '90s: Joani Jummp, Debbie, January [[=McAndrews=]], Anita the disabled girl, etc.
** He also has a magical hatpin at one point that attracts girls. In a subversion, the pin [[DependingOnTheWriter (sometimes)]] makes him want to be with girls.
*** In one story, he gets a date with a girl named Terri thanks to Reggie trying to make her think Jughead's the "Second-Best Romeo In Town" but with the pin drawing Terri to Jughead, Reggie gets thwarted – and the small-scale VillainousBreakdown he goes through once Archie told what went on is priceless.
** It was explained in one comic that Jughead stays away from girls because he's witnessed how much grief they cause Archie.
--> '''Archie:''' I wonder where he found Her?
--> '''Reggie:''' You wouldn't believe me even if I ''told'' you!!
* CharacterBlog: The Archie comics website has character blogs for [[http://www.archiecomics.com/blog/archie/ Archie]], [[http://www.archiecomics.com/blog/betty/ Betty]], [[http://www.archiecomics.com/blog/veronica/ Veronica]], [[http://www.archiecomics.com/blog/reggie/ Reggie]], and [[http://www.archiecomics.com/blog/jughead/ Jughead]].
* CharacterDevelopment:
** Betty was initially shown as a more typical "domestically talented" girl, and often rather ditzy. By the 1960s, the Women's Lib movement had converted her to the more familiar tomboyish/girly-girl mix, and boosted her intelligence by a great deal.
** Jughead has also gone through a transformation, from a one-note girl-hater (often blatantly misogynistic to the point of "hating dames") into a character sometimes conflicted (the Joani Jumpp years, the recent "New Style" arc, dating a handicapped girl, etc.) about love for women, ultimately returning to the less complicated world of food.
** In the Archie's Marriage Omakes, Moose realizes that he's being abusive and possessive towards Midge, and breaks up with her. He also calms down a lot, presumably to avoid an assault charge now that he's an official adult.
* ChasedOffIntoTheSunset: A story had Jughead timing Archie for the latter's partaking in a track meet, where he is astonished to learn that he just broke the record for being the fastest there is. Come the day of the track meet, after Archie wins the race, Coach Kleats then reveals to Archie that Jughead's stopwatch is actually a lot slower than Archie, which angers Archie so much that he starts chasing Jughead at the end of the story.
* ChildhoodFriendRomance: Betty, the Victorious one, when Archie marries her. Romance sweeps the entire town when this happens.
** Of course, she turns into the Unlucky one when he marries Veronica, complete with unemployment. Naturally, the latter gets by pretty well when he marries the former instead.
* ChristmasEveryDay: In one issue, Jingles allows Archie to repeat Christmas Eve for a day so Archie can have more time to prepare, but the computer he used to turn back time gets frozen into a loop.
* ChuckCunninghamSyndrome: Used too frequently to even list all the victims. A comic with a fairly large base cast that constantly introduced new recurring characters in nearly every year, this happens a ''lot''. Ask old-school fans about "Adam the Alien", Jinx Malloy, January [=McAndrews=] or Cricket O'Dell. Even Cheryl Blossom got this in the 80s. A few characters are actually shown moving away (Cheryl in the late 1990s), but most are just casually ignored with no mentions after a few years of appearances. We'll see where the new pair of Asian girls, Wendy Weatherbee, and others end up.
** Many characters (Jinx, Cricket) simply got DemotedToExtra, while others, like Frankie Valdez, were shown having moved back to Riverdale. With Archie Comics, it's hard to tell if someone's really been dropped, as an occasional comic will have one of these minor age-old characters reappear as if nothing was different. Not to mention the Digests that reprint old stories.
* {{Cliffhanger}}: Any time Betty and Veronica try to make Archie choose between them in any media ever. True, the whole franchise runs off the LoveTriangle, but it really does have to end some time.
* ClingyJealousGirl:
** Betty and Veronica both become more than a little crazy whenever another girl takes an interest in Archie.
** Less commonly seen is how Midge goes nuts whenever another girl shows too much interest in Moose.
* ClockDiscrepancy: In a comic, Big Eater Jughead is in class, and informs the teacher, Miss Grundy, that "his stomach" says its lunchtime. She reminds Jug that the clock on the wall reads 10 before noon. At that moment, the school janitor Mr. Svenson enters the classroom with a ladder. The purpose? To adjust the clock, which he said was running ten minutes slow.
* ComicBookTime: Archie and the gang have been in high school for nearly seventy years. Someone once wrote in to the ''Archie'' letters column demanding an explanation for this, theorizing that the characters must be really, really dumb if they can't graduate. Reggie Mantle (yes, the character) responded by explaining that he and the other characters had simply [[CursedWithAwesome been stuck with eternal youth]].
* CongruentMemory
** There was one Betty and Veronica comic where Veronica was studying for a test while lying on the floor of her room. When the day of the test came around, she couldn't remember any of the information — until she lay down on the floor of the classroom in the same position she'd studied in.
** In another story, Jughead could throw snowballs easily, but couldn't get the same feeling when handling a normal baseball.
** In the same vein, Jughead was once scouted for the opera thanks to his bombastic singing voice — unfortunately, he only sang well in enclosed spaces because he did most of his singing in the bathtub.
* CoveredInKisses: Happens regularly to Archie, often from Betty.
* ConvictionByContradiction: Believe it or not, there have been a few stories where this tropes is ''inverted'' to prove a character's innocence, to prove that a painting is a forgery, etc.
* CrazyJealousGuy: The prevalent example is the ''extremely'' jealous Moose, who gets very angry whenever anyone hits on his girlfriend Midge, leading him to usually hit them as punishment.
* CriminalDoppelganger: In the {{Crossover}} ''ComicBook/ArchieMeetsThePunisher'', a criminal the Punisher has tracked to Riverdale looks very similar to Archie. The story also ends with Comicbook/{{Wolverine}} learning about [[HereWeGoAgain a dangerous mutant who looks like Jughead]].
* {{Crossover}}: Most Archie Comics characters are accepted to be in the same universe, so it's reasonable for Sabrina to show up in an Archie story, or for The Archies to perform alongside Josie and the Pussycats. The biggest example is the Civil Chore(s) story, where the writers get as many characters as they can think of together for a single-page spread.
** Or that time ComicBook/ThePunisher showed up in Riverdale in ''ComicBook/ArchieMeetsThePunisher'', one of the oddest crossovers in the entire history of comics.
** Or the ComicBook/{{Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles|Adventures}}. Coming to us in 1991 we have the '87 cartoon versions of the turtles getting vomited out of a floating, dimension spanning cow’s head (Cudley the Cowlick). Archie and the green team eventually join up and rescue Veronica from a kidnapping attempt, and still have time to get their pizza eating on before the turtles return to their own dimension.
** There also was a crossover with ''ComicBook/TinyTitans''.
** Archie 641-644 has one with ''Series/{{Glee}}'' where Dilton finds a way into the Glee universe and accidentally ends up swapping some characters around. Characters like Veronica, Jughead and Dilton end in Glee universe and viceversa.
** In issue 627 we have a 4 part mini-series where monsters are unleashed onto poor Riverdale and only the rock gods Music/{{KISS}} can save the day.
* CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass: A non-combat version with Coach Kleats. He appears to be a slow-and-overweight gym teacher and coach, and indeed, he can't run well and would kill himself if he slid into a base. But he can still hit every pitch out of the park or thread a needle with a high-velocity football pass, which is why he never ''had'' to run in either sport.
* CrushingHandshake: A story had this happen to Mr. Weatherbee when congratulating substitute hall monitor Maria Rodriguez for teaching the other students not to run in the halls. Maria is actually a [[StrongerThanTheyLook lot stronger than she looks]] so she crushes the 'Bee's hand while giving him a handshake. The last panel shows Mr. Weatherbee getting his hand bandaged by Miss Grundy.
* CutenessProximity: Characters are prone to this in general, especially Betty and Veronica. But what might be the most notable example was when Chuck marched around town being a jerk for some reason, and Archie stopped this by putting a kitten in his path. Chuck immediately picked up and played with the kitten.
* DaintyLittleBalletDancers: In one story, Archie and Reggie make fun of Veronica's "sissy" ballet instructor, until [[DanceBattler he uses dance moves to beat up]] some thugs threatening them. The two of them then take ballet lessons with him themselves.
* DarkerAndEdgier:
** The original ''Life With Archie'' series (1958-1991) featured longer, more "adventure" oriented stories than the typical Archie titles, including elements like five-alarm fires, attempted kidnappings, and... [[http://the-isb.blogspot.com/2006/01/life-in-riverdale-surprisingly.html mysterious Satanic boxes that melt people's faces off]].
** ''The Married Life'', which follows up the WhatIf storyline "Archie Marries Veronica/Archie Marries Betty", which was itself a revival of the "Life with Archie" series. Both story lines feature a dramatic soap opera-stlye depiction of the issues of married life. Both timelines end tragically with Archie dying in the "The Death of Archie".
** "Secrets of the Deep", one of those adventure-oriented stories, had an evil treasure hunter shooting at the gang with a spear gun and setting an electric eel on them!
** Which is nothing compared to 2013's ''Afterlife With Archie'' series, a straight hardcore horror written by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa,[[note]] Creator of the comic adaptation of Creator/StephenKing's ''Literature/TheStand'' and an upcoming film remake of ''Literature/{{Carrie}}''[[/note]] where Sabrina zombifies Jughead's deceased dog, who in turn bites Jughead, unleashing a plague of zombies upon Riverdale. In addition, the series contains several risque jokes and Veronica wears a SexyWhateverOutfit to the Halloween dance while Betty wears a NaughtyNurseOutfit (although at one point a character still says "[[GoshDangItToHeck Hades]]" instead of "Hell"). It is highly likely that this comic would not have been publishable had Archie Comics not ended UsefulNotes/TheComicsCode.
** To give you an idea of just how disturbing it is, they brought a model of a sandwich with Veronica's severed head to Comic-Con!
** ''ComicBook/ArchieVsPredator'' decides to go both ways by keeping the overall light tone of the original comics while also brutally murdering everyone.
* DependingOnTheArtist: The physical and [[WhereTheHellIsSpringfield geographical]] characteristics of Riverdale and its local landmarks change seemingly at will.
** These things change within stories drawn by the same artist, too, especially the design of Veronica and Archie's homes. Dan [=DeCarlo=] said in an interview that the publishers once tried to make him establish a consistent look for the interior of Archie's house, but he found it was too limiting.
* DependingOnTheWriter: Many characteristics of the characters vary over the years and between writers. Variable character traits include: Jughead's hatred of women (misogyny versus avoidance of romance), Betty's obsessiveness regarding Archie (ie. is she crazy, or just a standard young girl in love?), Veronica's bitchiness, Reggie's evil, Mr. Lodge's heartless businessman tendencies, and Archie's womanizing. Various character traits are up for grabs as well – Archie is either the best or the worst athlete on any given sports team, Jughead is either a poor or very good student, and Betty's siblings tend to disappear depending on what the current writer knows about her past. Even Betty and Veronica's status as best friend, while usually fairly consistent, has fluctuated in the past, with at least one story showing them outright hating each other.
** Enough that one could imagine that the comic spans multiple {{Alternate Universe}}s. [[FridgeBrilliance Actually, that would explain a lot]]. In fact it's implied this is canon, though the universes aren't separated by decades.
* DisneyAcidSequence: Some of the 60's-70's era "The Archies" comics.
* DispelMagic:
** The RichBitch Alexandra Cabot from ''ComicBook/JosieAndThePussycats'' series can cast witchcraft spells, but these are fragile spells whose effects are ended by as little as Melody Valentine snapping her fingers, which Melody is wont to do.
** ComicBook/{{Sabrina|TheTeenageWitch}} has cast a few of her spells so weakly, they were negated by three claps.
* DistaffCounterpart:
** Josie and her early friends were very much opposite-gender versions of the Archie gang- a redhead hero, a quirky best friend, a blonde nice character and a brunette nasty one competing over the hero, etc.
** Gender-flipped in a ''Betty and Veronica'' comic that sees the young women meet a wealthy, brunette young man named Don Sodge, and his middle-class, blonde friend Benny. The similarities they share with Betty and Veronica go so far as to have both of them trapped in a LoveTriangle with a redheaded young woman, Andi Archer. After Betty and Veronica decide to go home, Veronica and the guys awkwardly share this exchange:
--->'''Don:''' Is it because you don't think we have anything in common?\\
'''Benny:''' Is that it?\\
'''Veronica:''' Gulp! No! Absolutely not! In fact, we have too much in common! 'Bye!
* DistractedByTheSexy:
** Archie would occasionally have this problem very times that see a cute girl. Once he somehow managed to trip over a floor buffer in a hallway that had [[OffscreenTeleportation been two frames earlier completely clear.]]
** Another notable example is Veronica deliberately pulling this trope on the boys in gym class, much to Coach Kleats' annoyance. Archie gets back at her by strolling through the girls' gym class in the same way.
* TheDitz: Melody. She is an absent-minded, bubbly sort of character often taken to using silly, nonsense language, and provides much of the comic relief of the series.
* DontTryThisAtHome: One story where Veronica directly addresses the reader has her cautioning them not to follow her example, saying that she's rich and spoiled and hatching evil schemes is [[YouBastard "expected"]] of her.
* DoubleStandard:
** This is actually a frequent occurrence, with guys always being given the short end of the stick. Whenever there's a competition between guys and girls, the guys will be made extremely arrogant and put the girls down (even when this makes them OutOfCharacter) before being on the receiving end of a CurbStompBattle, but on the few occasions the guys actually win, it's always [[DownToTheLastPlay very close]] and ends with the focus on the girls in a way that encourages the reader to feel sorry for them. Then again, the target audience is young girls, [[EnforcedTrope so...]]
** Guys are also constantly assaulted by girls in various ways – slapping, kicking, pushing, hitting with their purses, being thrown into a river, and other various ways that would realistically result in some sort of legal trouble, yet they're just laughed off. On the very, very, ''very'' rare occasion a girl gets hit by a guy, it's never anything even ''close'' to what girls have done to guys over the years, and a ''huge'' deal is made out of it.
** Used in one of the comics, when Midge gets annoyed with Moose for hitting men merely for ''talking'' to her. During the course of the day, Midge catches him helping out Betty and Veronica with various things and points out to him that if she were being that friendly with a boy, he'd be furious. Moose decides that she's right and promises to ease up. [[spoiler:Turns out that this was all set up by Midge to begin with and Betty and Veronica were in on it]]. This turns into HypocriticalHumor when we see that Midge goes just as crazy whenever another girl takes a romantic interest in Moose.
* DramaticCurtainToss: Frequently. There is at least one story where Archie accidentally knocks off the head on a statue of a local businessman; he has it repaired in time for the official unveiling of the statue, but when the curtain comes off, we find out the repairman screwed up and put the head of a pig on instead. Oops.
* DumbBlonde:
** Betty Cooper used to be this in some early stories, before Women's Lib put the kibosh on that. She was often confused, ditzy, and a total loser compared to Veronica, rather than the smart, funny, athletic girl we all know today.
*** Subverted in a story where Archie shows up at Betty's house to beg her to mend a torn pocket for him in time for his date with Veronica. Betty pretends to be so ditzy and disorganized that it takes her about eight hours to do the simple repair job, during which time Archie is forced to stay there with her and stand up Veronica entirely.
** Melody would also count. There was a story in which she was certain that nylons were an endangered animal and that Josie and Alexandra's fake fur coats were made from "cute, cuddly orlons".
** Long before (as in nearly two decades before) Melody there was ComicBook/{{Suzie}} who was in many ways a Proto-Melody being a very sweet natured and gorgeous but clueless blonde.
* DumbMuscle: Moose.
[[/folder]]
* OneMillionBC: The series of "Caveman Archie" stories with prehistoric versions of Archie and the rest of the Riverdale gang.
* NinetyPercentOfYourBrain: In a story, Archie recites this statistic to his friends. Moose exclaims that 10% is "almost less than half our brains". Archie muses if the statistic is too high in some cases.
* AbhorrentAdmirer: Big Ethel for Jughead.
* AccidentalAthlete: One story has Archie and Betty walking by the football field while the team is practicing. Archie says that if they were [[DiscussedTrope in an old movie]], a stray ball would fly in his direction and he'd kick it it fifty yards, thus earning him an instant spot on the team. To Archie's chagrin, when a stray football does make it their way, it's ''Betty'' who kicks it straight between the uprights. It seems that "they don't make old movies the way they used to."
* AccidentalHero: A comic had Jughead failing as a security guard until he tripped and fell on a guy who turned out to be a shoplifter.
* AccidentalProposal: In one of the Xmas issues, Moose shows Jughead a jewellery store window with a birthstone ring. He then asks Jughead to find out from his girlfriend, Midge, if she'd like that ring for Christmas. So later, Jug casually asks Midge if she would like the ring in the store window. Midge kisses Jughead and runs off in ultimate excitement. Turns out the jeweller had since placed a diamond engagement ring in the birthstone's spot. Since Moose was normally so jealous that he was known to hospitalize other guys for merely talking to Midge, Jughead was now seriously in deep doo-doo.
* AddictionDisplacement: In an [[TheEighties eighties]] [[VerySpecialEpisode story]] on the dangers of smoking, three teenagers unintentionally create a false fire alarm by chain-smoking in the boys' washroom at school. At the end, they apologize to the principal, Mr. Weatherbee, and inform him that from now on, whenever they have nicotine cravings, they'll chew gum instead.
-->'''Weatherbee:''' Egad! Another habit I don't approve of. Oh, well. You win some, you lose some.
* TheAllegedCar: A running joke on Archie's jalopy.
** [[TakeThat It's a red Ford (a Model "T" in the classic strips and a Mustang converable in the modern ones): "Found On Road, Dead."]]
* AllGuysWantCheerleaders: Multiple cover have Archie (and some boys) show interest to cheerleader, often Betty and Veronica, and easily distracted by them during the games.
* AlliterativeName: Archie Andrews, Jughead Jones, Dilton Doiley, Coach Clayton, Trula Twyst, Evelyn Evernever, and a few others. Some are nicknames or titles, but it still fits. And possibly the best example in this group: Marmaduke Merton Matowski "Moose" Mason.
* AluminumChristmasTrees: Surprisingly, Jughead's trademark beanie was once a ''real'' fashion accessory of 1940s teenagers called a "Whoopee Cap": teens would cut their father's old fedoras into the jagged-edge rim shape, pin buttons on it, and wear them as a fashion statement. Long before that, this style of hat was popular among adult factory workers and mechanics. Nowadays, it has mutated into a form unique in itself, no longer much resembling the real-life version, and just makes Jughead look like a [[http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/12/18/comic-book-legends-revealed-186/ kook.]]
* ArtEvolution:
** There was a massive one in the late 1960s, coinciding with Dan [=DeCarlo=]'s promotion to the artist for nearly all Archie comic covers. Soon, all the new artists were mimicking his style as the 'base' Archie, though a few older artists continued to draw their own way. The shift to the unified "house style" was total enough that the clothing styles are all that can define most stories from the 1960s until now, when a few more "out there" artists like Fernando Ruiz have put their own stamp on the "[=DeCarlo=] Style".
** Then there's the "Dynamic New Look" art style, which goes for a more realistic approach. It's only used for specific story arcs, though.
** ''Comicbook/SabrinaTheTeenageWitch'' and ''JosieAndThePussycats'' both went through "manga-style" stretches.
** As of 2015, Archie ended their old Archie series that had been going for over 600 issues with a brand-new series with a completely new look.
* ArtisticLicenseSports: One story involves a new kid in town coming out of nowhere to become the star player on Riverdale's baseball team, playing shortstop. His leg is then badly injured when a player on a rival team spikes him, but he reinvents himself as an ace pitcher and leads Riverdale to the championship. It would be a great story if it wasn't utter bullcrap. As anyone who's ever pitched at any level could tell you, it is impossible to pitch on an injured leg, at least with any degree of competency.
** In another issue where Betty becomes a race car driver, the flag bearer at the racetrack waves a checkered flag at the start of her first race. The checkered flag is supposed to signal the end of a race.
* AsleepInClass: One time ([[RecycledScript or maybe more]]) Jughead painted eyeballs on his eyelids so he could sleep in class and look like he wasn't sleeping.
* BaitAndSwitchComment: [[http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/andswitch1_1088.jpg This sequence]]. "I'd like to compliment you on your good work... WHEN YOU DO SOME!"
* BannedInChina: {{In-Universe}} example. Veronica [[http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/veronica_banned_bikini_7152.jpg proudly shows off a bikini she bought]] that had been banned in Boston.
* BarbieDollAnatomy: There is not one person in the universe who knows what a nipple is.
* BatmanGambit: Reggie and Veronica played a prank on Archie by making up a story about how Mr. Weatherbee was looking for him. Then Weatherbee turns up and he really was looking for someone, to represent the school on a trip to the capital. After Archie recommends Reggie and Veronica, Weatherbee sends various messengers to summon the two to his office (the first of which is Archie himself), but Reggie, thinking that Archie is playing the same gag on him, rebuffs them each and every time. Weatherbee eventually gets fed up, and trails the next messenger, so when Reg and Veronica ignore the summons one last time, he was there, and he sent them off to detention.
* BeautyContest: Beauty contests, often of an impromptu sort, were a staple of stand-alone ''Archie'' stories during TheSeventies and TheEighties in particular. Most often, they took place at the [[BeachEpisode beach]]. A frequently-used premise had the contestants -- which nearly always included Betty and Veronica -- attempt to sweet-talk the judge(s) -- usually Archie, and sometimes Reggie as well -- into voting for them. If Midge was a contestant, this inevitably meant her boyfriend Moose threatening the judge(s) into voting for her (a reversal of the usual GreenEyedMonster Moose plots where merely glancing at Midge from a distance would earn Archie or Reggie a curb stomp).
* BerserkButton: Jughead kicks ass on a pair of robbers when they try to steal the Chocklit Shoppe's hamburger supply.
* BettyAndVeronica: The TropeNamer.
** The interesting thing about them being that Betty and Veronica are ''inseparable best friends''. They have each other's backs 99% of the time, it's just that they both want the same guy (and he's head over heels in love with them both). Stranding the three of them on a deserted island would either lead to murder… or it might be their private idea of Heaven.
** In one comic, Veronica states that they only fight over unimportant things, like boys.
** It was also originally the TropeNamer for ThirdOptionLoveInterest, back when it was known on this wiki as The Cheryl Blossom, after the aforementioned character.
* BettyAndVeronicaSwitch: Interestingly, despite being the TropeCodifier for Betty and Veronica relationships, it gets blurred once [[spoiler:Betty tries to kill Archie in an issue.]]
* BigEater: Jughead is pretty much the biggest example of this in all fiction.
* BigFancyHouse: The Lodge Estate, home of the insanely wealthy Veronica Lodge.
** The Blossom Mansion, Cheryl Blossom's home that's so large it has a tram just to get to Cheryl's bedroom in the "west wing". Archie even comments how her house makes The Lodge Estate look like a ''cottage''.
* BlondeBrunetteRedhead: Betty, Veronica, and Cheryl, since the latter's debut. Betty, Veronica, and Archie, of course. Or [[ComicBook/JosieAndThePussycats Melody, Valerie, and Josie]].
* BoyishShortHair: Cricket and Midge.
* BrandX: Done frequently, with many exceptions. See SubliminalAdvertising, below.
* BratsWithSlingshots: Veronica's (seemingly forgotten) cousin Leeroy, also frequently used by kids in general
* BreakingTheFourthWall: Frequently used – characters will "talk to the audience", and several #100 issues will have the characters deciding exactly ''how'' to celebrate their "[[MilestoneCelebration 100th issue]]".
* BreakUpMakeUpScenario: Soooo many...
* BroadStrokes: One theory about the comics is that they all take place in parallel universes, which would nicely take care of plenty of {{Canon}} problems, along with the many comics that seem to be almost [[AesopAmnesia complete duplicates of previous plots]].
** [[NotAllowedToGrowUp Not to mention the age problems]].
** The first issue of ''ComicBook/LifeWithArchieTheMarriedLife'' actually includes a display of an ''Archie'' {{multiverse}}. Dimensions include "The Happy Days of the 1940s-50s", "The Fantasy World of Little Archie", and "Archie's New Look," among others.
* ButterFace: Big Ethel, in her early days. Eventually FailPolish set in big time, to the point that in the '90s she was downright attractive with just a bad Pebbles Flintstone haircut.
* CallingMeALogarithm: Moose has a very limited vocabulary.
--> '''Moose''': "Duhhh hey! Who are you calling an Idiom!?"
* CanonForeigner: For "The New Archies", a version featuring the group set in their middle school era, the characters of Amani and Eugene were created. "Fangs" Fogarty and Ambrose appear in the elementary-setting "Little Archie". None of the four made it to the mainstream continuity in anything other than a one-shot or cameo.
** Ambrose's absence in the main stories is explained once by him moving away. There is one main story where he comes back for a visit and rekindles with Archie.
* CanonImmigrant: Betty's older siblings, Polly (a reporter) and Chick (a spy). Both debuted in the ''Little Archie'' stories of Bob Bolling when older teens were needed for the kiddie-based tales. Later on, Kathleen Webb added them to the mainline continuity as successful siblings who'd moved out of the Cooper household. ''Betty's Diary'' stories made the most use out of them- otherwise it [[DependingOnTheWriter depends on the writer]] (they weren't even at her Future Wedding!).
* CaptainGeographic: Some of the superheroes.
* CavalierConsumption: Jughead is normally apathetic and somewhat aloof. The only thing he openly takes seriously is food. This results in his eating during serious discussions, with other characters getting annoyed at him. However, more often than not he really is paying attention and is simultaneously thinking on two levels: About his food and about the discussion at hand.
* CelibateHero: Jughead doesn't so much hate women anymore as he is simply not interested in romance, believing it complicates a guy's life and taxes his funds. This doesn't keep girls from hitting on him, though. Big Ethel is usually the one who pursues him, although in one story all the girls in Riverdale pursued Jughead because he was the only guy ''not'' wearing an overpowering cologne at a school dance, much to his chagrin. His blatant misogyny was altered by 1989 into being conflicted problems over women, as he had many romantic liaisons during the '90s: Joani Jummp, Debbie, January [[=McAndrews=]], Anita the disabled girl, etc.
** He also has a magical hatpin at one point that attracts girls. In a subversion, the pin [[DependingOnTheWriter (sometimes)]] makes him want to be with girls.
*** In one story, he gets a date with a girl named Terri thanks to Reggie trying to make her think Jughead's the "Second-Best Romeo In Town" but with the pin drawing Terri to Jughead, Reggie gets thwarted – and the small-scale VillainousBreakdown he goes through once Archie told what went on is priceless.
** It was explained in one comic that Jughead stays away from girls because he's witnessed how much grief they cause Archie.
--> '''Archie:''' I wonder where he found Her?
--> '''Reggie:''' You wouldn't believe me even if I ''told'' you!!
* CharacterBlog: The Archie comics website has character blogs for [[http://www.archiecomics.com/blog/archie/ Archie]], [[http://www.archiecomics.com/blog/betty/ Betty]], [[http://www.archiecomics.com/blog/veronica/ Veronica]], [[http://www.archiecomics.com/blog/reggie/ Reggie]], and [[http://www.archiecomics.com/blog/jughead/ Jughead]].
* CharacterDevelopment:
** Betty was initially shown as a more typical "domestically talented" girl, and often rather ditzy. By the 1960s, the Women's Lib movement had converted her to the more familiar tomboyish/girly-girl mix, and boosted her intelligence by a great deal.
** Jughead has also gone through a transformation, from a one-note girl-hater (often blatantly misogynistic to the point of "hating dames") into a character sometimes conflicted (the Joani Jumpp years, the recent "New Style" arc, dating a handicapped girl, etc.) about love for women, ultimately returning to the less complicated world of food.
** In the Archie's Marriage Omakes, Moose realizes that he's being abusive and possessive towards Midge, and breaks up with her. He also calms down a lot, presumably to avoid an assault charge now that he's an official adult.
* ChasedOffIntoTheSunset: A story had Jughead timing Archie for the latter's partaking in a track meet, where he is astonished to learn that he just broke the record for being the fastest there is. Come the day of the track meet, after Archie wins the race, Coach Kleats then reveals to Archie that Jughead's stopwatch is actually a lot slower than Archie, which angers Archie so much that he starts chasing Jughead at the end of the story.
* ChildhoodFriendRomance: Betty, the Victorious one, when Archie marries her. Romance sweeps the entire town when this happens.
** Of course, she turns into the Unlucky one when he marries Veronica, complete with unemployment. Naturally, the latter gets by pretty well when he marries the former instead.
* ChristmasEveryDay: In one issue, Jingles allows Archie to repeat Christmas Eve for a day so Archie can have more time to prepare, but the computer he used to turn back time gets frozen into a loop.
* ChuckCunninghamSyndrome: Used too frequently to even list all the victims. A comic with a fairly large base cast that constantly introduced new recurring characters in nearly every year, this happens a ''lot''. Ask old-school fans about "Adam the Alien", Jinx Malloy, January [=McAndrews=] or Cricket O'Dell. Even Cheryl Blossom got this in the 80s. A few characters are actually shown moving away (Cheryl in the late 1990s), but most are just casually ignored with no mentions after a few years of appearances. We'll see where the new pair of Asian girls, Wendy Weatherbee, and others end up.
** Many characters (Jinx, Cricket) simply got DemotedToExtra, while others, like Frankie Valdez, were shown having moved back to Riverdale. With Archie Comics, it's hard to tell if someone's really been dropped, as an occasional comic will have one of these minor age-old characters reappear as if nothing was different. Not to mention the Digests that reprint old stories.
* {{Cliffhanger}}: Any time Betty and Veronica try to make Archie choose between them in any media ever. True, the whole franchise runs off the LoveTriangle, but it really does have to end some time.
* ClingyJealousGirl:
** Betty and Veronica both become more than a little crazy whenever another girl takes an interest in Archie.
** Less commonly seen is how Midge goes nuts whenever another girl shows too much interest in Moose.
* ClockDiscrepancy: In a comic, Big Eater Jughead is in class, and informs the teacher, Miss Grundy, that "his stomach" says its lunchtime. She reminds Jug that the clock on the wall reads 10 before noon. At that moment, the school janitor Mr. Svenson enters the classroom with a ladder. The purpose? To adjust the clock, which he said was running ten minutes slow.
* ComicBookTime: Archie and the gang have been in high school for nearly seventy years. Someone once wrote in to the ''Archie'' letters column demanding an explanation for this, theorizing that the characters must be really, really dumb if they can't graduate. Reggie Mantle (yes, the character) responded by explaining that he and the other characters had simply [[CursedWithAwesome been stuck with eternal youth]].
* CongruentMemory
** There was one Betty and Veronica comic where Veronica was studying for a test while lying on the floor of her room. When the day of the test came around, she couldn't remember any of the information — until she lay down on the floor of the classroom in the same position she'd studied in.
** In another story, Jughead could throw snowballs easily, but couldn't get the same feeling when handling a normal baseball.
** In the same vein, Jughead was once scouted for the opera thanks to his bombastic singing voice — unfortunately, he only sang well in enclosed spaces because he did most of his singing in the bathtub.
* CoveredInKisses: Happens regularly to Archie, often from Betty.
* ConvictionByContradiction: Believe it or not, there have been a few stories where this tropes is ''inverted'' to prove a character's innocence, to prove that a painting is a forgery, etc.
* CrazyJealousGuy: The prevalent example is the ''extremely'' jealous Moose, who gets very angry whenever anyone hits on his girlfriend Midge, leading him to usually hit them as punishment.
* CriminalDoppelganger: In the {{Crossover}} ''ComicBook/ArchieMeetsThePunisher'', a criminal the Punisher has tracked to Riverdale looks very similar to Archie. The story also ends with Comicbook/{{Wolverine}} learning about [[HereWeGoAgain a dangerous mutant who looks like Jughead]].
* {{Crossover}}: Most Archie Comics characters are accepted to be in the same universe, so it's reasonable for Sabrina to show up in an Archie story, or for The Archies to perform alongside Josie and the Pussycats. The biggest example is the Civil Chore(s) story, where the writers get as many characters as they can think of together for a single-page spread.
** Or that time ComicBook/ThePunisher showed up in Riverdale in ''ComicBook/ArchieMeetsThePunisher'', one of the oddest crossovers in the entire history of comics.
** Or the ComicBook/{{Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles|Adventures}}. Coming to us in 1991 we have the '87 cartoon versions of the turtles getting vomited out of a floating, dimension spanning cow’s head (Cudley the Cowlick). Archie and the green team eventually join up and rescue Veronica from a kidnapping attempt, and still have time to get their pizza eating on before the turtles return to their own dimension.
** There also was a crossover with ''ComicBook/TinyTitans''.
** Archie 641-644 has one with ''Series/{{Glee}}'' where Dilton finds a way into the Glee universe and accidentally ends up swapping some characters around. Characters like Veronica, Jughead and Dilton end in Glee universe and viceversa.
** In issue 627 we have a 4 part mini-series where monsters are unleashed onto poor Riverdale and only the rock gods Music/{{KISS}} can save the day.
* CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass: A non-combat version with Coach Kleats. He appears to be a slow-and-overweight gym teacher and coach, and indeed, he can't run well and would kill himself if he slid into a base. But he can still hit every pitch out of the park or thread a needle with a high-velocity football pass, which is why he never ''had'' to run in either sport.
* CrushingHandshake: A story had this happen to Mr. Weatherbee when congratulating substitute hall monitor Maria Rodriguez for teaching the other students not to run in the halls. Maria is actually a [[StrongerThanTheyLook lot stronger than she looks]] so she crushes the 'Bee's hand while giving him a handshake. The last panel shows Mr. Weatherbee getting his hand bandaged by Miss Grundy.
* CutenessProximity: Characters are prone to this in general, especially Betty and Veronica. But what might be the most notable example was when Chuck marched around town being a jerk for some reason, and Archie stopped this by putting a kitten in his path. Chuck immediately picked up and played with the kitten.
* DaintyLittleBalletDancers: In one story, Archie and Reggie make fun of Veronica's "sissy" ballet instructor, until [[DanceBattler he uses dance moves to beat up]] some thugs threatening them. The two of them then take ballet lessons with him themselves.
* DarkerAndEdgier:
** The original ''Life With Archie'' series (1958-1991) featured longer, more "adventure" oriented stories than the typical Archie titles, including elements like five-alarm fires, attempted kidnappings, and... [[http://the-isb.blogspot.com/2006/01/life-in-riverdale-surprisingly.html mysterious Satanic boxes that melt people's faces off]].
** ''The Married Life'', which follows up the WhatIf storyline "Archie Marries Veronica/Archie Marries Betty", which was itself a revival of the "Life with Archie" series. Both story lines feature a dramatic soap opera-stlye depiction of the issues of married life. Both timelines end tragically with Archie dying in the "The Death of Archie".
** "Secrets of the Deep", one of those adventure-oriented stories, had an evil treasure hunter shooting at the gang with a spear gun and setting an electric eel on them!
** Which is nothing compared to 2013's ''Afterlife With Archie'' series, a straight hardcore horror written by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa,[[note]] Creator of the comic adaptation of Creator/StephenKing's ''Literature/TheStand'' and an upcoming film remake of ''Literature/{{Carrie}}''[[/note]] where Sabrina zombifies Jughead's deceased dog, who in turn bites Jughead, unleashing a plague of zombies upon Riverdale. In addition, the series contains several risque jokes and Veronica wears a SexyWhateverOutfit to the Halloween dance while Betty wears a NaughtyNurseOutfit (although at one point a character still says "[[GoshDangItToHeck Hades]]" instead of "Hell"). It is highly likely that this comic would not have been publishable had Archie Comics not ended UsefulNotes/TheComicsCode.
** To give you an idea of just how disturbing it is, they brought a model of a sandwich with Veronica's severed head to Comic-Con!
** ''ComicBook/ArchieVsPredator'' decides to go both ways by keeping the overall light tone of the original comics while also brutally murdering everyone.
* DependingOnTheArtist: The physical and [[WhereTheHellIsSpringfield geographical]] characteristics of Riverdale and its local landmarks change seemingly at will.
** These things change within stories drawn by the same artist, too, especially the design of Veronica and Archie's homes. Dan [=DeCarlo=] said in an interview that the publishers once tried to make him establish a consistent look for the interior of Archie's house, but he found it was too limiting.
* DependingOnTheWriter: Many characteristics of the characters vary over the years and between writers. Variable character traits include: Jughead's hatred of women (misogyny versus avoidance of romance), Betty's obsessiveness regarding Archie (ie. is she crazy, or just a standard young girl in love?), Veronica's bitchiness, Reggie's evil, Mr. Lodge's heartless businessman tendencies, and Archie's womanizing. Various character traits are up for grabs as well – Archie is either the best or the worst athlete on any given sports team, Jughead is either a poor or very good student, and Betty's siblings tend to disappear depending on what the current writer knows about her past. Even Betty and Veronica's status as best friend, while usually fairly consistent, has fluctuated in the past, with at least one story showing them outright hating each other.
** Enough that one could imagine that the comic spans multiple {{Alternate Universe}}s. [[FridgeBrilliance Actually, that would explain a lot]]. In fact it's implied this is canon, though the universes aren't separated by decades.
* DisneyAcidSequence: Some of the 60's-70's era "The Archies" comics.
* DispelMagic:
** The RichBitch Alexandra Cabot from ''ComicBook/JosieAndThePussycats'' series can cast witchcraft spells, but these are fragile spells whose effects are ended by as little as Melody Valentine snapping her fingers, which Melody is wont to do.
** ComicBook/{{Sabrina|TheTeenageWitch}} has cast a few of her spells so weakly, they were negated by three claps.
* DistaffCounterpart:
** Josie and her early friends were very much opposite-gender versions of the Archie gang- a redhead hero, a quirky best friend, a blonde nice character and a brunette nasty one competing over the hero, etc.
** Gender-flipped in a ''Betty and Veronica'' comic that sees the young women meet a wealthy, brunette young man named Don Sodge, and his middle-class, blonde friend Benny. The similarities they share with Betty and Veronica go so far as to have both of them trapped in a LoveTriangle with a redheaded young woman, Andi Archer. After Betty and Veronica decide to go home, Veronica and the guys awkwardly share this exchange:
--->'''Don:''' Is it because you don't think we have anything in common?\\
'''Benny:''' Is that it?\\
'''Veronica:''' Gulp! No! Absolutely not! In fact, we have too much in common! 'Bye!
* DistractedByTheSexy:
** Archie would occasionally have this problem very times that see a cute girl. Once he somehow managed to trip over a floor buffer in a hallway that had [[OffscreenTeleportation been two frames earlier completely clear.]]
** Another notable example is Veronica deliberately pulling this trope on the boys in gym class, much to Coach Kleats' annoyance. Archie gets back at her by strolling through the girls' gym class in the same way.
* TheDitz: Melody. She is an absent-minded, bubbly sort of character often taken to using silly, nonsense language, and provides much of the comic relief of the series.
* DontTryThisAtHome: One story where Veronica directly addresses the reader has her cautioning them not to follow her example, saying that she's rich and spoiled and hatching evil schemes is [[YouBastard "expected"]] of her.
* DoubleStandard:
** This is actually a frequent occurrence, with guys always being given the short end of the stick. Whenever there's a competition between guys and girls, the guys will be made extremely arrogant and put the girls down (even when this makes them OutOfCharacter) before being on the receiving end of a CurbStompBattle, but on the few occasions the guys actually win, it's always [[DownToTheLastPlay very close]] and ends with the focus on the girls in a way that encourages the reader to feel sorry for them. Then again, the target audience is young girls, [[EnforcedTrope so...]]
** Guys are also constantly assaulted by girls in various ways – slapping, kicking, pushing, hitting with their purses, being thrown into a river, and other various ways that would realistically result in some sort of legal trouble, yet they're just laughed off. On the very, very, ''very'' rare occasion a girl gets hit by a guy, it's never anything even ''close'' to what girls have done to guys over the years, and a ''huge'' deal is made out of it.
** Used in one of the comics, when Midge gets annoyed with Moose for hitting men merely for ''talking'' to her. During the course of the day, Midge catches him helping out Betty and Veronica with various things and points out to him that if she were being that friendly with a boy, he'd be furious. Moose decides that she's right and promises to ease up. [[spoiler:Turns out that this was all set up by Midge to begin with and Betty and Veronica were in on it]]. This turns into HypocriticalHumor when we see that Midge goes just as crazy whenever another girl takes a romantic interest in Moose.
* DramaticCurtainToss: Frequently. There is at least one story where Archie accidentally knocks off the head on a statue of a local businessman; he has it repaired in time for the official unveiling of the statue, but when the curtain comes off, we find out the repairman screwed up and put the head of a pig on instead. Oops.
* DumbBlonde:
** Betty Cooper used to be this in some early stories, before Women's Lib put the kibosh on that. She was often confused, ditzy, and a total loser compared to Veronica, rather than the smart, funny, athletic girl we all know today.
*** Subverted in a story where Archie shows up at Betty's house to beg her to mend a torn pocket for him in time for his date with Veronica. Betty pretends to be so ditzy and disorganized that it takes her about eight hours to do the simple repair job, during which time Archie is forced to stay there with her and stand up Veronica entirely.
** Melody would also count. There was a story in which she was certain that nylons were an endangered animal and that Josie and Alexandra's fake fur coats were made from "cute, cuddly orlons".
** Long before (as in nearly two decades before) Melody there was ComicBook/{{Suzie}} who was in many ways a Proto-Melody being a very sweet natured and gorgeous but clueless blonde.
* DumbMuscle: Moose.
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Changed line(s) 62,64 (click to see context) from:
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' (1989-present) (Cameo appearances by the "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS6E5SideshowBobRoberts stuck-up Riverdale punks]]")
* ''Archie: To Riverdale and Back Again'' (1990 TV movie)
* ''Film/NowAndThen'' (1995) (''Sugar, Sugar'' by ''The Archies'' is often heard in the soundtrack to the movie)
* ''Archie: To Riverdale and Back Again'' (1990 TV movie)
* ''Film/NowAndThen'' (1995) (''Sugar, Sugar'' by ''The Archies'' is often heard in the soundtrack to the movie)
to:
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' (1989-present) (Cameo appearances by the "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS6E5SideshowBobRoberts stuck-up Riverdale punks]]")
* ''Archie: To Riverdale and Back Again''''Film/ArchieToRiverdaleAndBackAgain'' (1990 TV movie)
* ''Film/NowAndThen'' (1995) (''Sugar, Sugar'' by ''The Archies'' is often heard in the soundtrack to themovie)
* ''Archie: To Riverdale and Back Again''
* ''Film/NowAndThen'' (1995) (''Sugar, Sugar'' by ''The Archies'' is often heard in the soundtrack to the
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* OneMillionBC: The series of "Caveman Archie" stories with prehistoric versions of Archie and the rest of the Riverdale gang.
* NinetyPercentOfYourBrain: In a story, Archie recites this statistic to his friends. Moose exclaims that 10% is "almost less than half our brains". Archie muses if the statistic is too high in some cases.
* AbhorrentAdmirer: Big Ethel for Jughead.
* AccidentalAthlete: One story has Archie and Betty walking by the football field while the team is practicing. Archie says that if they were [[DiscussedTrope in an old movie]], a stray ball would fly in his direction and he'd kick it it fifty yards, thus earning him an instant spot on the team. To Archie's chagrin, when a stray football does make it their way, it's ''Betty'' who kicks it straight between the uprights. It seems that "they don't make old movies the way they used to."
* AccidentalHero: A comic had Jughead failing as a security guard until he tripped and fell on a guy who turned out to be a shoplifter.
* AccidentalProposal: In one of the Xmas issues, Moose shows Jughead a jewellery store window with a birthstone ring. He then asks Jughead to find out from his girlfriend, Midge, if she'd like that ring for Christmas. So later, Jug casually asks Midge if she would like the ring in the store window. Midge kisses Jughead and runs off in ultimate excitement. Turns out the jeweller had since placed a diamond engagement ring in the birthstone's spot. Since Moose was normally so jealous that he was known to hospitalize other guys for merely talking to Midge, Jughead was now seriously in deep doo-doo.
* AddictionDisplacement: In an [[TheEighties eighties]] [[VerySpecialEpisode story]] on the dangers of smoking, three teenagers unintentionally create a false fire alarm by chain-smoking in the boys' washroom at school. At the end, they apologize to the principal, Mr. Weatherbee, and inform him that from now on, whenever they have nicotine cravings, they'll chew gum instead.
-->'''Weatherbee:''' Egad! Another habit I don't approve of. Oh, well. You win some, you lose some.
* TheAllegedCar: A running joke on Archie's jalopy.
** [[TakeThat It's a red Ford (a Model "T" in the classic strips and a Mustang converable in the modern ones): "Found On Road, Dead."]]
* AllGuysWantCheerleaders: Multiple cover have Archie (and some boys) show interest to cheerleader, often Betty and Veronica, and easily distracted by them during the games.
* AlliterativeName: Archie Andrews, Jughead Jones, Dilton Doiley, Coach Clayton, Trula Twyst, Evelyn Evernever, and a few others. Some are nicknames or titles, but it still fits. And possibly the best example in this group: Marmaduke Merton Matowski "Moose" Mason.
* AluminumChristmasTrees: Surprisingly, Jughead's trademark beanie was once a ''real'' fashion accessory of 1940s teenagers called a "Whoopee Cap": teens would cut their father's old fedoras into the jagged-edge rim shape, pin buttons on it, and wear them as a fashion statement. Long before that, this style of hat was popular among adult factory workers and mechanics. Nowadays, it has mutated into a form unique in itself, no longer much resembling the real-life version, and just makes Jughead look like a [[http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/12/18/comic-book-legends-revealed-186/ kook.]]
* ArtEvolution:
** There was a massive one in the late 1960s, coinciding with Dan [=DeCarlo=]'s promotion to the artist for nearly all Archie comic covers. Soon, all the new artists were mimicking his style as the 'base' Archie, though a few older artists continued to draw their own way. The shift to the unified "house style" was total enough that the clothing styles are all that can define most stories from the 1960s until now, when a few more "out there" artists like Fernando Ruiz have put their own stamp on the "[=DeCarlo=] Style".
** Then there's the "Dynamic New Look" art style, which goes for a more realistic approach. It's only used for specific story arcs, though.
** ''Comicbook/SabrinaTheTeenageWitch'' and ''JosieAndThePussycats'' both went through "manga-style" stretches.
** As of 2015, Archie ended their old Archie series that had been going for over 600 issues with a brand-new series with a completely new look.
* ArtisticLicenseSports: One story involves a new kid in town coming out of nowhere to become the star player on Riverdale's baseball team, playing shortstop. His leg is then badly injured when a player on a rival team spikes him, but he reinvents himself as an ace pitcher and leads Riverdale to the championship. It would be a great story if it wasn't utter bullcrap. As anyone who's ever pitched at any level could tell you, it is impossible to pitch on an injured leg, at least with any degree of competency.
** In another issue where Betty becomes a race car driver, the flag bearer at the racetrack waves a checkered flag at the start of her first race. The checkered flag is supposed to signal the end of a race.
* AsleepInClass: One time ([[RecycledScript or maybe more]]) Jughead painted eyeballs on his eyelids so he could sleep in class and look like he wasn't sleeping.
* BaitAndSwitchComment: [[http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/andswitch1_1088.jpg This sequence]]. "I'd like to compliment you on your good work... WHEN YOU DO SOME!"
* BannedInChina: {{In-Universe}} example. Veronica [[http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/veronica_banned_bikini_7152.jpg proudly shows off a bikini she bought]] that had been banned in Boston.
* BarbieDollAnatomy: There is not one person in the universe who knows what a nipple is.
* BatmanGambit: Reggie and Veronica played a prank on Archie by making up a story about how Mr. Weatherbee was looking for him. Then Weatherbee turns up and he really was looking for someone, to represent the school on a trip to the capital. After Archie recommends Reggie and Veronica, Weatherbee sends various messengers to summon the two to his office (the first of which is Archie himself), but Reggie, thinking that Archie is playing the same gag on him, rebuffs them each and every time. Weatherbee eventually gets fed up, and trails the next messenger, so when Reg and Veronica ignore the summons one last time, he was there, and he sent them off to detention.
* BeautyContest: Beauty contests, often of an impromptu sort, were a staple of stand-alone ''Archie'' stories during TheSeventies and TheEighties in particular. Most often, they took place at the [[BeachEpisode beach]]. A frequently-used premise had the contestants -- which nearly always included Betty and Veronica -- attempt to sweet-talk the judge(s) -- usually Archie, and sometimes Reggie as well -- into voting for them. If Midge was a contestant, this inevitably meant her boyfriend Moose threatening the judge(s) into voting for her (a reversal of the usual GreenEyedMonster Moose plots where merely glancing at Midge from a distance would earn Archie or Reggie a curb stomp).
* BerserkButton: Jughead kicks ass on a pair of robbers when they try to steal the Chocklit Shoppe's hamburger supply.
* BettyAndVeronica: The TropeNamer.
** The interesting thing about them being that Betty and Veronica are ''inseparable best friends''. They have each other's backs 99% of the time, it's just that they both want the same guy (and he's head over heels in love with them both). Stranding the three of them on a deserted island would either lead to murder… or it might be their private idea of Heaven.
** In one comic, Veronica states that they only fight over unimportant things, like boys.
** It was also originally the TropeNamer for ThirdOptionLoveInterest, back when it was known on this wiki as The Cheryl Blossom, after the aforementioned character.
* BettyAndVeronicaSwitch: Interestingly, despite being the TropeCodifier for Betty and Veronica relationships, it gets blurred once [[spoiler:Betty tries to kill Archie in an issue.]]
* BigEater: Jughead is pretty much the biggest example of this in all fiction.
* BigFancyHouse: The Lodge Estate, home of the insanely wealthy Veronica Lodge.
** The Blossom Mansion, Cheryl Blossom's home that's so large it has a tram just to get to Cheryl's bedroom in the "west wing". Archie even comments how her house makes The Lodge Estate look like a ''cottage''.
* BlondeBrunetteRedhead: Betty, Veronica, and Cheryl, since the latter's debut. Betty, Veronica, and Archie, of course. Or [[ComicBook/JosieAndThePussycats Melody, Valerie, and Josie]].
* BoyishShortHair: Cricket and Midge.
* BrandX: Done frequently, with many exceptions. See SubliminalAdvertising, below.
* BratsWithSlingshots: Veronica's (seemingly forgotten) cousin Leeroy, also frequently used by kids in general
* BreakingTheFourthWall: Frequently used – characters will "talk to the audience", and several #100 issues will have the characters deciding exactly ''how'' to celebrate their "[[MilestoneCelebration 100th issue]]".
* BreakUpMakeUpScenario: Soooo many...
* BroadStrokes: One theory about the comics is that they all take place in parallel universes, which would nicely take care of plenty of {{Canon}} problems, along with the many comics that seem to be almost [[AesopAmnesia complete duplicates of previous plots]].
** [[NotAllowedToGrowUp Not to mention the age problems]].
** The first issue of ''ComicBook/LifeWithArchieTheMarriedLife'' actually includes a display of an ''Archie'' {{multiverse}}. Dimensions include "The Happy Days of the 1940s-50s", "The Fantasy World of Little Archie", and "Archie's New Look," among others.
* ButterFace: Big Ethel, in her early days. Eventually FailPolish set in big time, to the point that in the '90s she was downright attractive with just a bad Pebbles Flintstone haircut.
* CallingMeALogarithm: Moose has a very limited vocabulary.
--> '''Moose''': "Duhhh hey! Who are you calling an Idiom!?"
* CanonForeigner: For "The New Archies", a version featuring the group set in their middle school era, the characters of Amani and Eugene were created. "Fangs" Fogarty and Ambrose appear in the elementary-setting "Little Archie". None of the four made it to the mainstream continuity in anything other than a one-shot or cameo.
** Ambrose's absence in the main stories is explained once by him moving away. There is one main story where he comes back for a visit and rekindles with Archie.
* CanonImmigrant: Betty's older siblings, Polly (a reporter) and Chick (a spy). Both debuted in the ''Little Archie'' stories of Bob Bolling when older teens were needed for the kiddie-based tales. Later on, Kathleen Webb added them to the mainline continuity as successful siblings who'd moved out of the Cooper household. ''Betty's Diary'' stories made the most use out of them- otherwise it [[DependingOnTheWriter depends on the writer]] (they weren't even at her Future Wedding!).
* CaptainGeographic: Some of the superheroes.
* CavalierConsumption: Jughead is normally apathetic and somewhat aloof. The only thing he openly takes seriously is food. This results in his eating during serious discussions, with other characters getting annoyed at him. However, more often than not he really is paying attention and is simultaneously thinking on two levels: About his food and about the discussion at hand.
* CelibateHero: Jughead doesn't so much hate women anymore as he is simply not interested in romance, believing it complicates a guy's life and taxes his funds. This doesn't keep girls from hitting on him, though. Big Ethel is usually the one who pursues him, although in one story all the girls in Riverdale pursued Jughead because he was the only guy ''not'' wearing an overpowering cologne at a school dance, much to his chagrin. His blatant misogyny was altered by 1989 into being conflicted problems over women, as he had many romantic liaisons during the '90s: Joani Jummp, Debbie, January [[=McAndrews=]], Anita the disabled girl, etc.
** He also has a magical hatpin at one point that attracts girls. In a subversion, the pin [[DependingOnTheWriter (sometimes)]] makes him want to be with girls.
*** In one story, he gets a date with a girl named Terri thanks to Reggie trying to make her think Jughead's the "Second-Best Romeo In Town" but with the pin drawing Terri to Jughead, Reggie gets thwarted – and the small-scale VillainousBreakdown he goes through once Archie told what went on is priceless.
** It was explained in one comic that Jughead stays away from girls because he's witnessed how much grief they cause Archie.
--> '''Archie:''' I wonder where he found Her?
--> '''Reggie:''' You wouldn't believe me even if I ''told'' you!!
* CharacterBlog: The Archie comics website has character blogs for [[http://www.archiecomics.com/blog/archie/ Archie]], [[http://www.archiecomics.com/blog/betty/ Betty]], [[http://www.archiecomics.com/blog/veronica/ Veronica]], [[http://www.archiecomics.com/blog/reggie/ Reggie]], and [[http://www.archiecomics.com/blog/jughead/ Jughead]].
* CharacterDevelopment:
** Betty was initially shown as a more typical "domestically talented" girl, and often rather ditzy. By the 1960s, the Women's Lib movement had converted her to the more familiar tomboyish/girly-girl mix, and boosted her intelligence by a great deal.
** Jughead has also gone through a transformation, from a one-note girl-hater (often blatantly misogynistic to the point of "hating dames") into a character sometimes conflicted (the Joani Jumpp years, the recent "New Style" arc, dating a handicapped girl, etc.) about love for women, ultimately returning to the less complicated world of food.
** In the Archie's Marriage Omakes, Moose realizes that he's being abusive and possessive towards Midge, and breaks up with her. He also calms down a lot, presumably to avoid an assault charge now that he's an official adult.
* ChasedOffIntoTheSunset: A story had Jughead timing Archie for the latter's partaking in a track meet, where he is astonished to learn that he just broke the record for being the fastest there is. Come the day of the track meet, after Archie wins the race, Coach Kleats then reveals to Archie that Jughead's stopwatch is actually a lot slower than Archie, which angers Archie so much that he starts chasing Jughead at the end of the story.
* ChildhoodFriendRomance: Betty, the Victorious one, when Archie marries her. Romance sweeps the entire town when this happens.
** Of course, she turns into the Unlucky one when he marries Veronica, complete with unemployment. Naturally, the latter gets by pretty well when he marries the former instead.
* ChristmasEveryDay: In one issue, Jingles allows Archie to repeat Christmas Eve for a day so Archie can have more time to prepare, but the computer he used to turn back time gets frozen into a loop.
* ChuckCunninghamSyndrome: Used too frequently to even list all the victims. A comic with a fairly large base cast that constantly introduced new recurring characters in nearly every year, this happens a ''lot''. Ask old-school fans about "Adam the Alien", Jinx Malloy, January [=McAndrews=] or Cricket O'Dell. Even Cheryl Blossom got this in the 80s. A few characters are actually shown moving away (Cheryl in the late 1990s), but most are just casually ignored with no mentions after a few years of appearances. We'll see where the new pair of Asian girls, Wendy Weatherbee, and others end up.
** Many characters (Jinx, Cricket) simply got DemotedToExtra, while others, like Frankie Valdez, were shown having moved back to Riverdale. With Archie Comics, it's hard to tell if someone's really been dropped, as an occasional comic will have one of these minor age-old characters reappear as if nothing was different. Not to mention the Digests that reprint old stories.
* {{Cliffhanger}}: Any time Betty and Veronica try to make Archie choose between them in any media ever. True, the whole franchise runs off the LoveTriangle, but it really does have to end some time.
* ClingyJealousGirl:
** Betty and Veronica both become more than a little crazy whenever another girl takes an interest in Archie.
** Less commonly seen is how Midge goes nuts whenever another girl shows too much interest in Moose.
* ClockDiscrepancy: In a comic, Big Eater Jughead is in class, and informs the teacher, Miss Grundy, that "his stomach" says its lunchtime. She reminds Jug that the clock on the wall reads 10 before noon. At that moment, the school janitor Mr. Svenson enters the classroom with a ladder. The purpose? To adjust the clock, which he said was running ten minutes slow.
* ComicBookTime: Archie and the gang have been in high school for nearly seventy years. Someone once wrote in to the ''Archie'' letters column demanding an explanation for this, theorizing that the characters must be really, really dumb if they can't graduate. Reggie Mantle (yes, the character) responded by explaining that he and the other characters had simply [[CursedWithAwesome been stuck with eternal youth]].
* CongruentMemory
** There was one Betty and Veronica comic where Veronica was studying for a test while lying on the floor of her room. When the day of the test came around, she couldn't remember any of the information — until she lay down on the floor of the classroom in the same position she'd studied in.
** In another story, Jughead could throw snowballs easily, but couldn't get the same feeling when handling a normal baseball.
** In the same vein, Jughead was once scouted for the opera thanks to his bombastic singing voice — unfortunately, he only sang well in enclosed spaces because he did most of his singing in the bathtub.
* CoveredInKisses: Happens regularly to Archie, often from Betty.
* ConvictionByContradiction: Believe it or not, there have been a few stories where this tropes is ''inverted'' to prove a character's innocence, to prove that a painting is a forgery, etc.
* CrazyJealousGuy: The prevalent example is the ''extremely'' jealous Moose, who gets very angry whenever anyone hits on his girlfriend Midge, leading him to usually hit them as punishment.
* CriminalDoppelganger: In the {{Crossover}} ''ComicBook/ArchieMeetsThePunisher'', a criminal the Punisher has tracked to Riverdale looks very similar to Archie. The story also ends with Comicbook/{{Wolverine}} learning about [[HereWeGoAgain a dangerous mutant who looks like Jughead]].
* {{Crossover}}: Most Archie Comics characters are accepted to be in the same universe, so it's reasonable for Sabrina to show up in an Archie story, or for The Archies to perform alongside Josie and the Pussycats. The biggest example is the Civil Chore(s) story, where the writers get as many characters as they can think of together for a single-page spread.
** Or that time ComicBook/ThePunisher showed up in Riverdale in ''ComicBook/ArchieMeetsThePunisher'', one of the oddest crossovers in the entire history of comics.
** Or the ComicBook/{{Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles|Adventures}}. Coming to us in 1991 we have the '87 cartoon versions of the turtles getting vomited out of a floating, dimension spanning cow’s head (Cudley the Cowlick). Archie and the green team eventually join up and rescue Veronica from a kidnapping attempt, and still have time to get their pizza eating on before the turtles return to their own dimension.
** There also was a crossover with ''ComicBook/TinyTitans''.
** Archie 641-644 has one with ''Series/{{Glee}}'' where Dilton finds a way into the Glee universe and accidentally ends up swapping some characters around. Characters like Veronica, Jughead and Dilton end in Glee universe and viceversa.
** In issue 627 we have a 4 part mini-series where monsters are unleashed onto poor Riverdale and only the rock gods Music/{{KISS}} can save the day.
* CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass: A non-combat version with Coach Kleats. He appears to be a slow-and-overweight gym teacher and coach, and indeed, he can't run well and would kill himself if he slid into a base. But he can still hit every pitch out of the park or thread a needle with a high-velocity football pass, which is why he never ''had'' to run in either sport.
* CrushingHandshake: A story had this happen to Mr. Weatherbee when congratulating substitute hall monitor Maria Rodriguez for teaching the other students not to run in the halls. Maria is actually a [[StrongerThanTheyLook lot stronger than she looks]] so she crushes the 'Bee's hand while giving him a handshake. The last panel shows Mr. Weatherbee getting his hand bandaged by Miss Grundy.
* CutenessProximity: Characters are prone to this in general, especially Betty and Veronica. But what might be the most notable example was when Chuck marched around town being a jerk for some reason, and Archie stopped this by putting a kitten in his path. Chuck immediately picked up and played with the kitten.
* DaintyLittleBalletDancers: In one story, Archie and Reggie make fun of Veronica's "sissy" ballet instructor, until [[DanceBattler he uses dance moves to beat up]] some thugs threatening them. The two of them then take ballet lessons with him themselves.
* DarkerAndEdgier:
** The original ''Life With Archie'' series (1958-1991) featured longer, more "adventure" oriented stories than the typical Archie titles, including elements like five-alarm fires, attempted kidnappings, and... [[http://the-isb.blogspot.com/2006/01/life-in-riverdale-surprisingly.html mysterious Satanic boxes that melt people's faces off]].
** ''The Married Life'', which follows up the WhatIf storyline "Archie Marries Veronica/Archie Marries Betty", which was itself a revival of the "Life with Archie" series. Both story lines feature a dramatic soap opera-stlye depiction of the issues of married life. Both timelines end tragically with Archie dying in the "The Death of Archie".
** "Secrets of the Deep", one of those adventure-oriented stories, had an evil treasure hunter shooting at the gang with a spear gun and setting an electric eel on them!
** Which is nothing compared to 2013's ''Afterlife With Archie'' series, a straight hardcore horror written by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa,[[note]] Creator of the comic adaptation of Creator/StephenKing's ''Literature/TheStand'' and an upcoming film remake of ''Literature/{{Carrie}}''[[/note]] where Sabrina zombifies Jughead's deceased dog, who in turn bites Jughead, unleashing a plague of zombies upon Riverdale. In addition, the series contains several risque jokes and Veronica wears a SexyWhateverOutfit to the Halloween dance while Betty wears a NaughtyNurseOutfit (although at one point a character still says "[[GoshDangItToHeck Hades]]" instead of "Hell"). It is highly likely that this comic would not have been publishable had Archie Comics not ended UsefulNotes/TheComicsCode.
** To give you an idea of just how disturbing it is, they brought a model of a sandwich with Veronica's severed head to Comic-Con!
** ''ComicBook/ArchieVsPredator'' decides to go both ways by keeping the overall light tone of the original comics while also brutally murdering everyone.
* DependingOnTheArtist: The physical and [[WhereTheHellIsSpringfield geographical]] characteristics of Riverdale and its local landmarks change seemingly at will.
** These things change within stories drawn by the same artist, too, especially the design of Veronica and Archie's homes. Dan [=DeCarlo=] said in an interview that the publishers once tried to make him establish a consistent look for the interior of Archie's house, but he found it was too limiting.
* DependingOnTheWriter: Many characteristics of the characters vary over the years and between writers. Variable character traits include: Jughead's hatred of women (misogyny versus avoidance of romance), Betty's obsessiveness regarding Archie (ie. is she crazy, or just a standard young girl in love?), Veronica's bitchiness, Reggie's evil, Mr. Lodge's heartless businessman tendencies, and Archie's womanizing. Various character traits are up for grabs as well – Archie is either the best or the worst athlete on any given sports team, Jughead is either a poor or very good student, and Betty's siblings tend to disappear depending on what the current writer knows about her past. Even Betty and Veronica's status as best friend, while usually fairly consistent, has fluctuated in the past, with at least one story showing them outright hating each other.
** Enough that one could imagine that the comic spans multiple {{Alternate Universe}}s. [[FridgeBrilliance Actually, that would explain a lot]]. In fact it's implied this is canon, though the universes aren't separated by decades.
* DisneyAcidSequence: Some of the 60's-70's era "The Archies" comics.
* DispelMagic:
** The RichBitch Alexandra Cabot from ''ComicBook/JosieAndThePussycats'' series can cast witchcraft spells, but these are fragile spells whose effects are ended by as little as Melody Valentine snapping her fingers, which Melody is wont to do.
** ComicBook/{{Sabrina|TheTeenageWitch}} has cast a few of her spells so weakly, they were negated by three claps.
* DistaffCounterpart:
** Josie and her early friends were very much opposite-gender versions of the Archie gang- a redhead hero, a quirky best friend, a blonde nice character and a brunette nasty one competing over the hero, etc.
** Gender-flipped in a ''Betty and Veronica'' comic that sees the young women meet a wealthy, brunette young man named Don Sodge, and his middle-class, blonde friend Benny. The similarities they share with Betty and Veronica go so far as to have both of them trapped in a LoveTriangle with a redheaded young woman, Andi Archer. After Betty and Veronica decide to go home, Veronica and the guys awkwardly share this exchange:
--->'''Don:''' Is it because you don't think we have anything in common?\\
'''Benny:''' Is that it?\\
'''Veronica:''' Gulp! No! Absolutely not! In fact, we have too much in common! 'Bye!
* DistractedByTheSexy:
** Archie would occasionally have this problem very times that see a cute girl. Once he somehow managed to trip over a floor buffer in a hallway that had [[OffscreenTeleportation been two frames earlier completely clear.]]
** Another notable example is Veronica deliberately pulling this trope on the boys in gym class, much to Coach Kleats' annoyance. Archie gets back at her by strolling through the girls' gym class in the same way.
* TheDitz: Melody. She is an absent-minded, bubbly sort of character often taken to using silly, nonsense language, and provides much of the comic relief of the series.
* DontTryThisAtHome: One story where Veronica directly addresses the reader has her cautioning them not to follow her example, saying that she's rich and spoiled and hatching evil schemes is [[YouBastard "expected"]] of her.
* DoubleStandard:
** This is actually a frequent occurrence, with guys always being given the short end of the stick. Whenever there's a competition between guys and girls, the guys will be made extremely arrogant and put the girls down (even when this makes them OutOfCharacter) before being on the receiving end of a CurbStompBattle, but on the few occasions the guys actually win, it's always [[DownToTheLastPlay very close]] and ends with the focus on the girls in a way that encourages the reader to feel sorry for them. Then again, the target audience is young girls, [[EnforcedTrope so...]]
** Guys are also constantly assaulted by girls in various ways – slapping, kicking, pushing, hitting with their purses, being thrown into a river, and other various ways that would realistically result in some sort of legal trouble, yet they're just laughed off. On the very, very, ''very'' rare occasion a girl gets hit by a guy, it's never anything even ''close'' to what girls have done to guys over the years, and a ''huge'' deal is made out of it.
** Used in one of the comics, when Midge gets annoyed with Moose for hitting men merely for ''talking'' to her. During the course of the day, Midge catches him helping out Betty and Veronica with various things and points out to him that if she were being that friendly with a boy, he'd be furious. Moose decides that she's right and promises to ease up. [[spoiler:Turns out that this was all set up by Midge to begin with and Betty and Veronica were in on it]]. This turns into HypocriticalHumor when we see that Midge goes just as crazy whenever another girl takes a romantic interest in Moose.
* DramaticCurtainToss: Frequently. There is at least one story where Archie accidentally knocks off the head on a statue of a local businessman; he has it repaired in time for the official unveiling of the statue, but when the curtain comes off, we find out the repairman screwed up and put the head of a pig on instead. Oops.
* DumbBlonde:
** Betty Cooper used to be this in some early stories, before Women's Lib put the kibosh on that. She was often confused, ditzy, and a total loser compared to Veronica, rather than the smart, funny, athletic girl we all know today.
*** Subverted in a story where Archie shows up at Betty's house to beg her to mend a torn pocket for him in time for his date with Veronica. Betty pretends to be so ditzy and disorganized that it takes her about eight hours to do the simple repair job, during which time Archie is forced to stay there with her and stand up Veronica entirely.
** Melody would also count. There was a story in which she was certain that nylons were an endangered animal and that Josie and Alexandra's fake fur coats were made from "cute, cuddly orlons".
** Long before (as in nearly two decades before) Melody there was ComicBook/{{Suzie}} who was in many ways a Proto-Melody being a very sweet natured and gorgeous but clueless blonde.
* DumbMuscle: Moose.
[[/folder]]
* OneMillionBC: The series of "Caveman Archie" stories with prehistoric versions of Archie and the rest of the Riverdale gang.
* NinetyPercentOfYourBrain: In a story, Archie recites this statistic to his friends. Moose exclaims that 10% is "almost less than half our brains". Archie muses if the statistic is too high in some cases.
* AbhorrentAdmirer: Big Ethel for Jughead.
* AccidentalAthlete: One story has Archie and Betty walking by the football field while the team is practicing. Archie says that if they were [[DiscussedTrope in an old movie]], a stray ball would fly in his direction and he'd kick it it fifty yards, thus earning him an instant spot on the team. To Archie's chagrin, when a stray football does make it their way, it's ''Betty'' who kicks it straight between the uprights. It seems that "they don't make old movies the way they used to."
* AccidentalHero: A comic had Jughead failing as a security guard until he tripped and fell on a guy who turned out to be a shoplifter.
* AccidentalProposal: In one of the Xmas issues, Moose shows Jughead a jewellery store window with a birthstone ring. He then asks Jughead to find out from his girlfriend, Midge, if she'd like that ring for Christmas. So later, Jug casually asks Midge if she would like the ring in the store window. Midge kisses Jughead and runs off in ultimate excitement. Turns out the jeweller had since placed a diamond engagement ring in the birthstone's spot. Since Moose was normally so jealous that he was known to hospitalize other guys for merely talking to Midge, Jughead was now seriously in deep doo-doo.
* AddictionDisplacement: In an [[TheEighties eighties]] [[VerySpecialEpisode story]] on the dangers of smoking, three teenagers unintentionally create a false fire alarm by chain-smoking in the boys' washroom at school. At the end, they apologize to the principal, Mr. Weatherbee, and inform him that from now on, whenever they have nicotine cravings, they'll chew gum instead.
-->'''Weatherbee:''' Egad! Another habit I don't approve of. Oh, well. You win some, you lose some.
* TheAllegedCar: A running joke on Archie's jalopy.
** [[TakeThat It's a red Ford (a Model "T" in the classic strips and a Mustang converable in the modern ones): "Found On Road, Dead."]]
* AllGuysWantCheerleaders: Multiple cover have Archie (and some boys) show interest to cheerleader, often Betty and Veronica, and easily distracted by them during the games.
* AlliterativeName: Archie Andrews, Jughead Jones, Dilton Doiley, Coach Clayton, Trula Twyst, Evelyn Evernever, and a few others. Some are nicknames or titles, but it still fits. And possibly the best example in this group: Marmaduke Merton Matowski "Moose" Mason.
* AluminumChristmasTrees: Surprisingly, Jughead's trademark beanie was once a ''real'' fashion accessory of 1940s teenagers called a "Whoopee Cap": teens would cut their father's old fedoras into the jagged-edge rim shape, pin buttons on it, and wear them as a fashion statement. Long before that, this style of hat was popular among adult factory workers and mechanics. Nowadays, it has mutated into a form unique in itself, no longer much resembling the real-life version, and just makes Jughead look like a [[http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/12/18/comic-book-legends-revealed-186/ kook.]]
* ArtEvolution:
** There was a massive one in the late 1960s, coinciding with Dan [=DeCarlo=]'s promotion to the artist for nearly all Archie comic covers. Soon, all the new artists were mimicking his style as the 'base' Archie, though a few older artists continued to draw their own way. The shift to the unified "house style" was total enough that the clothing styles are all that can define most stories from the 1960s until now, when a few more "out there" artists like Fernando Ruiz have put their own stamp on the "[=DeCarlo=] Style".
** Then there's the "Dynamic New Look" art style, which goes for a more realistic approach. It's only used for specific story arcs, though.
** ''Comicbook/SabrinaTheTeenageWitch'' and ''JosieAndThePussycats'' both went through "manga-style" stretches.
** As of 2015, Archie ended their old Archie series that had been going for over 600 issues with a brand-new series with a completely new look.
* ArtisticLicenseSports: One story involves a new kid in town coming out of nowhere to become the star player on Riverdale's baseball team, playing shortstop. His leg is then badly injured when a player on a rival team spikes him, but he reinvents himself as an ace pitcher and leads Riverdale to the championship. It would be a great story if it wasn't utter bullcrap. As anyone who's ever pitched at any level could tell you, it is impossible to pitch on an injured leg, at least with any degree of competency.
** In another issue where Betty becomes a race car driver, the flag bearer at the racetrack waves a checkered flag at the start of her first race. The checkered flag is supposed to signal the end of a race.
* AsleepInClass: One time ([[RecycledScript or maybe more]]) Jughead painted eyeballs on his eyelids so he could sleep in class and look like he wasn't sleeping.
* BaitAndSwitchComment: [[http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/andswitch1_1088.jpg This sequence]]. "I'd like to compliment you on your good work... WHEN YOU DO SOME!"
* BannedInChina: {{In-Universe}} example. Veronica [[http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/veronica_banned_bikini_7152.jpg proudly shows off a bikini she bought]] that had been banned in Boston.
* BarbieDollAnatomy: There is not one person in the universe who knows what a nipple is.
* BatmanGambit: Reggie and Veronica played a prank on Archie by making up a story about how Mr. Weatherbee was looking for him. Then Weatherbee turns up and he really was looking for someone, to represent the school on a trip to the capital. After Archie recommends Reggie and Veronica, Weatherbee sends various messengers to summon the two to his office (the first of which is Archie himself), but Reggie, thinking that Archie is playing the same gag on him, rebuffs them each and every time. Weatherbee eventually gets fed up, and trails the next messenger, so when Reg and Veronica ignore the summons one last time, he was there, and he sent them off to detention.
* BeautyContest: Beauty contests, often of an impromptu sort, were a staple of stand-alone ''Archie'' stories during TheSeventies and TheEighties in particular. Most often, they took place at the [[BeachEpisode beach]]. A frequently-used premise had the contestants -- which nearly always included Betty and Veronica -- attempt to sweet-talk the judge(s) -- usually Archie, and sometimes Reggie as well -- into voting for them. If Midge was a contestant, this inevitably meant her boyfriend Moose threatening the judge(s) into voting for her (a reversal of the usual GreenEyedMonster Moose plots where merely glancing at Midge from a distance would earn Archie or Reggie a curb stomp).
* BerserkButton: Jughead kicks ass on a pair of robbers when they try to steal the Chocklit Shoppe's hamburger supply.
* BettyAndVeronica: The TropeNamer.
** The interesting thing about them being that Betty and Veronica are ''inseparable best friends''. They have each other's backs 99% of the time, it's just that they both want the same guy (and he's head over heels in love with them both). Stranding the three of them on a deserted island would either lead to murder… or it might be their private idea of Heaven.
** In one comic, Veronica states that they only fight over unimportant things, like boys.
** It was also originally the TropeNamer for ThirdOptionLoveInterest, back when it was known on this wiki as The Cheryl Blossom, after the aforementioned character.
* BettyAndVeronicaSwitch: Interestingly, despite being the TropeCodifier for Betty and Veronica relationships, it gets blurred once [[spoiler:Betty tries to kill Archie in an issue.]]
* BigEater: Jughead is pretty much the biggest example of this in all fiction.
* BigFancyHouse: The Lodge Estate, home of the insanely wealthy Veronica Lodge.
** The Blossom Mansion, Cheryl Blossom's home that's so large it has a tram just to get to Cheryl's bedroom in the "west wing". Archie even comments how her house makes The Lodge Estate look like a ''cottage''.
* BlondeBrunetteRedhead: Betty, Veronica, and Cheryl, since the latter's debut. Betty, Veronica, and Archie, of course. Or [[ComicBook/JosieAndThePussycats Melody, Valerie, and Josie]].
* BoyishShortHair: Cricket and Midge.
* BrandX: Done frequently, with many exceptions. See SubliminalAdvertising, below.
* BratsWithSlingshots: Veronica's (seemingly forgotten) cousin Leeroy, also frequently used by kids in general
* BreakingTheFourthWall: Frequently used – characters will "talk to the audience", and several #100 issues will have the characters deciding exactly ''how'' to celebrate their "[[MilestoneCelebration 100th issue]]".
* BreakUpMakeUpScenario: Soooo many...
* BroadStrokes: One theory about the comics is that they all take place in parallel universes, which would nicely take care of plenty of {{Canon}} problems, along with the many comics that seem to be almost [[AesopAmnesia complete duplicates of previous plots]].
** [[NotAllowedToGrowUp Not to mention the age problems]].
** The first issue of ''ComicBook/LifeWithArchieTheMarriedLife'' actually includes a display of an ''Archie'' {{multiverse}}. Dimensions include "The Happy Days of the 1940s-50s", "The Fantasy World of Little Archie", and "Archie's New Look," among others.
* ButterFace: Big Ethel, in her early days. Eventually FailPolish set in big time, to the point that in the '90s she was downright attractive with just a bad Pebbles Flintstone haircut.
* CallingMeALogarithm: Moose has a very limited vocabulary.
--> '''Moose''': "Duhhh hey! Who are you calling an Idiom!?"
* CanonForeigner: For "The New Archies", a version featuring the group set in their middle school era, the characters of Amani and Eugene were created. "Fangs" Fogarty and Ambrose appear in the elementary-setting "Little Archie". None of the four made it to the mainstream continuity in anything other than a one-shot or cameo.
** Ambrose's absence in the main stories is explained once by him moving away. There is one main story where he comes back for a visit and rekindles with Archie.
* CanonImmigrant: Betty's older siblings, Polly (a reporter) and Chick (a spy). Both debuted in the ''Little Archie'' stories of Bob Bolling when older teens were needed for the kiddie-based tales. Later on, Kathleen Webb added them to the mainline continuity as successful siblings who'd moved out of the Cooper household. ''Betty's Diary'' stories made the most use out of them- otherwise it [[DependingOnTheWriter depends on the writer]] (they weren't even at her Future Wedding!).
* CaptainGeographic: Some of the superheroes.
* CavalierConsumption: Jughead is normally apathetic and somewhat aloof. The only thing he openly takes seriously is food. This results in his eating during serious discussions, with other characters getting annoyed at him. However, more often than not he really is paying attention and is simultaneously thinking on two levels: About his food and about the discussion at hand.
* CelibateHero: Jughead doesn't so much hate women anymore as he is simply not interested in romance, believing it complicates a guy's life and taxes his funds. This doesn't keep girls from hitting on him, though. Big Ethel is usually the one who pursues him, although in one story all the girls in Riverdale pursued Jughead because he was the only guy ''not'' wearing an overpowering cologne at a school dance, much to his chagrin. His blatant misogyny was altered by 1989 into being conflicted problems over women, as he had many romantic liaisons during the '90s: Joani Jummp, Debbie, January [[=McAndrews=]], Anita the disabled girl, etc.
** He also has a magical hatpin at one point that attracts girls. In a subversion, the pin [[DependingOnTheWriter (sometimes)]] makes him want to be with girls.
*** In one story, he gets a date with a girl named Terri thanks to Reggie trying to make her think Jughead's the "Second-Best Romeo In Town" but with the pin drawing Terri to Jughead, Reggie gets thwarted – and the small-scale VillainousBreakdown he goes through once Archie told what went on is priceless.
** It was explained in one comic that Jughead stays away from girls because he's witnessed how much grief they cause Archie.
--> '''Archie:''' I wonder where he found Her?
--> '''Reggie:''' You wouldn't believe me even if I ''told'' you!!
* CharacterBlog: The Archie comics website has character blogs for [[http://www.archiecomics.com/blog/archie/ Archie]], [[http://www.archiecomics.com/blog/betty/ Betty]], [[http://www.archiecomics.com/blog/veronica/ Veronica]], [[http://www.archiecomics.com/blog/reggie/ Reggie]], and [[http://www.archiecomics.com/blog/jughead/ Jughead]].
* CharacterDevelopment:
** Betty was initially shown as a more typical "domestically talented" girl, and often rather ditzy. By the 1960s, the Women's Lib movement had converted her to the more familiar tomboyish/girly-girl mix, and boosted her intelligence by a great deal.
** Jughead has also gone through a transformation, from a one-note girl-hater (often blatantly misogynistic to the point of "hating dames") into a character sometimes conflicted (the Joani Jumpp years, the recent "New Style" arc, dating a handicapped girl, etc.) about love for women, ultimately returning to the less complicated world of food.
** In the Archie's Marriage Omakes, Moose realizes that he's being abusive and possessive towards Midge, and breaks up with her. He also calms down a lot, presumably to avoid an assault charge now that he's an official adult.
* ChasedOffIntoTheSunset: A story had Jughead timing Archie for the latter's partaking in a track meet, where he is astonished to learn that he just broke the record for being the fastest there is. Come the day of the track meet, after Archie wins the race, Coach Kleats then reveals to Archie that Jughead's stopwatch is actually a lot slower than Archie, which angers Archie so much that he starts chasing Jughead at the end of the story.
* ChildhoodFriendRomance: Betty, the Victorious one, when Archie marries her. Romance sweeps the entire town when this happens.
** Of course, she turns into the Unlucky one when he marries Veronica, complete with unemployment. Naturally, the latter gets by pretty well when he marries the former instead.
* ChristmasEveryDay: In one issue, Jingles allows Archie to repeat Christmas Eve for a day so Archie can have more time to prepare, but the computer he used to turn back time gets frozen into a loop.
* ChuckCunninghamSyndrome: Used too frequently to even list all the victims. A comic with a fairly large base cast that constantly introduced new recurring characters in nearly every year, this happens a ''lot''. Ask old-school fans about "Adam the Alien", Jinx Malloy, January [=McAndrews=] or Cricket O'Dell. Even Cheryl Blossom got this in the 80s. A few characters are actually shown moving away (Cheryl in the late 1990s), but most are just casually ignored with no mentions after a few years of appearances. We'll see where the new pair of Asian girls, Wendy Weatherbee, and others end up.
** Many characters (Jinx, Cricket) simply got DemotedToExtra, while others, like Frankie Valdez, were shown having moved back to Riverdale. With Archie Comics, it's hard to tell if someone's really been dropped, as an occasional comic will have one of these minor age-old characters reappear as if nothing was different. Not to mention the Digests that reprint old stories.
* {{Cliffhanger}}: Any time Betty and Veronica try to make Archie choose between them in any media ever. True, the whole franchise runs off the LoveTriangle, but it really does have to end some time.
* ClingyJealousGirl:
** Betty and Veronica both become more than a little crazy whenever another girl takes an interest in Archie.
** Less commonly seen is how Midge goes nuts whenever another girl shows too much interest in Moose.
* ClockDiscrepancy: In a comic, Big Eater Jughead is in class, and informs the teacher, Miss Grundy, that "his stomach" says its lunchtime. She reminds Jug that the clock on the wall reads 10 before noon. At that moment, the school janitor Mr. Svenson enters the classroom with a ladder. The purpose? To adjust the clock, which he said was running ten minutes slow.
* ComicBookTime: Archie and the gang have been in high school for nearly seventy years. Someone once wrote in to the ''Archie'' letters column demanding an explanation for this, theorizing that the characters must be really, really dumb if they can't graduate. Reggie Mantle (yes, the character) responded by explaining that he and the other characters had simply [[CursedWithAwesome been stuck with eternal youth]].
* CongruentMemory
** There was one Betty and Veronica comic where Veronica was studying for a test while lying on the floor of her room. When the day of the test came around, she couldn't remember any of the information — until she lay down on the floor of the classroom in the same position she'd studied in.
** In another story, Jughead could throw snowballs easily, but couldn't get the same feeling when handling a normal baseball.
** In the same vein, Jughead was once scouted for the opera thanks to his bombastic singing voice — unfortunately, he only sang well in enclosed spaces because he did most of his singing in the bathtub.
* CoveredInKisses: Happens regularly to Archie, often from Betty.
* ConvictionByContradiction: Believe it or not, there have been a few stories where this tropes is ''inverted'' to prove a character's innocence, to prove that a painting is a forgery, etc.
* CrazyJealousGuy: The prevalent example is the ''extremely'' jealous Moose, who gets very angry whenever anyone hits on his girlfriend Midge, leading him to usually hit them as punishment.
* CriminalDoppelganger: In the {{Crossover}} ''ComicBook/ArchieMeetsThePunisher'', a criminal the Punisher has tracked to Riverdale looks very similar to Archie. The story also ends with Comicbook/{{Wolverine}} learning about [[HereWeGoAgain a dangerous mutant who looks like Jughead]].
* {{Crossover}}: Most Archie Comics characters are accepted to be in the same universe, so it's reasonable for Sabrina to show up in an Archie story, or for The Archies to perform alongside Josie and the Pussycats. The biggest example is the Civil Chore(s) story, where the writers get as many characters as they can think of together for a single-page spread.
** Or that time ComicBook/ThePunisher showed up in Riverdale in ''ComicBook/ArchieMeetsThePunisher'', one of the oddest crossovers in the entire history of comics.
** Or the ComicBook/{{Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles|Adventures}}. Coming to us in 1991 we have the '87 cartoon versions of the turtles getting vomited out of a floating, dimension spanning cow’s head (Cudley the Cowlick). Archie and the green team eventually join up and rescue Veronica from a kidnapping attempt, and still have time to get their pizza eating on before the turtles return to their own dimension.
** There also was a crossover with ''ComicBook/TinyTitans''.
** Archie 641-644 has one with ''Series/{{Glee}}'' where Dilton finds a way into the Glee universe and accidentally ends up swapping some characters around. Characters like Veronica, Jughead and Dilton end in Glee universe and viceversa.
** In issue 627 we have a 4 part mini-series where monsters are unleashed onto poor Riverdale and only the rock gods Music/{{KISS}} can save the day.
* CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass: A non-combat version with Coach Kleats. He appears to be a slow-and-overweight gym teacher and coach, and indeed, he can't run well and would kill himself if he slid into a base. But he can still hit every pitch out of the park or thread a needle with a high-velocity football pass, which is why he never ''had'' to run in either sport.
* CrushingHandshake: A story had this happen to Mr. Weatherbee when congratulating substitute hall monitor Maria Rodriguez for teaching the other students not to run in the halls. Maria is actually a [[StrongerThanTheyLook lot stronger than she looks]] so she crushes the 'Bee's hand while giving him a handshake. The last panel shows Mr. Weatherbee getting his hand bandaged by Miss Grundy.
* CutenessProximity: Characters are prone to this in general, especially Betty and Veronica. But what might be the most notable example was when Chuck marched around town being a jerk for some reason, and Archie stopped this by putting a kitten in his path. Chuck immediately picked up and played with the kitten.
* DaintyLittleBalletDancers: In one story, Archie and Reggie make fun of Veronica's "sissy" ballet instructor, until [[DanceBattler he uses dance moves to beat up]] some thugs threatening them. The two of them then take ballet lessons with him themselves.
* DarkerAndEdgier:
** The original ''Life With Archie'' series (1958-1991) featured longer, more "adventure" oriented stories than the typical Archie titles, including elements like five-alarm fires, attempted kidnappings, and... [[http://the-isb.blogspot.com/2006/01/life-in-riverdale-surprisingly.html mysterious Satanic boxes that melt people's faces off]].
** ''The Married Life'', which follows up the WhatIf storyline "Archie Marries Veronica/Archie Marries Betty", which was itself a revival of the "Life with Archie" series. Both story lines feature a dramatic soap opera-stlye depiction of the issues of married life. Both timelines end tragically with Archie dying in the "The Death of Archie".
** "Secrets of the Deep", one of those adventure-oriented stories, had an evil treasure hunter shooting at the gang with a spear gun and setting an electric eel on them!
** Which is nothing compared to 2013's ''Afterlife With Archie'' series, a straight hardcore horror written by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa,[[note]] Creator of the comic adaptation of Creator/StephenKing's ''Literature/TheStand'' and an upcoming film remake of ''Literature/{{Carrie}}''[[/note]] where Sabrina zombifies Jughead's deceased dog, who in turn bites Jughead, unleashing a plague of zombies upon Riverdale. In addition, the series contains several risque jokes and Veronica wears a SexyWhateverOutfit to the Halloween dance while Betty wears a NaughtyNurseOutfit (although at one point a character still says "[[GoshDangItToHeck Hades]]" instead of "Hell"). It is highly likely that this comic would not have been publishable had Archie Comics not ended UsefulNotes/TheComicsCode.
** To give you an idea of just how disturbing it is, they brought a model of a sandwich with Veronica's severed head to Comic-Con!
** ''ComicBook/ArchieVsPredator'' decides to go both ways by keeping the overall light tone of the original comics while also brutally murdering everyone.
* DependingOnTheArtist: The physical and [[WhereTheHellIsSpringfield geographical]] characteristics of Riverdale and its local landmarks change seemingly at will.
** These things change within stories drawn by the same artist, too, especially the design of Veronica and Archie's homes. Dan [=DeCarlo=] said in an interview that the publishers once tried to make him establish a consistent look for the interior of Archie's house, but he found it was too limiting.
* DependingOnTheWriter: Many characteristics of the characters vary over the years and between writers. Variable character traits include: Jughead's hatred of women (misogyny versus avoidance of romance), Betty's obsessiveness regarding Archie (ie. is she crazy, or just a standard young girl in love?), Veronica's bitchiness, Reggie's evil, Mr. Lodge's heartless businessman tendencies, and Archie's womanizing. Various character traits are up for grabs as well – Archie is either the best or the worst athlete on any given sports team, Jughead is either a poor or very good student, and Betty's siblings tend to disappear depending on what the current writer knows about her past. Even Betty and Veronica's status as best friend, while usually fairly consistent, has fluctuated in the past, with at least one story showing them outright hating each other.
** Enough that one could imagine that the comic spans multiple {{Alternate Universe}}s. [[FridgeBrilliance Actually, that would explain a lot]]. In fact it's implied this is canon, though the universes aren't separated by decades.
* DisneyAcidSequence: Some of the 60's-70's era "The Archies" comics.
* DispelMagic:
** The RichBitch Alexandra Cabot from ''ComicBook/JosieAndThePussycats'' series can cast witchcraft spells, but these are fragile spells whose effects are ended by as little as Melody Valentine snapping her fingers, which Melody is wont to do.
** ComicBook/{{Sabrina|TheTeenageWitch}} has cast a few of her spells so weakly, they were negated by three claps.
* DistaffCounterpart:
** Josie and her early friends were very much opposite-gender versions of the Archie gang- a redhead hero, a quirky best friend, a blonde nice character and a brunette nasty one competing over the hero, etc.
** Gender-flipped in a ''Betty and Veronica'' comic that sees the young women meet a wealthy, brunette young man named Don Sodge, and his middle-class, blonde friend Benny. The similarities they share with Betty and Veronica go so far as to have both of them trapped in a LoveTriangle with a redheaded young woman, Andi Archer. After Betty and Veronica decide to go home, Veronica and the guys awkwardly share this exchange:
--->'''Don:''' Is it because you don't think we have anything in common?\\
'''Benny:''' Is that it?\\
'''Veronica:''' Gulp! No! Absolutely not! In fact, we have too much in common! 'Bye!
* DistractedByTheSexy:
** Archie would occasionally have this problem very times that see a cute girl. Once he somehow managed to trip over a floor buffer in a hallway that had [[OffscreenTeleportation been two frames earlier completely clear.]]
** Another notable example is Veronica deliberately pulling this trope on the boys in gym class, much to Coach Kleats' annoyance. Archie gets back at her by strolling through the girls' gym class in the same way.
* TheDitz: Melody. She is an absent-minded, bubbly sort of character often taken to using silly, nonsense language, and provides much of the comic relief of the series.
* DontTryThisAtHome: One story where Veronica directly addresses the reader has her cautioning them not to follow her example, saying that she's rich and spoiled and hatching evil schemes is [[YouBastard "expected"]] of her.
* DoubleStandard:
** This is actually a frequent occurrence, with guys always being given the short end of the stick. Whenever there's a competition between guys and girls, the guys will be made extremely arrogant and put the girls down (even when this makes them OutOfCharacter) before being on the receiving end of a CurbStompBattle, but on the few occasions the guys actually win, it's always [[DownToTheLastPlay very close]] and ends with the focus on the girls in a way that encourages the reader to feel sorry for them. Then again, the target audience is young girls, [[EnforcedTrope so...]]
** Guys are also constantly assaulted by girls in various ways – slapping, kicking, pushing, hitting with their purses, being thrown into a river, and other various ways that would realistically result in some sort of legal trouble, yet they're just laughed off. On the very, very, ''very'' rare occasion a girl gets hit by a guy, it's never anything even ''close'' to what girls have done to guys over the years, and a ''huge'' deal is made out of it.
** Used in one of the comics, when Midge gets annoyed with Moose for hitting men merely for ''talking'' to her. During the course of the day, Midge catches him helping out Betty and Veronica with various things and points out to him that if she were being that friendly with a boy, he'd be furious. Moose decides that she's right and promises to ease up. [[spoiler:Turns out that this was all set up by Midge to begin with and Betty and Veronica were in on it]]. This turns into HypocriticalHumor when we see that Midge goes just as crazy whenever another girl takes a romantic interest in Moose.
* DramaticCurtainToss: Frequently. There is at least one story where Archie accidentally knocks off the head on a statue of a local businessman; he has it repaired in time for the official unveiling of the statue, but when the curtain comes off, we find out the repairman screwed up and put the head of a pig on instead. Oops.
* DumbBlonde:
** Betty Cooper used to be this in some early stories, before Women's Lib put the kibosh on that. She was often confused, ditzy, and a total loser compared to Veronica, rather than the smart, funny, athletic girl we all know today.
*** Subverted in a story where Archie shows up at Betty's house to beg her to mend a torn pocket for him in time for his date with Veronica. Betty pretends to be so ditzy and disorganized that it takes her about eight hours to do the simple repair job, during which time Archie is forced to stay there with her and stand up Veronica entirely.
** Melody would also count. There was a story in which she was certain that nylons were an endangered animal and that Josie and Alexandra's fake fur coats were made from "cute, cuddly orlons".
** Long before (as in nearly two decades before) Melody there was ComicBook/{{Suzie}} who was in many ways a Proto-Melody being a very sweet natured and gorgeous but clueless blonde.
* DumbMuscle: Moose.
[[/folder]]
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* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: Archie's first story establishes that the titular hero actually hates his first name and insists on the nickname "Chick". This peculiarity is entirely forgotten by the second story.
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* GoneSwimmingClothesStolen: While on a wilderness outing with Archie, Betty becomes covered with mud and washes off in a nearby lake,only to have her clothes stolen by a homeless boy. Archie loans her his shirt to cover up with while they track down what happened.
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* CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass: A non-combat version with Coach Kleats. He appears to be a slow-and-overweight gym teacher and coach, and indeed, he can't run well and would kill himself if he slid into a base. But he can still hit every pitch out of the park or thread a needle with a high-velocity football pass, which is why he never ''had'' to run in either sport.
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Crosswicking
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* ChristmasEveryDay: In one issue, Jingles allows Archie to repeat Christmas Eve for a day so Archie can have more time to prepare, but the computer he used to turn back time gets frozen into a loop.
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* ArtEvolution: There was a massive one in the late 1960s, coinciding with Dan [=DeCarlo=]'s promotion to the artist for nearly all Archie comic covers. Soon, all the new artists were mimicking his style as the 'base' Archie, though a few older artists continued to draw their own way. The shift to the unified "house style" was total enough that the clothing styles are all that can define most stories from the 1960s until now, when a few more "out there" artists like Fernando Ruiz have put their own stamp on the "[=DeCarlo=] Style".
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* ArtEvolution: ArtEvolution:
** There was a massive one in the late 1960s, coinciding with Dan [=DeCarlo=]'s promotion to the artist for nearly all Archie comic covers. Soon, all the new artists were mimicking his style as the 'base' Archie, though a few older artists continued to draw their own way. The shift to the unified "house style" was total enough that the clothing styles are all that can define most stories from the 1960s until now, when a few more "out there" artists like Fernando Ruiz have put their own stamp on the "[=DeCarlo=] Style".
** There was a massive one in the late 1960s, coinciding with Dan [=DeCarlo=]'s promotion to the artist for nearly all Archie comic covers. Soon, all the new artists were mimicking his style as the 'base' Archie, though a few older artists continued to draw their own way. The shift to the unified "house style" was total enough that the clothing styles are all that can define most stories from the 1960s until now, when a few more "out there" artists like Fernando Ruiz have put their own stamp on the "[=DeCarlo=] Style".
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** ''Comicbook/SabrinaTheTeenageWitch'' has gone "manga-style".
*** So has ''JosieAndThePussycats''.
*** So has ''JosieAndThePussycats''.
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** ''Comicbook/SabrinaTheTeenageWitch'' has gone "manga-style".
*** So has ''JosieAndThePussycats''.and ''JosieAndThePussycats'' both went through "manga-style" stretches.
*** So has ''JosieAndThePussycats''.
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* SelfMadeMan: Sometimes Mr. Lodge is written has being born into a wealthy family or he's written as building his own wealth from a middle-class existence. And the trope is subverted hard in [[http://riverdalegirlsrule.tumblr.com/post/101656548934 this comic]].
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* SelfMadeMan: Sometimes Mr. Lodge is written has being born into a wealthy family or he's written as building his own wealth from a middle-class existence. And the trope is subverted hard in [[http://riverdalegirlsrule.tumblr.com/post/101656548934 this comic]].
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* {{Somethingitis}}: When Archie is being examined by the school doctor.
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* {{Somethingitis}}: [[{{Somethingitis}} Something-itis]]: When Archie is being examined by the school doctor.
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* {{Somethingitis}}: When Archie is being examined by the school doctor.
-->'''Archie:''' I think I've got the bug that's going around.
-->'''Doctor:''' Yes, I know. It's called "Dodge-an-exam-itis".
-->'''Archie:''' I think I've got the bug that's going around.
-->'''Doctor:''' Yes, I know. It's called "Dodge-an-exam-itis".
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* ''Comicbook/JosieAndThePussycats'' (1963-)
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* ''Comicbook/JosieAndThePussycats'' ''ComicBook/JosieAndThePussycats'' (1963-)
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* ''[[ComicBook/SabrinaTheTeenageWitch Sabrina the Teenage Witch]]''
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* ''[[ComicBook/SabrinaTheTeenageWitch Sabrina the Teenage Witch]]'' ''ComicBook/SabrinaTheTeenageWitch''
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* ''Series/{{Riverdale}}'' (2017) (Live-action drama)
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* ''Series/{{Riverdale}}'' (2017) (2017-present) (Live-action drama)
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* InterclassFriendship: Betty and Veronica. Betty is not dirt poor, but everyone in Riverdale is in comparison with the super-rich Lodge family. When they're not feuding over Archie, they're good friends. And when they are, it's mostly [[FriendlyRivalry friendly]].
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* FriendlyRivalry: Betty and Veronica [[DependingOnTheWriter sometimes]] have this dynamic.
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* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: Forsy the "Jughead" Jones and Marmaduke "Moose" Mason.
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* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: Forsy OnlyKnownByTheirNickname:
** Jughead Jones'real name is Forsythe. Similarly, his sister Jellybean Jones; real name is Forsythia.
** Pretty much everyone in the"Jughead" Jones comics goes by a nickname, which usually are just shortened versions of their names (Archie is named Archibald, Betty is named Elizabeth, Moose is named Marmaduke, etc). Only Veronica gets called by her name often, and Marmaduke "Moose" Mason.even then you'll see it as "Ronnie" or "Ron" just as much.
** Jughead Jones'real name is Forsythe. Similarly, his sister Jellybean Jones; real name is Forsythia.
** Pretty much everyone in the
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** Pat Kiernan, the reporter covering Occupy Riverdale, is the morning anchor for NY1, a 24-hour cable-news television channel focusing on the five boroughs of New York City. (He's also known for playing himself or a reporter in several TV and movie cameos, and hosting/"question reading" a few game shows in the 2000s. TheOtherWiki has more info on his career.)
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** Pat Kiernan, the reporter covering Occupy Riverdale, is the morning anchor for NY1, a 24-hour cable-news television channel focusing on the five boroughs of New York City. (He's also known for playing himself or a reporter in several TV and movie cameos, and hosting/"question reading" a few game shows in the 2000s. TheOtherWiki Wiki/TheOtherWiki has more info on his career.)
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* OnlyChildSyndrome: Out of the gang (according to TheOtherWiki), only Jughead, Betty, Cheryl, and Jason have known siblings (the latter two being twins).
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* OnlyChildSyndrome: Out of the gang (according to TheOtherWiki), Wiki/TheOtherWiki), only Jughead, Betty, Cheryl, and Jason have known siblings (the latter two being twins).
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* ''ComicBook/SonicTheHedgehogMegaManWorldsCollide''
* ''ComicBook/SonicTheHedgehogMegaManWorldsUnite''
* ''ComicBook/SonicTheHedgehogMegaManWorldsUnite''
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** ''ComicBook/SonicBoom''
** ''ComicBook/SonicX''
** ''ComicBook/SonicX''
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* DaintyLittleBalletDancers: In one story, Archie and Reggie make fun of Veronica's "sissy" ballet instructor, until [[DanceBattler he uses dance moves to beat up]] some thugs threatening them. The two of them then take ballet lessons with him themselves.
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* RipTailoring: One story has Betty and Veronica coming to school wearing the exact same outfit. Veronica sabotages Betty's dress, creating a tear in the bottom part of the skirt. Instead of going home to get her dress replaced, Betty just sews the tear into a fashionable (and very {{Fanservice}}-laden) addition.
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Changed line(s) 70 (click to see context) from:
* ''Series/{{Riverdale}}'' (2016) (Live-action drama)
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* ''Series/{{Riverdale}}'' (2016) (2017) (Live-action drama)
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* BigFancyHouse: The Lodge Estate, home of the insanely wealthy Veronica Lodge.
** The Blossom Mansion, Cheryl Blossom's home that's so large it has a tram just to get to Cheryl's bedroom in the "west wing". Archie even comments how her house makes The Lodge Estate look like a ''cottage''.
** The Blossom Mansion, Cheryl Blossom's home that's so large it has a tram just to get to Cheryl's bedroom in the "west wing". Archie even comments how her house makes The Lodge Estate look like a ''cottage''.
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* {{Cliffhanger}}: Any time Betty and Veronica try to make Archie choose between them in any media ever. True, the whole franchise runs off the LoveTriangle, but it really does have to end some time.
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** [[TakeThat It's a red Ford (a Model "T" in the classic strips and a Mustang converable in the modern ones): "Found On Road, Dead."]]
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* UnlimitedWardrobe: Betty and Veronica are classic examples of this trope. It's also one of the rare instances when is justified for both girls. Veronica obviously has the money to buy whatever clothes she wants...and as for Betty, in some stories she's developed an impressive wardrobe of her own because Veronica just hands off any clothes she gets tired of to Betty. Not that Betty necessarily minds, since Veronica's generosity allows her to keep up with Ronnie in fashion despite her much more limited finances.
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* FrenchMaid: The Lodge have some of these in their mansion. Once Archie is ''too attentive'' to Veronica's new French maid.
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Changed line(s) 424 (click to see context) from:
** There was a shout-out to the Creator/DiC dub of ''Manga/SailorMoon''. Betty and Veronica were pursuing a man named "Maxfield Standin" who looked exactly like his [[http://sailormoon.wikia.com/wiki/Usagi_is_Thrilled!_Tuxedo_Mask's_Love_Letter#Gallery source material]].
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** There was a shout-out to the Creator/DiC dub of ''Manga/SailorMoon''. Betty and Veronica were pursuing a man named "Maxfield Standin" who looked exactly like his [[http://sailormoon.wikia.com/wiki/Usagi_is_Thrilled!_Tuxedo_Mask's_Love_Letter#Gallery [[http://amandamoon.www3.50megs.com/maskedman/maskedman.html source material]].
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Changed line(s) 424 (click to see context) from:
** There was a shout-out to the Creator/DiC dub of ''Manga/SailorMoon''. Betty and Veronica were pursuing a man named "Maxfield Standin" who looked exactly like his [[http://amandamoon.www3.50megs.com/maskedman/maskedman.html source material]].
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** There was a shout-out to the Creator/DiC dub of ''Manga/SailorMoon''. Betty and Veronica were pursuing a man named "Maxfield Standin" who looked exactly like his [[http://amandamoon.www3.50megs.com/maskedman/maskedman.html [[http://sailormoon.wikia.com/wiki/Usagi_is_Thrilled!_Tuxedo_Mask's_Love_Letter#Gallery source material]].
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** Or that time ComicBook/ThePunisher showed up in Riverdale in ''ComicBook/ArchieMeetsThePunisher'', one of most odd crossover in the entire history of comics.
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** Or that time ComicBook/ThePunisher showed up in Riverdale in ''ComicBook/ArchieMeetsThePunisher'', one of most odd crossover the oddest crossovers in the entire history of comics.
