- Broken Aesop:
- "Brain of Terror" seems to advocate succeeding in academics the old-fashioned way, by working at it...which is harder to do than using a thinking cap to become smarter. To deal with the way Dilton's invention messes with the lesson, the episode introduces the idea that his cap helps you memorize but not understand. This makes for an interesting plot point, but seems at odd with some of the events in the episode: 1)Moose builds a Perpetual Motion Machine, which would require inventive skills rather than just memorization — even if he can't explain how he came up with it and 2) Becoming a straight-A student should require more than just memory, unless Riverdale's education system is based on rote memorization.
- "Extra-Terror-Estrial" is the typical "don't judge a book by its cover" as Betty thinks the cute, childlike Gleebo is good and the aliens hunting him are evil, rather than Gleebo being a criminal playing on her sympathies and the others being law enforcers trying to take him into custody. However, the Planetary Police try to straight up capture Gleebo without even bothering to explain themselves to the kids. Even when the group uses Veronica's treehouse as a base, they just start shooting at it (with stun guns admittedly) and expect them to hand over Gleebo. It's only after Gleebo's reveal that they bother explaining the situation. So, in this case, the group was justified to not trust the two since, ugly or not, they didn't bother to explain a single thing until it was too late.
- "The Day the Earth Moved" is about the importance of respecting your family traditions. The one year the Andrews men don't perform their tradition, a giant worm emerges and begins destroying Riverdale. The only problem is, no one knew that the tradition was intended to placate it until Archie and his friends did some research. Even Mr. Andrews couldn't offer an explanation other than "it's tradition."
- Can't Un-Hear It: For many '80s and '90s kids, Andrew Rannells is the voice they associate with Archie.
- Complete Monster:
- "Mega-Mall of Horrors": Calvin Gianni Avericci was an insatiably greedy shopaholic who made a Deal with the Devil, getting all that he could ever want in exchange for becoming a demonic servant of the Underworld, charged with providing it with a steady stream of young, innocent souls. Traveling from town to town, Avericci sets "Mallhalla" up overnight, lures teenagers into it using hypnotic music, and gives them credit cards that they can use in the mall's various stores, which are all stocked with whatever their hearts desire. Once a card's credit limit is reached, Avericci has its owner "pay up" by turning them into an immobile—yet fully aware—mannequin, which he places on display in Mallhalla for days or even weeks before sending it to Hell. Avericci's music lures all of the young people away from local businesses, causing them to go under, and erases everyone's memories of the abducted teenagers, making it seem like they never even existed. Within weeks of arriving in Riverdale, Avericci manages to turn every one of its teenagers into mannequins, except for Jughead Jones, who he decides to simply kill when Jughead proves able to resist the temptations offered by Mallhalla.
- Time-Travel Trilogy: Vinnie Wells was just a two-bit thug until he got a hold of the Chrono Field Generator, a time machine which he tried to use to rob the Riverdale Bank. After being thwarted by Archie Andrews, Vinnie teams-up with his future self, and together the two torment Archie by repeatedly altering history before creating a timeline where Archie is a pariah and Young Vinnie is God-Emperor of Earth. Old Vinnie then tries to stop Archie from being born, but instead accidentally erases his own past self before becoming lost in the time stream while fighting Archie. Eventually escaping back to present day Riverdale, Vinnie decides to simply destroy the town and kill everyone in it using a time-displaced Tyrannosaurus rex. When the beast corners Archie, Vinnie taunts the teen by describing how happy it makes him that Archie's last thoughts before dying will be of how he failed to prevent his family, friends and beloved Riverdale from meeting the same grisly fate.
- Diagnosed by the Audience: Jughead being "different" is mentioned pretty frequently here, sometimes along with an aesop of not looking down on those who are different. His train of thought is pretty off from everyone else's, he can get overly focused to the point of blocking out the world around him or have his mind wander to weird thoughts, and his social behavior is at best a lot less toned than everyone else's (such as literally pounding a table from laughing too hard). Depending on the episode, it can be even more or less pronounced; most traits line up with the autism spectrum, but there are also plenty that are just weird quirks.
- Hilarious in Hindsight:
- "Me! Me! Me!" has everyone gradually turning into Veronica. This is hilarious if you are a Resident Evil fan, since there is actually a virus called T-Veronica.
- "Twisted Youth" involves Miss Grundy transforming into a younger woman and flirting with Reggie and Archie. (Though in Riverdale's case it turned out that a young woman had stolen Miss Grundy's identity.) Archie is grossed out beyond all belief.
- The popular Afterlife with Archie, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Vampironica, etc. comics, and eventually Riverdale, would later make use of putting Archie and his friends in the horror genre.
- An energy drink that turns a certain portion of people into monsters is created and marketed by Zoom Co. in "Monster In The Night;" a similar plot appears in Sunset Overdrive where a company called Fizz Co. creates an energy drink that turns everyone who drinks it into monsters. Both companies try to cover this up, but Zoom Co. actually fixes the problem and also doesn't want Riverdale to miss out on the jobs their new plant will bring while offering large payouts to those affected by the formula like Archies while Fizz Co. just wants to cover their tracks and isn't above killing people to do so.
- Archie being a massive Chick Magnet, not to mention normally being goo-goo eyed with pretty girls, would be hilarious when finds out his voice actor in this series, Andrew Rannells, is openly gay. After retiring from voice acting, mostly anime dubbing, for several years, he'd return to adult-oriented shows like Bob's Burgers and Invincible (2021), where he would play openly gay characters.
- Moral Event Horizon:
- After Scarlet professes her undying love and devotion to him, the prematurely aged Count Medlock callously drains her life force to restore himself, reducing her to an old hag who he snidely declares is Not Worth Killing.
- Abusing time travel to create a world where he is Emperor of Earth and Archie is a wanted pariah is not enough for Vinnie Wells, he has to take things a few steps further by trying to erase all traces of Archie's very existence via Ret-Gone. Only to accidentally do it on himself, further increasing his hatred towards Archie. Even his younger self thought the whole thing was boring, even if it did pay off for him a bit, and was hoping to do something like trash his car.
- Narm Charm: Some of the voice acting can get a little Narmy, but considering all of the homages and references to B-movies, it actually fits quite well.
- Retroactive Recognition: Betty is voiced by America Young, who would later get some recognition in the 2010's in the Monster High series of films as Howleen Wolf and Toralei Stripe, as well as voicing another blonde in the form of Barbie in Barbie Dreamhouse Adventures.
- Strawman Has a Point: In "Invasion of the Cockroaches", Archie describes it as a symptom of how unnecessarily wound up Pop Tate is about the critic's visit when he freaks out about a single cockroach in the Chok'lit Shoppe. People who have worked in food service are more likely to sympathize with Pop, given how badly it could go if anyone found vermin during an inspection.
- Squick: In "Zombies of Love", the doped-on-love potion Archie is suddenly wearing a hat and presents Veronica with a pillow as a gift. When Veronica inquires as to what the unusual-feeling stuffing is, Archie removes his hat to reveal that he has stuffed it with his hair. Veronica freaks out and finally hits her breaking point with the constant attention.
- They Copied It, So It Sucks!: Some Archie comics fans were not amused with how derivative this show is of certain B horror movies along with Scooby-Doo, even though 1) that's the point of the show and 2) there were actual comics like this made way before this show was created.
- They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: A show like this (Archie with horror elements) begged for a crossover with a certain teenage witch who Archie and the gang sometimes hang out with, especially since DIC owned the animation rights for both franchises at the time. Sabrina's involvement in the Afterlife with Archie series almost feels like an apology for this.
- Values Resonance: "Little Chok'Lit Shoppe of Horrors" is an episode in which Dilton installs an AI named the Stanley 9000 into Pop's diner to help it be more efficient. Pop values the help, but admits he feels useless, not helping that the 9000 is valuing efficiency to the point of making the diner feel impersonal. Not help that it also clearly doesn't value human safety, as it force feeds Jughead to the point of hurting him. Later, 9000 also goes as far as to emulate Pop's voice for a very underhanded scheme, almost getting his friends killed. Let's just say, with the rise of AI and the dangers of it taking up jobs and the questionable use of it to emulate voices of notable actors, this episode's showcasing the dangers of AI have aged well.
- The Woobie: "Something is Haunting Riverdale High" features Dilton remarking that unless his classmates need an invention or mechanical/scientific help, he can go weeks without even being noticed, placing him in this trope. It does not help that the episode proved him right as no one cared that he went missing for a full day before Archie ended up getting turned intangible.
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