Riverdale: Archie's Pals and Gals Face Angst and Dark Secrets

You remember bucolic small-town Riverdale?  It's been a wholesome, innocent childhood haven for generations.  You can return after a year, or two years, or a decade, and still find Archie Andrews and his pals and gals (Betty, Veronica, Reggie, Jughead) failing algebra, hanging out at the soda shop, deciding who to ask to the big dance, with only occasional references to contemporary teen fads, and virtually no incursions of the angst, heartache, and turmoil of real teen life.

Recently there have been some experiments with adult themes, like a zombie apocalypse in Riverdale, or an adult Archie killed while saving his friend Kevin from an assassination attempt.  But the new Riverdale TV series.  WTF?

It's Dawson's Creek, Pretty Little Liars, Revenge, Twin Peaks, Peyton Place, and a whole lot more.  Sex, sleaze, dark secrets, and a lot of angst.

Archie (KJ Apa, above) is juggling the affections of Betty and Veronica (Lili Reinhart, Camila Mendes), as usual, but he's also having a clandestine affair with his teacher, Ms. Grundy (Sarah Habel), who is not what she seems.

Chuck Clayton (Jordan Calloway, left) and his football-team friends slut-shame Veronica, so the girls torture him in a hot tub until he apologizes.

Meanwhile, Veronica's father is being indicted for embezzlement, and her mother is having an affair.

Jughead (Cole Sprouse) is estranged from his father, the leader of the Southside Serpents, a notorious motorcycle gang.  He's writing a turgid novel with lines like: "Innocent/guilty, good/ evil, life/ death."

Kevin (Casey Cott) is dating bad boy Joaquin (Rob Raco, left), a member of said motorcycle gang, plus fooling around with bisexual good guy Moose (Cody Kearsley), who has anger issues.  This won't end well.

And what about Archie's Mom, who returns after a long absence and has a mysterious meeting with her old friends, Veronica's mom and Mayor McCoy (Robin Givens), whose daughter is the lead singer of the pop group Josie and the Pussycats, who Archie...well, never mind.

And I haven't even gotten to Reggie (Ross Butler) and Dilton (Major Curda).

But the big mystery is the murder of Jason Blossom (Trevor Stines left), brother of It-Girl Cheryl Blossom.
Kevin and Moose discovered the body.

Archie, Ms. Grundy, and Dilton heard a gunshot.

Everyone seems to have a dark secret about what happened that night.  Everyone is a suspect.

Angst.

At least there's a lot of diversity.  Black, Hispanic, and Asian characters.  Gay and bisexual characters.  Jughead might even come out as asexual, as he does in the current comic version.

And there's a lot of beefcake.  The younger Riverdalians are played by the most buffed mega-hunks that can squeeze into tight jeans, and there are some recognizeable heartthrobs of yesteryear among the older generation (Luke Perry, Skeet Ulrich, Lochlyn Munro).  Even Mr. Weatherbee is played by the hunky Peter James Bryant.

But how does any of this relate to the Archie comics that we grew up with?

Where's bucolic, small-town Riverdale?

Where's the fun?

See also: More Riverdale Beefcake

The Four Cassidy Brothers and the Gay-Friendly 1970s

Speaking of show business dynasties, character actor Jack Cassidy (who starred with Paul Anka in Look in Any Window) married musical theater star Shirley Jones in 1956 (they divorced in 1974).  They had three children of their own. After their divorce in 1974, Shirley Jones married comedian Marty Ingels, who helped her raise the youngest two.

1. David was born to Jack Cassidy and his first wife Evelyn Ward in 1950.  By 1970 he was starring with stepmom Shirley Jones in The Partridge Family (1970-74) and establishing himself as the top teen idol of his generation.  But he also did some tv and movie work, including his own series, David Cassidy: Man Undercover (1978-79).


2. Shaun, born in 1958, became a tv star of his own in the gay-subtext Hardy Boys Mysteries (1977-79).  He also had a teen idol career before becoming a writer, director, and producer.

3.Born in 1962, Patrick began his acting career in the anti-drug cautionary tale Angel Dusted (1981), and played gay characters twice: a West Point cadet in Dress Gray (1986), and an actor with AIDS in Longtime Companion (1989).  He is still involved in raising consciousness about AIDS.


 He's appeared in lots of other tv series and tv movies, including two versions of the Superman myth: he played the villainous Leslie Luckinbill in three episodes of Lois and Clark (1996) and Henry Small, the father of Superboy's girlfriend Lana Lang, on Smallville (2002-2003).

On stage, he got to display his physique in two renditions of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.  He's also been in The Music Man, Annie Get Your Gun, Camelot, and 42nd Street.

4, Ryan, born in 1966 (bottom, with his mother, Patrick, and Shaun), wasn't interested in an acting career.

But he guest starred on three episodes of The Facts of Life (1985) with Mackenzie Astin (left) which made the teen magazines go wild  -- and in the buddy-bonding Jesse Hawkes (1989) with several other celebrity kids, including Chad McQueen, Ethan Wayne, and Ramon Sheen.  Then he moved behind the scenes as a set designer.

See also: David Cassidy.

Wil Wheaton

Speaking of Stand by Me, Wil Wheaton became a popular teen star of the 1980s with several other starring roles, including Long Time Gone (1986), The Curse (1987), The Man Who Fell to Earth (1987), the beefcake-heavy Toy Soldiers (1991), and the World War II buddy-bonding December (1991),  which also starred fellow teen idols Balthazar Getty and Jason London.

But he was probably best known for his role as Wesley Crusher, ship doctor's kid and later ensign on Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-94).  Although Wesley was obviously brought on board to draw teens into the Star Trek sequel, many fans disliked him; Memory Alpha calls him "one of the most hated characters in sci-fi."  Detractors argued that he was a pretentious know-it-all who would just glance at a view screen and come up with the answer that stumped the experienced scientists.

Besides, he wore amazingly ugly sweaters, and he turned down the opportunity to party with three hot teens on a shore leave planet ("Justice," November 9, 1987).

After The Next Generation, Wil capitalized on the hatred of Wesley Crusher by playing a series of jerks, with little or no buddy-bonding.

A football player who covers up a date rape in The Liar's Club (1993).

A Frankenstein built out of both male and female body parts in Mr. Stitch (1995).

An obnoxious, homophobic Christian bookstore manager in Fag Hag (1996).

 He also played a gay character: Marco, a participant in an AIDS charity, in Boys Night Out (1996).

More recently, Wil has been doing voice work, in animated tv series and video games.  He's also had recurring roles on The Guild, Leverage, and Eureka, and he currently plays himself as Sheldon's arch-nemesis on The Big Bang Theory. 

He's a gay ally who has blogged his support of gay marriage.

The Stunt Kid

Born in 1973, Andre Gower worked steadily through the 1980s, guest starring on Night Court, Knight Rider, T. J. Hooker, and Mr. Belvedere, and starring starred in several tv series, including Mr. President (1987-88) as the son of the U.S. President (George C. Scott).  He was a recurring character on The Hogan Family.  He appeared in over 100 commercials.

Interested in stunts as well as acting, he performed a high-wire act on Circus of the Stars twice, in 1983 and 1987.

And he received incessant teen magazine attention.

But Andre's most famous role was in The Monster Squad (1987), a cult classic about a group of kid monster movie fans who encounter the real Frankenstein, Dracula, and so on.  He played the leader, Sean.  Patrick (Robby Kiger) was his best friend.  The others were Rudy (Ryan Lambert, left), a teenage hunk; Horace (Brent Chalem), a fat kid; and Eugene (Michael Faustino), a little kid.

Jason Hervey of The Wonder Years played a school bully.

Not a lot of buddy-bonding, but lots of dreamy teenagers for the gay kids to gaze at.  Only five or six homophobic slurs, a welcome relief in an era where preteens and teenagers in movies couldn't go a minute without broadcasting how much they hated gay people.   No discussions of girls' breasts, no gazing in awe at a girl walking in slow motion across the schoolyard.  There aren't even any lame "aren't boys horny?" jokes when they need a virgin girl to close the portal that the monsters come through.

In 1989, Andre retired from acting to go to college -- he played basketball for the University of North Carolina at Asheville.  After graduation, he has worked as a sports writer and journalist, but he still occasionally appears in front of the camera.

The Penis Sheaths of New Guinea

In tropical regions where nudity is the rule, men still find ways to draw attention to their best feature.  Among the Highland tribes of New Guinea, koteka or penis sheaths are commonly worn.

Most cover only the penis, leaving the testicles bare.

The length does not necessarily signify the social status of the wearer, or the size of the penis inside.

Some stick straight up, tied in place to emulate an erection.

The most commonly used gourd is the calabash (lagenaria siceraria).  They are hollowed out, worked to the appropriate shape, and then dried.

Smaller sheaths are used for everyday purposes.  For ceremonies, they can be as long as you want them to be.

Penis sheaths are used throughout Melanesia, and also in tropical regions of Africa and South America.  Here Siko Nathuan, head of Vanuatu Island, poses with 18-year old British student Marc Raynor, who became the stand-in for Prince Philip during his birthday celebration.  They're wearing straw penis sheathes.


The photos all show bare testicles, so I can't show them here.  You can see them on Tales of West Hollywood.