Throughout the nineteen sixties, seventies and eighties, most issues of
Archie Comics featured a two-page spread titled Archie Club News. The
banner at the top of the page announced, "ARCHIE CLUB MEMBERS send in
your news reports and be eligible to win cash prizes in the Archie
Series Magazines." The results of this venture were generally
irrelevant notes sent in like "Dear Archie, Have you ever seen a giraffe?" Often what was sent in appeared to be
part of a class project. Elementary school children were in the process
of learning how to write letters and encouraged by a teacher to send
something Riverdale way. Sometimes the letters were weird or even
profound and other times prophetic or just silly.
The following letter originally appeared in Jughead #190, April 1971:
Dear Archie,
I love listening to synthetic music with my stereo. That is, music from
a moog computer. Sometimes I can get the sound completely balanced, and
it is hard to tell where the sound is coming from. It sounds real neat!
It's easy to read while I listen, because certain, well-synthesized
tempered music isn't very distracting, and it is easy to understand
what you are reading. However, I wouldn't recommend doing homework and
listening to it at the same time.
Keith MacNevins
528 S. Edgewood Avenue
Lombard, Ill. 60148
Kevin's letter won the fourth prize of one dollar for this issue.
EXTRA ADDED SUPER SECRET SPECIAL BONUS: I'm sure Kevin would have loved this. It's Claude Denjean and his moog synthesizer performing The Archies' number one hit Sugar, Sugar.
I want to know how old McNevins was at the time of that letter. On the other hand, maybe it would spoil this charming image I have of a fifth grader playing with his father's equalizer in the living room with a list of states and capitals to memorize for school, and a big pile of Archies that are easier to read with his moog drones.
Posted by: Banyon II | September 02, 2007 at 07:42 PM