In The Know

Hearing about Christopher Glenn and remembering the "In the News" segments got me to thinking about the ads that the TV networks took out every fall in the comic books. They were usually a two page spread and showed all or most of the news Saturday morning shows. This one is from 1970. As you can see if you can click on the picture and enlarge it you can see the program called "In The Know." I don't remember it as well as "In The News" but as the ad says it had Josie and the Pussycats showing short films that the network thought were educational. Another thing that this ad shows is how powerful that the Archie company had become. Josie and the Pussycats had their own half an hour show at 10am and hosted "In The Know." "Sabrina and the Groovie Goulies" had an hour show at 9am and Archie hosted "Archie's Funhouse featuring the Giant Jukebox" from 11am till noon. If this had been ABC and not CBS I would say it was the Archie Broadcasting Corporation. Then a half an hour later at 12:30pm was when my generation was introduced to "The Monkees." I was only 5 when the show appeared in prime time in 1966 so I didn't see it then.
I was curious at the time as to why had to keep changing the format for Archie. When it first came on it was a basic sit-com format. Later it became "Archie's TV Funnies" with the gang showing cartoons of Dick Tracy, Broomhilda, etc. As stated above it was also the Funhouse with the Giant Jukebox. Out of the 3 I preferred the sit-com style and think it should have stayed that way. The Funhouse left me cold. There was no plot to it. Only jokes and music. I love music but those jokes were terrible. I guess this was the TV version of Archie's Joke Book. I tried to avoid reading that book too. I have never understood why someone would decide to change a hit show. Perhaps they think they are improving it or maybe a new director or producer wants to leave his mark on the show. Well as the cliche' says if it ain't broke don't fix it. I would hate to be the director who wants to leave his mark on a show only to find out that I left a bad mark and got the show cancelled. I didn't care for the Funhouse. At least with the TV funnies I got to see a Dick Tracy episode once in awhile. Someone should give that character his own cartoon or prime time series.