# Archie / Dobie Gillis **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 28, 2002, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archie-dobie-gillis/106175 "2002-04-28T23:06:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2002, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archie-dobie-gillis/106175/1 "2002-04-28T23:06:43Z")
When I was a young 'un in the 1960s watching reruns of _Dobie Gillis_, I noticed the way the _Archie_ characters matched up with it. Archie — your regular guy teenager Dobie Gillis — your regular guy hero Jughead — asexual lazy goof; only passion is for food, always eating Maynard G. Krebs — asexual lazy slob; only passion is for food, always eating Betty — blonde love interest Thalia — blond love interest Veronica — brunette love interest; foil of Betty Zelda — brunette love interest; foil of Thalia Reggie — rich kid antagonist Milton — rich kid antagonists I pointed out this analysis to my Dad and he agreed with it. Then there was Maynard G. Krebs as the inspiration for Shaggy, which is another story. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2002, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archie-dobie-gillis/106175/2 "2002-04-29T02:42:16Z")
I always thought Maynard G. Krebs was the original pothead… He liked to play the bongos a bit too much… ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2002, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archie-dobie-gillis/106175/3 "2002-04-29T03:22:40Z")
His marihuana habit could not be shown directly, but was conveyed clearly enough as he always had the “munchies.” 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Gadarene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Gadarene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gadarene)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2002, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archie-dobie-gillis/106175/4 "2002-04-29T03:24:59Z")
Great stuff, **Jomo** ; I never made that connection, and I’m an avid fan of both Arch and Dobie. _Dobie Gillis_ and _The Monkees_ are two of the greatest studies in television irony ever. ---
**Author:** ![Cliffy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/59ef9b/32.png) [@Cliffy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cliffy)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2002, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archie-dobie-gillis/106175/5 "2002-04-29T17:56:18Z")
I think you’ve got Betty and Veronica mixed up. Sure, the hair color is right, but Thalia is the rich, glamorous girl, whereas Zelda, like Betty, is the less spectacular one who is nonetheless a better person and a better match for our hero. –Cliffy ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2002, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archie-dobie-gillis/106175/6 "2002-04-29T20:30:51Z")
It’s interesting to remember that Max Shulman completely recast the Dobie Gillis story when he created the tv series. The orignal book _The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis_ was a 1953 collection of short stories featuring a college student Dobie. (A movie, _The Affairs of Dobie Gillis_ was made from it in 1953.) Shulman did a follow-up, _I Was a Teen-Age Dwarf_, in 1959. It’s been many, many years since i read these but I’m pretty sure that everything we know and love about the tv series were invented specifically for it. A scholarly but readable article on the history of the show is available [here](http://www.ecsu.ctstateu.edu/personal/faculty/chibeaue/paper-frm.html). I personally just can’t put too much belief in the Archie/Dobie connection. It smacks too much of one of those fake lists of pairs that you see in magazines occasionally. As a kid I loved the tv series and I still do. It had about a million original aspects and didn’t resemble anything else on tv at the time. Zelda, if you’re out there, forget Dobie. I’m married but I’ll make room for you. [Yes, I know in real life that Sheila James is a lesbian.] ---
**Author:** ![Fibonacci](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/df788c/32.png) [@Fibonacci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fibonacci)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2002, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archie-dobie-gillis/106175/7 "2002-04-29T22:25:36Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Exapno Mapcase \* > As a kid I loved the tv series and I still do. It had about a million original aspects and didn’t resemble anything else on tv at the time. Zelda, if you’re out there, forget Dobie. I’m married but I’ll make room for you. > > [Yes, I know in real life that Sheila James is a lesbian.] \*\* She’s also a California State Senator: [http://democrats.sen.ca.gov/senator/kuehl/](http://democrats.sen.ca.gov/senator/kuehl/) ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2002, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archie-dobie-gillis/106175/8 "2002-04-30T01:40:54Z")
Yes, I knew that. Yes, I’m really a fan. From her web site: > [@](#): > > \*\*She was a law professor at Loyola, UCLA and USC Law Schools and co-founded and served as managing attorney of the California Women’s Law Center. > > Senator Kuehl graduated from Harvard Law School in 1978 where she was the second woman in the school’s history to win the Moot Court competition. She is currently a member of the Harvard University Board of Overseers.\*\* So was she a good pick as the brainy Zelda or was she a good pick? ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2002, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archie-dobie-gillis/106175/9 "2002-04-30T01:52:47Z")
I’ve only seen it on Nick at Night, of course, but um, why did Dobie’s hair color go from black to blond? ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2002, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archie-dobie-gillis/106175/10 "2002-04-30T03:29:05Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Cliffy \* > **I think you’ve got Betty and Veronica mixed up. Sure, the hair color is right, but Thalia is the rich, glamorous girl, whereas Zelda, like Betty, is the less spectacular one who is nonetheless a better person and a better match for our hero.** _I_ didn’t mix them up, the cross-comparison is inherent in the two sets of characters. I was going to point out how the blonde in one corresponded to the brunette in the other, and vice versa. But you explained it well, thanks. What I want to know about _Archie_ and _Dobie_ is: Who cribbed from whom? Can these parallels be merely pure coincidence??? ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2002, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archie-dobie-gillis/106175/11 "2002-04-30T12:07:12Z")
I think these are pretty much standard characters and you’re making too much out of them. IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE Archie = Jimmy Stewart Jughead = Clarence (bumbling, etc, comic relief) Two women - Donna Reed (brunette) and the blonde girl (I forget her name) whom Jimmy Stewart doesn’t go with but helps out. (This is a single movie, not a series, so the hero winds up with one of the women; in a series, there would be a ongoing competition.) Rich opponent - The banker STANDARD WESTERN Archie - Hero Jughead = sidekick, comic relief Two women, the brunette and the blonde (usually the blonde is the prostitute with heart of gold who dies in the end, but oh, well) Villian - the rich cattle owner THE HONEYMOONERS Archie = Ralph Jughead = Norton (comic relief side-kick) Blonde = Alice Brunette = Trixie OK, no villain per se. My point is that there are standard, stereotype situations. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2002, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archie-dobie-gillis/106175/12 "2002-04-30T13:58:34Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Jomo Mojo \* > \*\*Who cribbed from whom? \*\* The short story collection THE MANY LOVES OF DOBIE GILLIS was published in 1953, as our friend **Harpo-in-Russian** points out above…again, they were tales of a horny student at a large co-educational university, and had little to do with the teevee program. The Archie comics go back to the 1940s. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2002, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archie-dobie-gillis/106175/13 "2002-04-30T17:29:59Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Ukulele Ike \* > \*\*The short story collection THE MANY LOVES OF DOBIE GILLIS was published in 1953, as our friend **Harpo-in-Russian** points out above…again, they were tales of a horny student at a large co-educational university, and had little to do with the teevee program. The Archie comics go back to the 1940s. \*\* No, no, don’t give away my secret identity! Sorry. And sorry, again, because T_he Many Loves_ was actually published in 1951, not 1953, which was the date of the movie. My fingers get behind my mind at times. Or is it that my mind gets ahead of my fingers? And I say again that the Archie comparisons are spurious. Zelda was not introduced as a recurring character until Thalia was off the show, so there never was a foursome and the two females were never foils of one another. To say that Maynard-the-jazz-buff’s only passion was for food is just silly. Dobie was superficially similar to Archie mostly because that’s the way teen culture was thought of in those pre-60s days but it’s all surface and nothing more. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2002, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/archie-dobie-gillis/106175/14 "2002-04-30T17:49:47Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Guinastasia \* > \*\*I’ve only seen it on Nick at Night, of course, but um, why did Dobie’s hair color go from black to blond? \*\* From _Forever Dobie_ by Dwayne Hickman. > [@](#): > > \*\*Before we began rehearsals the producers wanted to take care of the first order of business; turning dark-haired Dwayne Hickman into blond all-American boy next door, Dobie Gillis… Because I wore a crew cut, Helene couldn’t just touch up the roots, so all my hair was bleached over and over until I became a very bizarre-looking platinum blond. > > … > > The second season also brought about major changes on the show. I was having severe problems with my hair because I needed to have it bleached once a week. It was so damaged that it started falling out in clumps and my scalp was full of sores. > [The producers hate the idea of his turning back to brown but he threatens to walk off the show rather than continue as a bald sore-headed blond. He wins.] Some years later I found that Max always wanted to be a blond; in fact, I think Max always wanted to be Dobie Gillis.\*\*