Inspired by his son's love of Archie comic books, Don Kirshner met with that organization, Filmation (the television animation company) and CBS-TV and pitched his idea. The Archie Show debuted on CBS in September, 1968. While Kirshner and others contend that The Archies' million-selling 1969 single "Sugar, Sugar" was originally written for the Monkees, record producer/songwriter Jeff Barry is quite firm in his statement that he and singer Andy Kim wrote the song specifically for the Archies, shortly after The Archie Show debuted.
Lou Scheimer was interested in producing an animated version of Bewitched (1964) but could not obtain the rights. Then producer Fred Silverman pointed out to him that the Archie Comics already had a teenage witch character that predated Bewitched by two years. And so, Sabrina the Teenage Witch was added to The Archie Comedy Hour.
Two new features were the fast paced "Funhouse" and "Side Show" segments inspired by similar quick fire bits on Rowan & Martin's Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In (1967). Laugh-In writer Jack Mendelsohn was hired to oversee these segments.
Singer/songwriter Ron Dante was the singing voice for Archie on the classic Archies recordings.