YMMV / Archie's Weird Mysteries

• Can't Un-Hear It: For many '80s and '90s kids, Andrew Rannells is the voice they associate with Archie.
• Complete Monster:
  • "Mega-Mall of Horrors": Calvin Gianni Avericci was an insatiably greedy shopaholic who made a Deal with the Devil, getting all that he could ever want in exchange for becoming a demonic servant of the Underworld, charged with providing it with a steady stream of young, innocent souls. Traveling from town to town, Avericci sets "Mallhalla" up overnight, lures teenagers into it using hypnotic music, and gives them credit cards that they can use in the mall's various stores, which are all stocked with whatever their hearts desire. Once a card's credit limit is reached, Avericci has its owner "pay up" by turning them into an immobile—yet fully aware—mannequin, which he places on display in Mallhalla for days or even weeks before sending it to Hell. Avericci's music lures all of the young people away from local businesses, causing them to go under, and erases everyone's memories of the abducted teenagers, making it seem like they never even existed. Within weeks of arriving in Riverdale, Avericci manages to turn every one of its teenagers into mannequins, except for Jughead Jones, who he decides to simply kill when Jughead proves able to resist the temptations offered by Mallhalla.
  • Time-Travel Trilogy: Vinnie Wells was just a two-bit thug until he got a hold of the Chrono Field Generator, a time machine which he tried to use to rob the Riverdale Bank. After being thwarted by Archie Andrews, Vinnie teams-up with his future self, and together the two torment Archie by repeatedly altering history before creating a timeline where Archie is a pariah and Young Vinnie is God-Emperor of Earth. Old Vinnie then tries to stop Archie from being born, but instead accidentally erases his own past self before becoming lost in the time stream while fighting Archie. Eventually escaping back to present day Riverdale, Vinnie decides to simply destroy the town and kill everyone in it using a time-displaced Tyrannosaurus rex. When the beast corners Archie, Vinnie taunts the teen by describing how happy it makes him that Archie's last thoughts before dying will be of how he failed to prevent his family, friends and beloved Riverdale from meeting the same grisly fate.
• Diagnosed by the Audience: Jughead being "different" is mentioned pretty frequently here, sometimes along with an aesop of not looking down on those who are different. His train of thought is pretty off from everyone else's, he can get overly focused to the point of blocking out the world around him or have his mind wander to weird thoughts, and his social behavior is at best a lot less toned than everyone else's (such as literally pounding a table from laughing too hard). Depending on the episode, it can be even more or less pronounced; most traits line up with the autism spectrum, but there are also plenty that are just weird quirks.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • "Me! Me! Me!" has everyone gradually turning into Veronica. This is hilarious if you are a Resident Evil fan, since there is actually a virus called T-Veronica.
  • "Twisted Youth" involves Miss Grundy transforming into a younger woman and flirting with Reggie and Archie. (Though in Riverdale's case it turned out that a young woman had stolen Miss Grundy's identity.) Archie is grossed out beyond all belief.
  • The popular Afterlife with Archie, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Vampironica, etc. comics, and eventually Riverdale, would later make use of putting Archie and his friends in the horror genre.
  • An energy drink that turns a certain portion of people into monsters is created and marketed by Zoom Co. in "Monster In The Night;" a similar plot appears in Sunset Overdrive where a company called Fizz Co. creates an energy drink that turns everyone who drinks it into monsters. Both companies try to cover this up, but Zoom Co. actually fixes the problem and also doesn't want Riverdale to miss out on the jobs their new plant will bring while offering large payouts to those affected by the formula like Archies while Fizz Co. just wants to cover their tracks and isn't above killing people to do so.
  • Archie being a massive Chick Magnet, not to mention normally being goo-goo eyed with pretty girls, would be hilarious when finds out his voice actor in this series, Andrew Rannells, is openly gay. After retiring from voice acting, mostly anime dubbing, for several years, he'd return to adult-oriented shows like Bob's Burgers and Invincible (2021), where he would play openly gay characters.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • After Scarlet professes her undying love and devotion to him, the prematurely aged Count Medlock callously drains her life force to restore himself, reducing her to an old hag who he snidely declares is Not Worth Killing.
  • Abusing time travel to create a world where he is Emperor of Earth and Archie is a wanted pariah is not enough for Vinnie Wells, he has to take things a few steps further by trying to erase all traces of Archie's very existence via Ret-Gone. Only to accidentally do it on himself, further increasing his hatred towards Archie. Even his younger self thought the whole thing was boring, even if it did pay off for him a bit, and was hoping to do something like trash his car.
• Narm Charm: Some of the voice acting can get a little Narmy, but considering all of the homages and references to B-movies, it actually fits quite well.
• Retroactive Recognition: Betty is voiced by America Young, who would later get some recognition in the 2010's in the Monster High series of films as Howleen Wolf and Toralei Stripe, as well as voicing another blonde in the form of Barbie in Barbie Dreamhouse Adventures.
• Squick: In "Zombies of Love", the doped-on-love potion Archie is suddenly wearing a hat and presents Veronica with a pillow as a gift. When Veronica inquires as to what the unusual-feeling stuffing is, Archie removes his hat to reveal that he has stuffed it with his hair. Veronica freaks out and finally hits her breaking point with the constant attention.
• They Copied It, So It Sucks!: Some Archie comics fans were not amused with how derivative this show is of certain B horror movies along with Scooby-Doo, even though 1) that's the point of the show and 2) there were actual comics like this made way before this show was created.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: A show like this (Archie with horror elements) begged for a crossover with a certain teenage witch who Archie and the gang sometimes hang out with, especially since DIC owned the animation rights for both franchises at the time. Sabrina's involvement in the Afterlife with Archie series almost feels like an apology for this.
• The Woobie: "Something is Haunting Riverdale High" features Dilton remarking that unless his classmates need an invention or mechanical/scientific help, he can go weeks without even being noticed, placing him in this trope. It does not help that the episode proved him right as no one cared that he went missing for a full day before Archie ended up getting turned intangible.

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