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00:00 Archie 3000, Issue 6.
00:03 Betty overhears Archie get questioned about what he wants for Christmas and say what he wants.
00:09 She wants to raise money for it.
00:11 And he sees Betty and wants to get her something special for Christmas.
00:16 So he plans to go to her house for her mom's help.
00:20 He hears her say what she wants.
00:23 And eventually, Betty sells a ticket for a trip to Mars at a pawn shop to get the money and Archie does the same thing.
00:30 He says she'll need stuff for a trip to Mars.
00:33 And it's frustrating that the shopkeeper doesn't finish her sentence because he needs her to warn him.
00:39 Instead she gives him money and he thanks her and she thankfully wants her husband to help them.
00:45 Betty thanks Archie for coming over on Christmas Eve and gets a gift.
00:50 And says she loves it and thanks him and kisses his cheek.
00:54 He makes it clear that he's grateful for his gift.
00:57 They hug.
00:59 And plan to go anti-gravity Christmas caroling.
01:03 Why would people do that instead of do it the normal way?
01:06 Wouldn't people be more traditional for Christmas?
01:10 Then on Christmas morning, Betty and Archie get the gifts they pawned off back.
01:15 And out of nowhere, it turns out the owner of the pawn shop was Mrs. Claus who thanked Santa for this.
01:21 Well that was unnecessary.
01:24 This was a nice story but it didn't take advantage of it being in the future properly.
01:28 If you rewrite the dialogue and change some minor things about the art, it would fit right in with the normal stories.
01:35 Their gifts sounded futuristic but I didn't mention what all of them were because I knew they wouldn't matter.
01:41 We don't see Betty go to Mars.
01:44 In the next story, a teacher hears a new talking computer who's an automatic assistant principal who will do whatever Weatherby says.
01:52 He brags that he'll be faster, more accurate, and efficient.
01:57 And won't eat or chat on the video phone.
02:00 Then he tells Weatherby he already did all of his work and more.
02:04 I guess it's illegal to replace all of the principals with these things so that's why he still has this job.
02:10 Svanton tries to do something with wires and somehow gets shocked despite all of his experience with his job.
02:18 So this idiot ball caused them to ruin the new computer.
02:22 It should've been Archie instead.
02:25 I guess the reason he doesn't immediately warn people before it could mess up again is that he doesn't want to get yelled at for revealing that he screwed it up.
02:33 At least this plot went in a different direction than I expected.
02:37 I thought the computer would make Weatherby feel useless and insecure.
02:41 Somehow the school board believes the computer about Archie being the smartest student even though one of them knows that no one can have an IQ that high.
02:49 So Archie gets asked questions by the school board.
02:53 He does have a clever answer for the first question.
02:56 And with a second overly complex question which has to be by chemistry majors, he just gives them a right answer that anybody could come up with.
03:05 So he avoided outing himself as an idiot.
03:08 Even though they would just ask him for the real answer he avoided.
03:12 And instead one of them wants suggestions from him on improving their school system.
03:17 If him having a high IQ is enough for that, why didn't they ask Dilton before this?
03:23 I guess they did.
03:25 So Ms. Beasley complains to Weatherby that the loud music in the cafeteria is giving her a headache.
03:31 I guess Weatherby is not allowed to turn it down a bit.
03:34 The students would like it but that's it.
03:37 Wouldn't it just run up the electric bill for nothing?
03:39 He sees cheerleaders in front of a game show spelling out a large word which would take them forever.
03:46 Weatherby doesn't like the idea of the call in complaints line either.
03:49 That could be replaced with a suggestion box that's constantly in Archie Comics and it wouldn't matter.
03:55 Archie should have known that he wouldn't follow any of the advice of the complaints.
04:00 One of the members of the school board says he saw some of the improvements and fires the computer.
04:06 Even though he must have heard Archie's improvement ideas first hand and liked them.
04:10 So why did he end up hating them when he saw them?
04:13 What did he expect?
04:16 Archie congratulates Weatherby on being the only principal again.
04:19 Even though you'd think he'd realize that he wouldn't like being saddled with work again.
04:24 I guess he assumes he felt useless having nothing to do.
04:27 He at least thanks Archie and stupidly says that a machine can't recognize idiotic ideas.
04:34 Even though it's the future where any technology is possible.
04:38 And Archie gets punished with a pointlessly anti-gravity detention and having to take out the garbage.
04:44 Even though he didn't know his improvements would annoy him.
04:48 All the wrong characters got punished.
04:50 Something bad should have happened to Svenson too for causing this if it's already punishing for accidents.
04:56 In the next story, Reggie tells his dad there's a package appearing in the mail transport receptor.
05:02 I think that name's too long.
05:04 It's so rare to see Reggie's dad.
05:07 He ordered a robot bird that can do a maiden call to draw to it all of the annoying pigeons that loiter around his publishing company offices.
05:17 So a drone that looks like a pigeon.
05:19 What if the pigeons instantly find out it's not really a pigeon because of how it looks and then go back to where they were?
05:27 This could only work if pigeons have terrible eyesight in this universe.
05:31 And of course, in real life they have better eyesight than humans.
05:35 Fortunately, he does explain he's going to use a remote to fly the robot to the woods to make the birds follow it.
05:42 That'll work if he makes it fly away before the pigeons find out it's not a real pigeon from getting close enough.
05:49 Even if they did have bad vision, you'd think they'd still be able to tell that the robot pigeon doesn't smell like them either.
05:56 And it'd be a miracle if it made the same noise as them.
06:00 Because it would be flapping metal wings.
06:03 He'd have to see the pigeons heading for it and immediately make it fly away.
06:08 In the hope the pigeons are following.
06:11 Reggie wants to use it and his surprisingly permissive father agrees even though he'd know what a prank story is.
06:18 Because his friends would have told him.
06:20 And the principle.
06:22 Why does Reggie have to attach a little camera to it so he could record the fun
06:26 when the only way his dad would be able to control the bird without blindly making it fly into something
06:32 and not knowing when the pigeons spotted it would be if it had a camera already?
06:37 And why is he putting the camera on its back instead of on?
06:41 RG wonders why his roof is covered with pigeons, though with how purple they look you can't tell.
06:47 RG says he'll call Dilton and he shoots powder at the pigeons.
06:51 But that just causes them to fly at them angrily.
06:54 He shoots mothballs he somehow had a bunch of at them.
06:59 And they somehow think to toss them back instead of leaving.
07:03 This isn't believable.
07:05 He's supposed to be a genius.
07:07 Cat costumes, electronic owls, and his supersonic noise projector all failed to scare them away somehow.
07:15 Because the writers jelous of how smart Dilton is and forced his awesome technology to fail, as usual.
07:23 Wouldn't he have known the noise would break his glasses if he's such a science expert?
07:28 We see Reggie show the footage of the pigeons to people.
07:32 So Betty tells RG when he needs to know.
07:34 Wouldn't he have expected this?
07:36 I guess he knew he'd get bored with a prank so he didn't want it to last forever.
07:41 You can't tell it's Dilton talking until the next panel, so that sucks.
07:45 He says he'll anti-grav up to where the signal is and finds the fake bird.
07:51 Which somehow got pigeons around it even though animals will shun members of their own species for being albino.
07:57 And sheep bully differently colored sheep.
08:01 Dilton reveals that people do this prank enough that it's cliche.
08:04 So unless the prank is more obscure than he thinks.
08:07 RG seems a bit dimwitted to have not caught on right away.
08:11 Dilton decides to fiddle with the technology so that the story ends with the pigeons following Reggie's car.
08:18 Why didn't the pigeons attack him when he was trying to mess with their leader?
08:22 In the next story, Weatherby announces the Riverdale scavenger hunt.
08:26 Why is the principal allowed to do this?
08:29 I'd expect the mayor to be in this position.
08:32 And I've already seen a scavenger hunt story in RG involving Jughead and a person who can smell money.
08:39 Somehow the reward for getting the most items is a trip back in time to the 20th century.
08:45 So 1) That's impossible and would never be offered.
08:49 Partially because why would anyone see the appeal to that?
08:53 And 2) Showing that would miss the point of RG3000 because it won't be showing you the future.
08:58 Betty and RG wish each other good luck, and Betty and Ethel hope Jughead wins because the comics keep his nostalgia buff trait from the first issue.
09:07 It's not like Jughead's being interested in ancient history, but I'll take anything that makes these one-dimensional characters more developed.
09:14 So far I haven't seen any story where Jughead acts like Jughead in a way other than being a big eater,
09:20 where he has money-making schemes or complains about RG involving himself with girls and says they're nothing but trouble,
09:26 or complains about being forced to help RG with his crazy ideas.
09:30 I assume they dropped all of those traits because they were controversial,
09:35 but it's not worth it to make a character less deep and interesting.
09:39 If he's reduced to little RG Jughead but less exaggerated, he needs to at least be a history buff.
09:46 RG tells Veronica he ruined Jughead's computerized mini-map by giving them a program.
09:52 I can only assume that the reason the average teenager can do this is that in the future,
09:56 any teenager can tell a computer what programming he wants, and it'll translate it into functional code.
10:03 After all, for both RG and RG to be genius programmer prodigies would be a stretch.
10:09 I wonder if they'll still win.
10:11 A flashing light on Jughead's map tricks him into putting his hand in the hole of a tree
10:16 and pulling out what I have to assume is an alien that was brought in here by aliens
10:20 and became an invasive species escaping from them.
10:23 As usual, it's great when the comic does plot points it could only do in the future.
10:28 RG's map beeps again.
10:30 It only seems Jughead are nervous this time, and RG hopes the last finding was an accident.
10:36 They find a terrifying alien that looks nothing like Venus Flytrap and run away,
10:41 causing Betty to get told about the alien that could've just been a bear by Reggie
10:45 and ask what they've done, when Reggie could've easily not told her.
10:50 So of course, Ethel plans to warn RG, and there's a brief time skip past the warning.
10:55 Betty and Ethel give them their findings and maps.
10:58 Jughead says it's touching of them, and she at least thanks him for offering to bring her
11:03 a fruit basket from the 20th century.
11:06 Veronica screams at seeing an alien, but conveniently, Reggie immediately assumes
11:11 these aliens are just RG and Jughead in costumes, which sort of makes sense,
11:15 because of course Ethel would've warned them about their sabotage
11:19 and caused them to want revenge.
11:22 They get dragged over to a spaceship, and somehow Veronica instantly gets worried,
11:26 as if she already thinks they're aliens, even though she'd just see this as a flying car
11:31 that people usually have in the future.
11:34 Seeing a spaceship wouldn't give away that they're aliens if people go to space all the time for fun.
11:39 The story ends with the most predictable winners ever,
11:42 and Veronica and Reggie being shown off so that aliens can win a scavenger hunt.
11:47 So what was the point of establishing what the reward for the scavenger hunt is
11:51 if we'll never see RG go back in time?
11:54 The reward could've been something else.
11:57 The first story was by Dan Parent.
12:00 The second story was by Harold Smith.
12:03 The same can be said for the next story.
12:07 And the final story is by Dan Parent.
12:10 RG3000, issue 7.
12:14 RG plans to give Dilting a ride to school out of nowhere,
12:17 and he wonders why he's in Jughead's closet.
12:21 He warped here with a portable teleportation device,
12:24 which he should at least call a warp device because it's faster.
12:28 He says he still wants to ride because his device is glitchy,
12:31 and that's why he landed in the closet.
12:34 I assume the device doesn't have a glitch where it could be teleported inside of an object
12:38 because this is a kids' comic,
12:40 so usually kids' media can be trusted not to be gory or kill off main villains,
12:46 which is the whole appeal then to me.
12:48 You'd think if he knew his warp device had glitches,
12:50 he'd be too scared of telepraguing to use it on himself.
12:54 I guess he tested it enough times that he knows that won't happen.
12:57 He left the device with Hot Dog,
12:59 and he puts it on his wrist because he's a magically sentient dog way more capable than a real one,
13:05 which you'd think would make more sense in the future at least.
13:08 But Jughead trusted him with it,
13:10 implying that he somehow thinks he's a normal dog anyways.
13:13 So he's not able to put something on his wrist because he's a future dog.
13:18 It's just for no reason.
13:20 I'd rather any other character use this thing because it'd be more believable.
13:25 Plus, if it wasn't a dog, then it would have stolen a steak from the cafeteria.
13:29 How can he even recognize that it's a Lunar City Prime cunt?
13:33 He warps away, and Ms. Basely assumes it's some kids playing a prank on her.
13:39 Ms. Grundy does a lecture about a book about an unexpected visitor,
13:42 which tries harder to make it funny that Hot Dog warps to her.
13:45 But why did he press the button on the device more than once?
13:49 I guess he's just that curious about where he'll end up next.
13:52 But he should just go home before he warps to another country.
13:56 Flutesnow does a lecture about the Dog Star,
14:00 since when is that taught about in high school?
14:02 It's useless even for high school knowledge.
14:05 And why is the chemistry teacher giving this lesson anyways?
14:08 He's great at seeing a hot dog, saying a silly forced interjection.
14:13 So finally, Archie sees and tackles Hot Dog with the rest of his friends.
14:18 Sadly, Hot Dog warps them to the girls' locker room.
14:22 Eventually, they run into Weatherbee,
14:24 and get warped to Hot Dog's doghouse, ending the story.
14:28 Well, that was depressing.
14:31 In the next story, Jughead melts some snow with a tool doing some laser shoveling.
14:36 It's not shoveling snow if it's just melting it.
14:39 So the shoveling part of the term "laser shoveling" is just an antique
14:43 from when it was called that to get the people of the past to like the idea more.
14:46 And it says there's laser mowing too.
14:49 Betty considerably tells him he can make more money indoors with their mail order service.
14:54 She doesn't have to say that it's indoors in a climate-controlled building.
14:59 Of course it's climate-controlled.
15:01 So we see them get told that the galaxy-wide mail service warps anything to anywhere.
15:07 So the teenagers' jobs are to locate the items and prepare them to be warped,
15:12 using anti-gravity belts to get around.
15:15 After they all run into each other, not that we see the impact,
15:20 Moose gets told where to send a few items and immediately forgets
15:24 because Archie somehow insisted on saying the numbers of the two items,
15:29 instead of just saying "this one" and "that one".
15:32 So that's too bad.
15:33 Jughead ends up receiving a complaint because he sent the wrong item.
15:37 Moose somehow doesn't know where a section is because he forgot the alphabet.
15:42 And somehow Archie's anti-gravity belt burns out.
15:46 The teens are complained at for being too slow and only sending someone half of an item,
15:52 somehow,
15:52 and an oversized belt, somehow.
15:57 So they get fired off-screen and the story ends with them relaxing outside
16:00 with hot cocoa that's stiltedly called Nutri-Cocoa.
16:04 And Betty thanks Jughead because at least shoveling snow lets you take a break.
16:08 In the next story, Grundy isn't impressed with her students' essays
16:13 and wants to show them a computer as she reads it a classic poem from centuries ago.
16:18 Her classroom looks like a college one because some of the students are higher up than others.
16:24 But it's supposed to make sense because it's the future, so things change.
16:27 She shows them that the computer shows an image because of the old poem
16:32 and says that when she read their compositions to the computer,
16:35 the screen stayed blank.
16:37 So she says she'll hold a contest with two teams and the team with the best poem gets a trophy.
16:44 It's so unlikely that she'd assign Reggie and Veronica and Archie and Jughead to each other
16:49 by random chance,
16:51 which you'd think she'd use instead of pairing the students up with their friends
16:54 so they'd be too busy chit-chatting to get the assignment done as fast as possible,
16:58 which they'd want to do if they didn't like each other.
17:01 What does she get Mitch and Veronica, female partners?
17:05 Because a lot of guys would be distracted by their looks and Moose is jealous.
17:10 It turns out the students are supposed to write about a flower show
17:12 and it's going exactly as you'd expect considering the one personality trait each of them has.
17:19 It's pretty boring for me to review because it's not futuristic.
17:22 Despite being a genius,
17:24 Dilton's stupid enough to think the formal name of a flower would work in a poem
17:29 while Reggie wants to rip off someone else's famous poem.
17:33 At least Veronica's smart enough to know that her teacher would know about that.
17:38 I don't think that's absolutely unacceptable.
17:41 It makes sense that someone would want to be lazy.
17:44 Archie sees something and types with a microwave processor.
17:49 The comic gets the modern day right sometimes.
17:51 It just gets wrong what words we'd use for the technology,
17:55 somehow thinking that we'd want to use long, boring technical terms.
17:59 Grundy's name for the computer at the start of the story is a big example
18:03 and here Archie's got a tablet.
18:05 Archie wins and the story ends with a computer showing Reggie's car get towed away by a flying
18:12 tow trunk for some reason.
18:14 This was such a mundane, low-stakes plot.
18:18 I hate when the comic has a plot that could have been done in a regular Archie comic
18:22 so that the futuristic stuff is just there for decoration
18:25 because it feels like I kind of wasted my time reviewing the story then.
18:29 I prefer to review sci-fi and fantasy.
18:32 Why would I care if a few of these characters win a trophy we'll never see again by making a good poem?
18:37 All of them are pretty flawed characters, so I don't necessarily root for them all the time.
18:42 I feel like the poem was lame anyways.
18:45 You'd think it wouldn't win because it was spiteful at the end.
18:48 And while Grundy has every reason to hate Reggie,
18:51 it's not professional of her to be fine with choosing the poem that publicly humiliates the student.
18:56 In the next story, Reggie refuses to take ballet class just to humor Betty and Veronica,
19:02 who should have known better.
19:04 Veronica says that a few of the boys in ballet class are taking her and Betty out for a date
19:09 tonight.
19:09 And Archie and Reggie want to get a look at these guys by waiting outside the theater afterwards.
19:15 It's so obvious how the plot's gonna go.
19:17 They're expecting them to be weak, but of course, they find out they're in good shape.
19:21 It's almost like ballet is a physically exhausting activity that'd be tiring to non-athletes.
19:27 The artist doesn't do a good job showing that they look rugged, though.
19:32 I think he just tries to make them look comedic.
19:34 I expected them to be larger.
19:37 Betty says that studying ballet makes them seem sophisticated,
19:41 and that she can't wait to see them in the dance competition on the terraformed Venus.
19:45 It'll be totally forgettable that it is on Venus.
19:48 So Reggie gets jealous enough to tell them that he and Archie plan on entering.
19:52 He says they'll use a tape which shows a hologram to demonstrate how to learn ballet.
19:57 Not that the story is futuristic enough anyways.
20:01 I never thought Betty was talking about a ballet competition, because then she would upset it.
20:06 But by saying "dance competition," it seems like she's talking about the more popular dances.
20:13 I know these two only think their rivals can do ballet dances,
20:16 but there's no reason they couldn't know how to do other dances too.
20:19 The artist doesn't seem to be on the same side as the writer,
20:23 because he makes Archie and Reggie wear pink and purple for comedy,
20:26 while the hologram has ridiculous yellow leotards.
20:29 So the story has a mixed message by still making them look ridiculous for breaking a gender rule.
20:35 After they exhaust themselves practicing,
20:38 they get laughed at and discover that the guys they were competing with are wearing disco outfits
20:43 and end up doing a disco dance.
20:45 Why are there timers in Reggie and Archie's turbojet belts?
20:49 The timers force them to do ballet dances,
20:53 which would be cheating if it was a ballet contest.
20:56 Did they get it from Dilton?
20:58 It's not like all of them would be allowed to have that, because that would be unfair.
21:02 Their rivals win, and at least they get the unique disco outfit award,
21:07 even if they wouldn't appreciate it.
21:09 So this guy is trying to be nice to them, maybe.
21:11 The story ends there, with me thinking of it as something whose value is entirely dependent
21:16 on whether you find the last page to be funny.
21:18 Otherwise, it's just a mundane plot that only used futuristic technology
21:23 as a way to further humiliate the characters.
21:26 And as annoying as they were at the start,
21:27 they still didn't deserve to be humiliated like that for it.
21:31 That kind of humiliation would lead to bullying.
21:34 Lifelong bullying.
21:36 So it's a good thing the comic's episodic.
21:38 The first story was by Harold Smith.
21:42 Same can be said for the next story.
21:46 Harold Smith also wrote the third story.
21:49 And the final story is by Dan Parent.