The Archies is a new take on an old premise and follows Archie and his gang of friends in 1960s India going up against a group of developers that are trying to destroy a much-loved park, while also finding their way through the maze of teenage life and love. Milkshakes, Rock n’ Roll, and plenty of dancing make up the DNA of this film adaptation of the popular property, featuring a well-known cast of characters including Archie, Betty, Veronica, and Jughead. If you are a fan of the comic book, the TV show, or this new adaptation, you might want to learn a little more about this latest take on Jughead in particular.
Who plays Jughead in Netflix’s The Archies?
Mihir Ahuja plays the part of Jughead Jones in the movie. Mihir was born on June 28, 1998, in Jamshedpur, Jharkhand, India. He is an actor, known for Super 30, Sarzameen, and State of Siege: Temple Attack.
You can follow Mihir on Instagram, where he is very active and shares many shots of himself and the projects he’s working on.
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Character Jughead Explained — From comic to screen
It might surprise some of you to learn that the characters from The Archies, including Jughead, have been around for a very long time. Archie would make his debut in a U.S. comic book called Pep Comics. Archie appears in issue #21 of the book, from 1941, and Jughead was there right from the start. The pair were always best friends, and Jughead would also be the drummer in their band The Archies.
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Jughead is a bit of a smart alec, often depicted as sarcastic, and is never short of something to say. He is usually quite a laid-back character despite his eccentricities and has a love for eating food. He seems able to eat a huge amount, often hamburgers, in one sitting. In the comic books, he would be seen wearing a sweatshirt with an “S” on it, although the reason for the S has never really been fully explained, and a strange crown-shaped cap called a whoopee cap. In the early days of the comic book, much speculation was around the character’s real name, and this would be a running theme for a long time.
Jughead as depicted in the Archie Comics
Jughead would appear in the animated show from the late 1960s and also in the promotional video for the song Sugar Sugar, as the band’s drummer, predating future animated band The Gorillaz. He was also in the cast for the 1987 animated revival and would appear in a parody version of the character in an episode of The Simpsons called Sideshow Bob Returns.
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An ill-fated pilot for a real-life show would appear in 1976, with Jughead played by Derrell Maury, but the show was not taken forward. A 1990 TV movie also features Jughead, played by Sam Whipple, set fifteen years after the characters have graduated, with Archie now a divorced psychiatrist. Jughead is a main character in the CW series Riverdale, where he is portrayed by Cole Sprouse. This version of Jughead is a darker, moodier character and is not obsessed with food.
Who created Jughead?
Jughead was created by Bob Montana and John L. Goldwater who were behind the original 1940s comic book. Bob Montana was a freelancer working for True Comics and Fox Comics who created an adventure strip about four teenage boys but could not find a publisher interested in the story.
Bob would submit his four-boy strip to John Goldwater while working as a freelance artist at MLJ. Goldwater thought it would be more appealing to feature two boys and two girls, rather than four boys, and the change was made and the strip was a huge success. This led to Bob becoming the artist on the first issue of Archie in 1942.
Bob would serve in WWII, becoming a sergeant and marrying his wife Peggy. Upon his return from duty, he would be the artist on the daily Archie comic strip, a run that would last thirty-five years, and appear in over seven hundred and fifty newspapers around the world. Tragically Bob would die from a heart attack at the age of fifty-four.
Archie comics are still published today.
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