Much like his fellow comic-book character Howard The Duck, Ron Dante was once trapped in a world he did not make. As the lead singer of The Archies, he was one of the primary architects of the relentlessly upbeat, hook-heavy ‘bubblegum’ sound that swept the charts and the airwaves in the late 60s and early 70s. From to , Dante was racking up the hits left and right.
The only problem was, The Archies weren’t a real band. They were a Saturday morning cartoon, based on a long-running (it only ceased publishing in 2020) comic book. Regardless of their popularity, The Archies remained anonymous, existing only to pacify pre-teens as they shovelled sugar-coated cereal into their mouths on Saturday mornings.
To add insult to an already bruised ego, another of Dante’s anonymous studio projects, the Cuff Links, scored a surprise top 10 hit with at the exact same time raced up the charts. went off the air in 1969, but by this point bubblegum mania was in full swing. Dozens of Archies-wannabes with increasingly bizarre names – 1910 Fruitgum Company, Popcorn Rebellion, Groovy Goolies – flooded the airwaves and record stores and Saturday morning TV line-ups, so The Archies continued churning out sunshiny pop tunes until the whole bubblegum circus popped in 1972.
But Dante was already trying, fitfully, to break out of the cartoon-rocker game. In 1970, he released his first solo album, . Unfortunately, he utilised songs composed by Andy ‘ ’ Kim and Jeff ‘ ’ Barry, so the .