It was the only time a fictitious rock group had the #1 song of the year.

But The Archies got all their voices from a man named Ron Dante. He was Archie, Jughead, and Reggie -- and according to Wikipedia, he even sang in a falsetto voice as Betty for the song "Jingle, Jangle."

"In 1969, Ron [also] recorded an album under the group name of The Cufflinks... Providing both lead and background vocals through overdubbing, Dante hit the U.S. Top Ten with the single "Tracy", at the same time that The Archies' "Sugar, Sugar" was at the top spot on the same chart. Dante was anonymous on both tracks..."

"We recorded maybe thirty or forty songs in a three or four week period, and 'Sugar Sugar' was just another song," Ron remembers. In fact, he recorded over 100 songs for the Archies' show and five albums. But over 40 of those songs were never released on CD.

"[T]here is a chance that I will get my hands on the masters someday and release them on my own label," he vows in this interview.

In 1971 Archie's cartoon band even issued a pretentious "Summer Prayer for Peace."

"The Archies are sometimes jokingly compared to the seminal 60s rock band The Doors, as the Doors also had no bass player." — Wikipedia

The Archies burned through three different female vocalists.

Dante's voice also sang the "Coke is..." counterpart on the famous "I'd like to teach the world to sing" commercial.

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