Welcome to Archieness & Riverdalers Presents: Josie and the Pussycats (Vol. 1), Issue #40!

Josie and the Pussycats (Vol. 1), Issue #40 [April, 1969]

”Foot-Loose and Fancy”

“CLYDE DIDIT BELIEVES IN TOTAL FREEDOM! THAT INCLUDES FREEDOM OF THE FEET!” I barely know Clyde, but he’s an obnoxious sunglasses-wearing afro-having white boy. And he’s taking off his boots in the hallway to show everyone his stinkin’ feet. “Mr. Tuttle frowns on non-conformists in his school!” says Josie concernedly. “Particularly the hippie type!”

Clyde doesn’t give a shit. He’s not going to wear his shoes, who’s with him?? “Ooh! He’s so in! So with it! I feel the call to freedom!” Melody sings as she starts removing her shirt, much to Josie’s utter surprise. She grabs Melody before her teen titties flop around the school hallways, but not before all the Boys start sprinting up to her hoping to get a gander! All the guys call Josie a killjoy! Booo! We want titties!

Melody walks into a locker and comes out dressed as one of those filthy, godawful hippies. Barefoot and everything. She runs down the hallway trying to get Clyde’s attention. “CLYDE! CLYDE DIDIT! WAIT! LOOK HOW FREE I AM!” She runs past Principal Plaid-Vest, who never thought he’d see the day!

Watch out or they might start listening to those B-B-B-B-Beatles records!!

Clyde and Melody are hopping around the hallway like idiots while Mr. Baldfuck Tuttle peers around the corner. “I feel all gay and free and released, Clyde!” she says, but Mr. Tuttle might not be so fond of this free-spirited behavior! “AHA!” Clyde yells, then starts jumping up and down like a cracked jackrabbit. “STRIKE! WALK OUT! CONSTITUTION! BILL OF RIGHTS! PROTEST! REVOLT SIT IN! PICKET! NO!”

“Egad!!” says Tuttle after this weird display of just-saying-things. He tries to hatch a plan to prevent more of this unpleasantness in his school and decides to stop the janitor from cleaning the floors. You see, the weather outside is frightful, and the kids keep dragging in snow, ice, pebbles, hail, sleet, snow, ice, pebbles, and snow! He takes the janitor’s broom and sends him on a nice, long coffee break. “The answer to a principal’s prayers,” Tuttle says of the floor full of pointy, hard rocks and ice. “The flower children are in class now! The old clock is ticking away, and–”

Once the bell rings, all the kids storm out of the classrooms… and poor Clyde and Melody, they step on all the ouchie shit! Foiled!

“Mr. Tuttle, that was a dirty trick!” Clyde gripes as he writhes on the floor pulling rocks off his feet. “You hate us because we’re free!!” he yells. This is not at all obnoxious, of course. Does this kid even go to this school?

Melody tells Clyde that if she had her shoes on right now that she’d kick him straight in the balls. Clyde goes to the janitor’s closet and grabs a broom because, honestly, he ain’t going to put shoes on just because some dipshit principal hates looking at feet!

While Clyde sweeps the floors instead of going to class, Tuttle visits the chemistry lab and–

”Cry Baby”

–um. Suddenly the story has a different title. We’re in the “cry baby” stage of the bare feet storyline. So where were? Ah yes.

Anyway, as I was saying, while Clyde sweeps the floors instead of going to class, Tuttle visits the chemistry lab and BOOM! There’s an explosion that rocks the school, 15 kilotons of TNT-equivalent that disintegrates everyone into powder and ash! Take that, hippies!

Actually, the explosion releases crying gas. Clyde takes this opportunity to revolt against obviously violent warfare. “Now it’s time to organize the kids!” he yells.

Blub! Fight the power! Blub! Glub!

Clyde stands on a bucket to try to rally his troops, but the gas spreads around the halls and everyone starts crying instead of getting fired up. A kid named Alex arrives to save the day with his gas mask that he keeps in his locker! “Have no fear, Alex is here!” he says before being promptly forgotten for the rest of the issue.

The janitor, crying, orders everyone to evacuate. “GET OUT! YOUR TEARS ARE SOAKING MY HALLS!” he yells ostentatiously. Clyde is still hollerin’ about civil rights for kids or something else that’s very ‘60s. There’s a lot of loud chaos, really. It’s getting quite preposterous.

Oh wait, Alex Cabot is the rich kid manager of the band. While the school airs out, he invites the teachers and the student body to conduct official school-related business (i.e. school) at his “luxurious home”. Great idea, dipfuck. You’re going to really piss off daddy.

Mr. Cabot looks out the window to see a procession of school buses enter his property. “EGAD!” he yells in the boldest of red letters. “He objected to going to school, so he brought the school home with him!!!”

”Higher Education”

The story continues! Everyone in the school starts strolling into the Cabot home like they own the place, but Cranky Old Mr. Cabot is not even cranky about it. He welcomes all these stinky teenagers and depressed, pill-popping teachers. “You’re more than welcome to use my home! The ballroom alone will hold several classes!” he says to Tuttle, showing him around the ol’ homestead. “The bowling alley in the basement should take a few hundred students!”

Wow, cool, man. Are you, like, rich? Fascinating. Cabot walks around observing the kids carrying books and smoking cigarettes and giving nerds swirlies, it’s nostalgic. “You know, I really enjoy this!” says Cabot. “I always wanted to be a teacher!”

Well, sir, hike up your teaching pants! Tuttle will allow you to take over one of his classes for no reason other than you’re super rich, probably. “Even monitoring the study hall will give you a taste of what it’s like!”

Study period? Swanky! Hey kids, come into the study hall. It’s actually more of an indoor pool kind of affair, honestly. A place where no studying at all will happen whatsoever. Anyway, enjoy the pool in the middle of the school day for some reason.

Nice hat, conformist.

The pool room is full of half-naked teenagers. Josie, who says something for the first time in her own comic book, comments on how fun it looks! But Alex, looking like an even more deranged Reggie Mantle, wants to snatch her away from the fun and show her something in the cold, snowy garage instead. He grabs her arm with his best rapey face on and drags her across the house.

“How’s that?” Alex says. “Isn’t she a beauty?”

“What’s it for?” asks Josie.

“If this icy wind would turn into a nice blizzard I could show you.”

“Oh! It’s a snow plow!!”

Yay. They hop into it and take it for a spin. Again, I’m losing the thread of the story. Isn’t school stuff supposed to be happening right now? Instead, Alex is fucking careening off the road in a snow plow, driving it around the neighborhood even though there’s no damn snow on the ground. They both get mangled in a wreck and it’s not a pretty sight! No one will ever find the bodies!

”School Daze”

Kids are still having fun, but they notice out the giant window that Josie has been kidnapped by a maniac in a snow plow. Mr. Cabot knows the snow plow sucks, that it’s not ready to run, that it’s full of nitroglycerin and it’s ready to blow! He chases after Alex and Josie, thinking that his fat ass can outrun a snow plow hurtling across the grounds at 650mph. “It’s not fully assembled!” he screams into the wind. Alex rips out the steering wheel while Josie is now upside-down in the vehicle.

Things aren’t chaotic. People aren’t going to die. This is just a dream. A horrible, horrible dream. Now who wants ice cream?

Next thing you know, the plow is crashing into the windows of Cabot’s pool room. “GAK!” screams Cabot, nostalgically thinking of the wonderful Nickelodeon goo from the 1990s. Now the cold air rushes in and freezes all the half-naked teens swimming around instead of studying like good boys and girls. They all run to sauna to warm their cold, aching bones!

This is pretty much the end. Nothing else of substance happens. The harrowing adventure of the snow plow is never concluded. The school is never reopened. And everyone hates their ice cream.

Final Thoughts

Did you notice that there were no black people at Josie’s school? Really makes you think.