A decades-long mystery has been, if not solved, at the very least illuminated. Thank you, AZ.
posted by Faint of Butt at 6:30 AM on April 28, 2009

The significance of Jughead's hat is something that bothered me greatly when I was six or seven, and no one seemed to know the answer, or even care. It was something I'd resigned to never know, but now I do. Oh god, I love the internet.
posted by Jon_Evil at 6:32 AM on April 28, 2009 [2 favorites]

Huh. I always sort of wondered. Never made the Goober connection.
posted by jquinby at 6:35 AM on April 28, 2009

Proving once again that, if you wait long enough, all childhood mysteries will be either answered or violated, frequently both, by the Internet.
posted by DU at 6:35 AM on April 28, 2009 [21 favorites]

Wow, that was fantastic
posted by voltairemodern at 6:36 AM on April 28, 2009

I already knew the hat was a refurbished fedora, but this is a tidy little collection of research and I tip my (Jughead) hat.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:40 AM on April 28, 2009

This is why the Internet was invented. What a great post.
posted by theora55 at 6:44 AM on April 28, 2009

I thought everybody knew that. Now get off my lawn.
posted by Ron Thanagar at 6:45 AM on April 28, 2009 [3 favorites]

I thought everybody knew that. Now get off my lawn.
posted by Ron Thanagar

Birthday: June 11 (47 years old)
Occupation: Comic Merchant

And out of your store?
posted by DU at 6:47 AM on April 28, 2009 [2 favorites]

I just figured he was wearing one of those air fresheners. Cheaper than deodorant...
posted by LordSludge at 6:47 AM on April 28, 2009

The fabulousness of this post is only enhanced by the fact that I now know of a website called He Shot Cyrus.
posted by JoanArkham at 6:48 AM on April 28, 2009 [2 favorites]

Sublime post. Flawless.
posted by Jody Tresidder at 6:49 AM on April 28, 2009

This is one of the best things I have ever seen on the Internet. I too doff my hat, though it is not a Jughead one!
posted by languagehat at 6:50 AM on April 28, 2009 [1 favorite]

Despite that weird "Southern California Style" magazine, no kid in socal willingly wore one of those beanies. Acid wash jeans and too many watches? Yes. Hideous neon colors? Yup. Jughead beanies with a peace symbol patch? No. Oh hell no.

The whole DIY thrift-store nature of a button beanie and the historical baggage of the peace symbol would mortify any 80s-era socal kid to death. Note the dude's expression on the left. He can't even fake it for a photo. He wants to kill someone. Possibly himself.

I was there, in several of the cities listed on that weird catalog/magazine looking thing - and I'm struggling to articulate how unpleasant it is to see all of that crap from the outside, 20 years later. The 80s sucked. The 80s in SoCal sucked especially badly.
posted by loquacious at 6:54 AM on April 28, 2009 [5 favorites]

Excellent, but incomplete without reference to Bugs Meany.
posted by etc. at 6:57 AM on April 28, 2009 [14 favorites]

Actually my dad said that in the '40s all the neighborhood kids wore them. They would cover them with PEP pins and whatnot. That's what the little shapes on Jughead's cap is supposed to represent I would imagine. (We actually sold replica Jughead hats through our stores several years ago, officially produced by Archie Comics. I still have mine, but they're sadly unavailable.)
posted by Ron Thanagar at 6:58 AM on April 28, 2009 [6 favorites]

...the historical baggage of the peace symbol would mortify any 80s-era socal kid to death.

Maybe they mistook it for a Mercedes-Benz logo.
posted by infinitewindow at 6:58 AM on April 28, 2009

Also, even with Archie's recent redesigns and "controversial" "New Look," Jughead still has the damn hat.
posted by infinitewindow at 7:02 AM on April 28, 2009

Whoopee hats (or Whoopee caps) shared the same basic configuration. They were part of a fad that appears to have peaked around 1929, mostly on college campuses.

They popped up in several popular songs of the day, including 'The Whoopee Hat Brigade', which was recorded by many different bands.


To get back in your time machine and return to the present, turn to page 15.
To shoot yourself in the fucking face because the past was so boring, turn to page 17.
posted by Inspector.Gadget at 7:03 AM on April 28, 2009 [13 favorites]

[this is goofyd]
posted by anastasiav at 7:06 AM on April 28, 2009

Jughead lies in the shadow of the statue.

I think.
posted by jeremy b at 7:08 AM on April 28, 2009 [5 favorites]

Now that Jughead's hat has been covered, how about explaining what the hell is that crosshatching on the side of Archie's head. Is it some wire mesh tucked inside his ear as an early tinfoil hat? Let's see the Internet answer that one!
posted by digsrus at 7:10 AM on April 28, 2009

This post should be tagged with awesome.
posted by jacquilynne at 7:11 AM on April 28, 2009

Boy, that New Look makes Archie look like something Arthur Fonzarelli coughed up after a particularly bad bender.
posted by blucevalo at 7:12 AM on April 28, 2009 [2 favorites]

When I was a kid, I thought he was wearing a crown and guessed it must've been because at one time he'd been crowned King of Hamburgers or something.

That Jughead sure did like his hamburgers.
posted by Spatch at 7:13 AM on April 28, 2009 [8 favorites]

Overthinking a plate of beanies.
posted by Floydd at 7:20 AM on April 28, 2009 [4 favorites]

OK, now the REAL question: Why does Jughead wear a shirt with a big "S" on it when he goes to Riverdale High School? I know because I still read Jughead Comics!
posted by Ron Thanagar at 7:21 AM on April 28, 2009 [1 favorite]

This is really amazing. I have loooooong wondered about his hat.

Now, if only someone could explain how Archie could juggle both Betty and Veronica while being, for all extents and purposes, a ginger doofus, I would greatly appreciate it.
posted by Admiral Haddock at 7:22 AM on April 28, 2009 [3 favorites]

When I was a kid my dad cut me a hat like that out of an old black fedora. Worn out fedoras used to be plentiful. Until about the end of the 1960's one wasn't considered fully dressed in a suit unless one also wore a hat, usually a fedora at the time. My dad wore one every day to work.

Anyway, he seemed to think it was a really cool thing and seemed disappointed that I didn't think so too. It was a good job, though. It obviously wasn't his first.
posted by lordrunningclam at 7:22 AM on April 28, 2009 [2 favorites]

Dammit now I have to buy one.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:22 AM on April 28, 2009

Great post, thanks for clearing this up. I'd always assumed that his crown was just cut out of paper!
posted by interrobang at 7:22 AM on April 28, 2009

Wicked post.

In my Archie-reading days I had always wondered about Jughead's hat as well and ended up coming to the naive conclusion that it was a cartoonist's invention, having never seen anything even remotely like it in real life. Jughead was pretty quirky, after all.

Last summer I was staying in a neighbouring cottage to my wife's family cottage, which was under renovation. This place was essentially a hunting lodge and summer home in the first half of the 20th century and is chock full of incredible stuff from that period. Looking through photo albums from the 40's, I was completely gobsmacked by several photos of a young man (late teens, early twenties) wearing a full-on real-life jughead hat. With not a hint of irony.

Between that and this post, my mind is blown.
posted by tarnish at 7:22 AM on April 28, 2009 [5 favorites]

I never thought I could appreciate a single link post this much. Great find AZ! Best o' der web.
posted by WinnipegDragon at 7:26 AM on April 28, 2009

So much for my theory that Jughead was Alexei Romanov, smuggled out of Russia by loyal servants and living in hiding in Riverdale until the day he could reclaim his rightful place as Emperor.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 7:29 AM on April 28, 2009 [7 favorites]

The "S" is for "Satan".
posted by LordSludge at 7:30 AM on April 28, 2009 [1 favorite]

Jughead hats are pretty cool, but I think I'd rather have a plain fedora with a "PRESS" label sticking out. AlsoI'dtalklikeDISsee?
posted by DU at 7:31 AM on April 28, 2009 [7 favorites]

This post is why the Internet was invented. Cool shit you never knew you were interested in.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 7:38 AM on April 28, 2009

The Internet: Answering Questions You Never Knew You Had
posted by brain_drain at 7:39 AM on April 28, 2009 [11 favorites]

That was so much more interesting than I though it was going to be. Nice post.
posted by HumanComplex at 7:40 AM on April 28, 2009

The "S" is for "Satan".

Nonsense! I'm an actor. The "S" is for Shakespeare.
posted by Naberius at 7:43 AM on April 28, 2009 [1 favorite]

That answers that question!

Now we need to find out why every sentence in an Archie comic ends in either a question mark or an exclamation point!

Why?!?
posted by Widepath at 7:51 AM on April 28, 2009

Well, I never wondered about Jughead's hat (or even suspected that this was a branch of historical investigation) but now that I have been been lightened, I know exactly what to do with the stupid fedora that I look like an idiot in, which was an ill-advised purchase in about 1983.

Not that I'll look like any less of an idiot in my newly minted fedora-turned-crown, but it's a project, and it could be quite fun to play "Embarrass the Kids" with.
posted by Devils Rancher at 7:52 AM on April 28, 2009 [2 favorites]

Thanks for this post! I'd all but given up on The In Crowd while he was on sabbatical or whatever; it's good to see him posting again. I'm Learning To Share is one of the best blogs out there, hands down.
posted by carsonb at 7:57 AM on April 28, 2009

Next question: Why does Bazooka Joe's Mort wear his turtleneck up so high? The Onion investigates.
posted by Rhaomi at 7:59 AM on April 28, 2009 [4 favorites]

Now we need to find out why every sentence in an Archie comic ends in either a question mark or an exclamation point!

Back in the early days of comics fine details wouldn't get printed properly or at all for that matter. Periods were notorious for not getting printed, so writers switched to ending sentences with a ! or ? because it was a bigger mark that wouldn't get missed. The style stuck with comics, even as printing technology advanced enough to overcome this problem.
posted by swashedbuckles at 8:04 AM on April 28, 2009 [9 favorites]

The last two pictures--the one from loquacious' teen modeling days and the Andrew Weill impersonator--are my favorites.
posted by box at 8:11 AM on April 28, 2009

Huh. Interesting answer swashedbuckles! Now, can you explain why the bolded emphasis in most comics dialogue has zero relationship with how people speak?
posted by brundlefly at 8:12 AM on April 28, 2009

I actually re watched Death Wish recently, and what really struck me most about the movie was the question, "Did the Jughead hat really make Jeff Goldblum a more menacing street thug in the 70s?"
posted by 2N2222 at 8:13 AM on April 28, 2009

More importantly, this link also revealed that Jeff Goldblum wore a crown beanie in Death Wish.

I'm not sure exactly what this portends, but I suspect it's got to be some powerful, world changing shit.
posted by quin at 8:14 AM on April 28, 2009 [1 favorite]

Back in the early days of comics...

Oh man Thank you. That has always bugged me about Archie comics, and I knew there must be a better explanation than the entire town of Riverdale is constantly yelling.
posted by Widepath at 8:15 AM on April 28, 2009

I thoroughly agree with the posts calling this the best of the web. How fun was that? Unfortunately, like digsrus, I, too, wondered about the weird crosshatching on Archie's head. I thought maybe wikipedia could also illuminate that issue. No such luck. But, oh dear God, they replaced Betty, the jalopy? I know this isn't a crisis of epic proportions, but I'm really fucking irritated.
posted by diamondsky at 8:29 AM on April 28, 2009

That was brilliant, thanks!
posted by mygothlaundry at 8:43 AM on April 28, 2009

My God, I always thought it was the top of a broken jug turned upside down.
posted by shmegegge at 8:44 AM on April 28, 2009

Huh. Interesting answer swashedbuckles! Now, can you explain why the bolded emphasis in most comics dialogue has zero relationship with how people speak?

For the same reason one of my former co-workers used to write emails like this.

Which is to say, I have no idea, but if you figure it out, let me know.
posted by inigo2 at 8:44 AM on April 28, 2009

The cross-hatching is just a stylized version of the denser shading on Archie's hair in the 1946 cover shown in the blog post. Like Jughead's hat, it evolved over time to something less naturalistic, more iconic.
posted by rory at 8:51 AM on April 28, 2009

I was a big reader of Archie Comics back in the day. Long car trips always meant a couple new Archie Digests for the ride. I often wondered why he was always wearing that damn crown!

Awesome post, thanks.
posted by Shfishp at 8:55 AM on April 28, 2009

"Next question: Why does Bazooka Joe's Mort wear his turtleneck up so high?."

I think the real question is "Why does Bazooka Joe have an eyepatch?".
posted by dunkadunc at 8:55 AM on April 28, 2009

Next question: Why does Bazooka Joe's Mort wear his turtleneck up so high?

He's emulating Wilfrid out of The Bash Street Kids. (That's him in the green sweater.)
posted by PeterMcDermott at 9:14 AM on April 28, 2009

I think the real question is "Why does Bazooka Joe have an eyepatch?".

The real answer.
posted by DU at 9:19 AM on April 28, 2009

I made myself one of these beanies when I was in the fourth grade (1946). I got the idea either from the comics or from watching Dead End Kids. I lived in the suburbs and envied the kids that lived in the city and talked like the DEK. So I got an old hat aand made a beanie and wore it for playing marbles. It definitely improved my game.

"My God, I always thought it was the top of a broken jug turned upside down."

No, that was in the Mad Magazine satire of Archie.
posted by charlesminus at 9:21 AM on April 28, 2009 [9 favorites]

A few years ago Mr. Adams and I stopped in Mt. Airy, North Carolina, on our way home from Georgia. We had the best pork tenderloin sandwiches in the world at Snappy Lunch, and then toured the Andy Griffith Museum. On a whim I asked the guy at the counter if they had any Goober hats for sale. He said "I've got one left." With a sudden sense of urgency I said, "I'll take it!" He handed it to me and said "$8." Mr. Adams said to me as he examined the cap "Eight dollars?! That's nothing 50 cents worth of fel!." "But it's the last one left!" He rolled his eyes and mumbled, "Yeah, and the next sucker after you will also spend $8 on the 'last one in the store.'"
posted by Oriole Adams at 9:29 AM on April 28, 2009

The Himalayan version of Jughead's hat, the Kinnauri topi, worn not by Jughead but by Jugdish and the local Betty too.
posted by nickyskye at 9:37 AM on April 28, 2009

No, that was in the Mad Magazine satire of Archie.

Starchie!
posted by languagehat at 9:59 AM on April 28, 2009

Forget Bazooka Joe. What is up with the Jello-mold hat that Dumb Donald wore in Fat Albert?
posted by bink at 10:38 AM on April 28, 2009

languagehat, I think you meant to link here. (And you said we wouldn't miss Geocities!)
posted by filthy light thief at 10:51 AM on April 28, 2009

I knew this, and I was born in the '80s!

(There was a character on The Cosby Show who wore a Jughead hat in at least one episode. It was hideous.)
posted by Sys Rq at 10:53 AM on April 28, 2009

I had a mean jean bean hat in the 70's. I made the mistake of wearing it inside my school and it got confiscated. Never saw it again. Punk ass hall monitor.
posted by doctorschlock at 11:15 AM on April 28, 2009

This deeply and thoroughly scratches an itch I had felt since I was a kid. In fact, when the internets was newish, I tried to get these answers - I think it was in 2003 - and I found the site where the guy sells replicas, but really no comprehensive understanding of what was up with that hat. This is a full an explication as I could have wanted. Also, back then I was unable to determine what the pins on the hat were supposed to be - I remember finding some source identifying them as "19th century love tokens" or some such thing, but that produced a dead end too. The Pep pins are a very satisfying explanation - we know they existed, we know they were worn on hats. It all adds up and makes sense. As an odd kid in the 80s, I was able to purchase old fedoras easily - they were everywhere. I had a gorgeous gray one that I got for $4. Fantastic!

Just waiting now for the DIY replica instructions.

Confession: I still read Archie. I'm a big fan. I find it very relaxing, and there is so much to wonder about in the strange Archie world. Other confession: it was my longstanding two-dimensional crush on Jughead that fueld my hat curiosity. I just found an old community blog entry from the days when I was trying to run down the hat, in 2003:

My love for Archie comics is ridiculous and indefensible. I can offer no apologies or explanations; even I don't understand it. [some discussion of female characters] ...As for the boys, I always passed over Archie (nice guy, doofus) and Reggie (baselessly arrogant)to indulge a renegade crush on Jughead; as his web page says with classic bad comix grammar: beneath Jughead's appearance as a slacker lies a very sharp mind...Beneath Jughead's wacky, zany and sometimes totally spaced out personality lies one really cool dude who sees the world a lot differently than his friends. Being normal like everyone else doesn't suit Jughead one bit, he's as unique as they come, and he loves it. After all, who else in their right mind would purposely try to act like Jughead? The only downside is, Jughead just doesn't date. What's the deal? Is he gay? (I could see him and Dilton Dailey getting together.) Is he sublimating his need for companionship with his obsession for french fries and choc'lit malts? Or is he just the classic romantic loner, so mysterious, so inaccessible? I'll just have to keep reading to see if anyone ever breaks that Brando-like shell of indifference.

posted by Miko at 11:19 AM on April 28, 2009 [3 favorites]

Mr. Adams said to me as he examined the cap "Eight dollars?! That's nothing 50 cents worth of fel!." "But it's the last one left!" He rolled his eyes and mumbled, "Yeah, and the next sucker after you will also spend $8 on the 'last one in the store.'"

Nipped it in the bud!
posted by Spatch at 11:21 AM on April 28, 2009

Neat post, though somewhat spoiled by burning my eyes with that modern day crapola. Why is it that every single attempt to update Archie must include:
- Replacing the jalopy with some crappy convertible
- Jughead sheds his beanie for a ball cap
- Jughead is suddenly interested in girls

This is why I only ever read the digests as a kid -- they reprinted stories going all the way back to the 40s.
posted by evilcolonel at 11:22 AM on April 28, 2009

Sublime post. Flawless.

This is why the Internet was invented. What a great post

What!? I can't stand it when people criticize posts for being weak or poorly put together, I mean just skip to the next one if you don't like this one . . . but so what makes THIS post "best of the web"?

You guys are baffling.
posted by Restless Day at 11:32 AM on April 28, 2009

I agree this is a truly excellent post, but it is incomplete without a sort of sidebar noting the brief, inexplicable rise of Christian-themed Archie comics in the late '70s. Nothing to do with haberdashery, but lots to do with oddness in Riverdale.

Turns out they were produced by the same company that did the Chuck Colson "Born Again" comic, whose singularly awesome cover adorned my student-house walls in the early '90s.

Also, anyone else remember one particular Archie-comic plotline that ran across several stories in which Jughead gets a new magic space pin on his crown that turns him into Bizarro Jughead, the suave ladies' man? What was that all about?
posted by gompa at 11:37 AM on April 28, 2009 [1 favorite]

but so what makes THIS post "best of the web"?

Well, it's no Scarlett-Johannson's-used-kleenex, granted.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 11:46 AM on April 28, 2009 [1 favorite]

Christian-themed Archie comics in the late '70s

OMG, yes! I bought a stack of these in the early 90s, along with non-Archie ones seemingly done by the same stable of artists/writers. The bad "blaxploitation" dialogue is mind-blowing.
posted by JoanArkham at 11:56 AM on April 28, 2009

Huh. Interesting answer swashedbuckles! Now, can you explain why the bolded emphasis in most comics dialogue has zero relationship with how people speak?

As far as I know, it's traditionally supposed to be used to emphasize stress on certain words. It was especially useful when comics were printed in all caps (once again due to printing technology) and they needed a way to differentiate words. When used sparingly it seems to work pretty well (though many still debate its value).

But when it's used for every other word? I'm not too sure. I found this discussion on Boing Boing about it (leading to this excellent page on comic book grammar, btw). The most likely answer, IMO, is that excessive bolding isn't it's used to pick out specific words so much as create a feel for the cadence of the character's speech. But really it changes author to author and is a very stylistic thing.
posted by swashedbuckles at 12:00 PM on April 28, 2009 [1 favorite]

Heh Horace Rumpole I am bitter my second attempt at an FPP was deleted, but I'm as surprised as any my first post was allowed to stand.
posted by Restless Day at 12:02 PM on April 28, 2009

Miko, and others who might be interested: HERE'S the Jughead hat that Archie Comics had for sale several years ago. It's well-made and adult sized!

(Modeled by mannequin head "LARRY G" circa 1985, stylin'.)
posted by Ron Thanagar at 12:03 PM on April 28, 2009

The use of exclamations in lieu of periods, btw, is why Elliot S! Maggin spells his name with an exclamation:

"I got into the habit of putting exclamation marks at the end of sentences instead of periods because reproduction on pulp paper was so lousy. So once, by accident, when I signed a script I put the exclamation point after my 'S' because I was just used to going to that end of the typewriter at the time. And Julie saw it, and before he told me, he goes into the production room and issues a general order that any mention of Elliot Maggin's name will be punctuated with an exclamation mark rather than a period from now on until eternity." (source)

posted by swashedbuckles at 12:04 PM on April 28, 2009 [1 favorite]

What!? I can't stand it when people criticize posts for being weak or poorly put together, I mean just skip to the next one if you don't like this one . . . but so what makes THIS post "best of the web"?

You guys are baffling.

Well, the thread wasn't perfect without your dissenting comment.
Now it is.
Thank you, Restless Day!
posted by Jody Tresidder at 12:05 PM on April 28, 2009

And no mention of Christian Spire Comics is complete without HANSI, THE GIRL WHO LOVED THE SWASTIKA...
posted by Ron Thanagar at 12:06 PM on April 28, 2009 [1 favorite]

Dan Brereron put one of these on his 'Freako' character in The Psycho.
posted by Smedleyman at 12:41 PM on April 28, 2009

Ron Thanagar : I own copies of both the comic adaptation, and the novel/memoir it was based on. Just thought I'd share.
posted by AzraelBrown at 12:44 PM on April 28, 2009

but so what makes THIS post "best of the web"?

It answers one of those seemingly unanswerable questions from our childhood in a well-researched way, and the answer it came up with was both obvious and surprising at the same time. It's an arcane bit of trivia that would never be lovingly and thoroughly documented in a form available to the masses were it not for the web. This is what the web excels at.

This and cheap porn.
posted by jacquilynne at 2:59 PM on April 28, 2009

I've been meaning to knit one of these for my partner! It's out of a killer book.
posted by sadiehawkinstein at 3:12 PM on April 28, 2009

Grew up with a Jughead crown tilt and tardy slip...
posted by Ian A.T. at 4:21 PM on April 28, 2009

but so what makes THIS post "best of the web"?

To me, it wasn't so much the blog post itself that is what the web was made for -- though I love it - but the way it illustrates the usefulness of the web as a research tool. This person began with a curiosity, developed it into a research question, and went about mining the material that has been made available on the web. To answer the question, he went to comics forums and image archives, period costume forums and archives, historic photo archives, an online encyclopedia, a movie information database, a video sharing site, an audio archive of early 78s, and commercial websites. The author used the information he found in online content and the power of the hive mind to construct a really complete cultural context for what was before a sort of mysterious object, compelling, but without a provenance. And he did it using resources that are free and accessible to anyone with an internet connection.

It's a question you couldn't answer by using the internet even six years ago, when I tried it. It's like a lot of little questions that make you understand the world better, even if they're relatively unimportant. The answer is there, in those forums, films, and archives, waiting only for someone with the time and interest to piece it together and share it with an obviously interested audience - on a volunteer basis.

And that's what makes it an awesome example of what the web was made for.
posted by Miko at 5:26 PM on April 28, 2009 [13 favorites]

Yeah, thanks for this, great post. I always thought the weird hat was some sort of crown, too.

I'm reminded of the conversation in Kevin Smith's movie Chasing Amy - the protagonist is a comic book artist, and some of the action centers on a comics convention.

And they're shooting the breeze, and one of the characters starts expounding his theory of the gay subtext in the Archie/Riverdale universe: "And that's why Jughead wears a crown! Because he is the KING of Archie's world!
posted by AsYouKnow Bob at 5:53 PM on April 28, 2009

thank you for this. posts like this are why I joined metafilter.
posted by dogmom at 6:12 PM on April 28, 2009

Outstanding post!

I started shaving my head in the early 1990's. Back then, there was still a certain question about why a white guy would shave his head. I did it because I was losing my hair anyway, and at the time I was a sideshow performer and could more or less appear any way I wanted to. And for the first time in my life I received compliments on my haircut!

But still the "skinhead" stigma stuck with me enough that I wore backwards-facing baseball caps most of the time. Eventually I got tired of that, especially the awkwardly located half-moon-shaped sunburns I would occasionally get.

For a while I wore a knit Kufi, but I eventually stopped, as I thought I might be giving off a weird or mixed message.

Eventually I discovered the welder's cap. Until reading this blog entry I had no idea that it originated with an everted fedora! I wore it because it fit well, helped prevent sunburn, and didn't have a plastic band that dug into my skin.

But for a brief time there in the mid 1990's, I felt I was ahead of the curve, as I was wearing a welder's cap while my Seattle grunge buddies were still wearing baseball caps...
posted by Tube at 6:37 PM on April 28, 2009

IIRC, the jalopy was Jughead's, and was always in need of maintenance. The FPP link starts with mention of the old fedoras being used as mechanic's caps. Seems to me that the Jughead cap, Jughead jalopy, and Jughead lower-class status all go together.
posted by five fresh fish at 7:33 PM on April 28, 2009

I agree, fff--Jughead belongs to the same lower class as Maynard G. Krebs, Gilligan and Tony Danza.
posted by box at 7:41 PM on April 28, 2009

Amazingly, Maynard G Krebs, Gilligan, and Tony Danza were all played by the same actor: Bob Denver!
posted by Astro Zombie at 8:01 PM on April 28, 2009 [3 favorites]

He's....beat.
posted by Miko at 8:03 PM on April 28, 2009

The jalopy was definitely Archie's, not Jughead's. Veronica was always mortified to be seen in it. (Lodges are better than that.) I was pretty sure Archie named it Ol' Bessie, but Google's not giving me much back-up.
posted by painquale at 9:21 PM on April 28, 2009 [1 favorite]

ooh, you're right, the Veronica-jalopy gag. So much for my theory.
posted by five fresh fish at 9:34 PM on April 28, 2009

From the link:
It appears that the first people to wear the original 'Jughead'-styled caps were auto mechanics, welders and other workmen who found they could get the same 'safety' function of a factory worker's beanie by altering an old worn-out fedora.

And with that I remembered: there is another character in comics that wears a Jughead crown! He's one of the garbage men in Heathcliff.
posted by JHarris at 2:56 AM on April 29, 2009

Cool.
posted by zennie at 3:42 PM on April 29, 2009

The jalopy was Ol' Betsy, and it was definitely Archie's. Can you see Jughead spending any money he might come into on something other than hamburgers?

(Jughead did have ownership, though, of Hot Dog.)
posted by evilcolonel at 10:49 PM on April 30, 2009