File:The Archies - Sugar, Sugar (1969) 4K

The Archies performing "Sugar, Sugar", released originally in 1969.

It reached #1 in the US Cash Box Top 100, US Billboard Hot 100, UK Singles, Canada, Mexico, Singapore, Spain, Germany and Ireland.

The Archies group was created by Don Kirshner, the same promoter and producer who put together The Monkees. He wanted to create a group of cartoon characters since they are easier to work with than people. The Archies performed on the Saturday morning cartoon show Archie, but the group was never seen, just the cartoon characters.

"Sugar, Sugar" was written by Andy Kim and Jeff Barry, and was performed by session musicians including Kim, Toni Wine, Ron Dante and Ellie Greenwich. According to Jeff Barry, he and Andy Kim wrote the song with preschoolers in mind since that was the audience for the Archie TV show.

They included the "You are my candy girl" line because they thought about what kids that age like, which is candy. However, they also wanted the song to appeal to adults, so they included the line "I just can't believe the loveliness of loving you."

The song met with resistance at radio stations, which didn't want to play a cartoon band. Don Kirshner hired an experienced promotion man to work the stations. His tactic was to visit the stations, play the song for the program directors, but not reveal the artist until they agreed to play it. In some cases, he could only get them to play it once, but that was all he needed because the phones would light up.