by Steve HueyMost 60s bubblegum groups were faceless studio concoctions, made up of hired professionals and given nominal group identities after the fact. The Archies made no pretense of being a real band in the first place — their music, including the smash hit Sugar, Sugar, was performed by the animated TV cartoon characters spun off from Archie comics. In reality, of course, they were a studio concoction made up of hired professionals (most notably lead singer Ron Dante), but in this case, they werent technically faceless.The Archies were created by promoter Don Kirshner, who was coming off of a major success as the creator of the Monkees. In late 1967, Kirshner was hired as music supervisor for CBS new Saturday morning cartoon The Archie Show, which was to feature a new original song every week. He immediately brought on producer Jeff Barry, who with Ellie Greenwich had formed one of the pre-eminent songwriting teams of the girl-gro...