Many comic book fans fondly remember the teenage hijinks of Archie, Betty, Veronica and the rest of the “Archie” comics gang in the fictional town of Riverdale.

Writer and director Gerald Peary has been a fan since the 1950s. He started collecting the series at the age of eight – “I was a fanatic about Archie.”

But decades later, while working as a film critic in Boston, Peary discovered that the colorful characters he grew up with – and their hometown – might not be entirely fictional.

His search for these muses is now the subject of a documentary called “Archie’s Betty” airing this weekend on WGBH.

In the 1980s, Peary saw a letter from a librarian from Haverhill, Masschusetts in The Boston Globe suggesting that “Archie” comics were really set in Haverhill and that many of the characters might be based on real people.

“That letter just drove me crazy,” Peary says, “so I went to Haverhill and walked around and met people.”

Peary learned that Bob Montana, the original cartoonist of the “Archie” comics, had indeed based some locations in his comics on his hometown, and many of his characters on his classmates from Haverhill High in the 1930s.

Perry met a man named Arnold Daggett, who may have been the the inspiration behind a comically dumb football player from the series:

“He walked up to me and he had the big thick neck and the flat-top and he said ‘Do I look like Moose?’ and I said god, absolutely, you are Moose.”

Peary found real-life models for Archie, Veronica, and Jughead too, but wasn’t able to pin down the inspiration for Betty at the time.

But his search didn’t stop. When Peary teamed up with Shaun Clancy to produce a documentary about the comic books a few years ago, they discovered that Betty might have been based on a woman that Montana knew in his twenties. Peary and Clancy tracked her down – and the mystery of Betty is revealed in the documentary. 

Peary’s enthusiasm for “Archie” comics shines through the film. “It’s just an archetypal story that everyone can relate to.”

In recent years, the comic books have tried to stay true to that message while trying to keep up with the times. Core characters have been given modern looks and storylines, and the series has added minority characters, a gay wedding, and editions in foreign languages.

“Archie is still around, more than 75 years after it started,” says Peary. “That’s pretty amazing.”

You can listen to WGBH Morning Edition host Bob Seay's extended interview with Gerald Perry, writer/director of the documentary "Archie's Betty," at the top of the page.

Tune into "Archie's Betty" on WGBH: 
Thursday, Feb. 18 at 9:00 PM on WGBH 2
Friday, Feb. 19 at 12:00 PM on WGBX 44
Saturday, Feb. 20 at 3:00 PM on WGBX 44
Sunday, Feb. 21 at 2:30 PM on WGBH 2