- “See this burger? It's all that's right in the world, slathered in ketchup and served with a pickle. Every time I take a bite, I'm reminded of life's blessings (chomp), friendship (chomp), small-town values (chomp), onion slices! I don't want your fancy schmancy food, and this is what I think of your mall!”
- ―Jughead Jones, "Mega-Mall of Horrors"
| Forsythe "Jughead" Jones | |
|---|---|
 ' | |
| Vital statistics | |
| Title | Riverdale High Student / Foodologist (T.S.I.) |
| First Appearance (TV series) | "Attack of the Killer Spuds" |
| First Appearance (comics) | Just Another (Para)Normal Day in Riverdale |
| Gender | Male |
| Race | Caucasian |
| Age | 17 |
| Status | Alive |
| Location | Riverdale |
| Relatives | FP Jones (father), Gladys Jones (mother), Forsythe Jones I (grandfather), Hot Dog (pet), Fluffy (pet), Peanut (former pet), Colonel Pickens (great ancestor), Uncle Ahern |
| Friends | Archie Andrews (best friend), Reggie Mantle, Betty Cooper, Veronica Lodge, Dilton Doiley, Ethel Muggs, Chuck Clayton, Moose Mason |
| Voiced By | Chris Lundquist |
Forsythe Pendleton "Jughead" Jones III is one of the main protagonists of the Archie Comics franchise, and he reprises this role in the TV show and comic series, Archie's Weird Mysteries.
Born to Gladys and FP Jones, and possibly of Irish-American descent (as in other incarnations), Jughead comes from a long line of male relatives who were known for their laziness above all else. One notable example was a war hero named Colonel Pickens, who escorted civilians to safety via a series of underground tunnels. The land above these tunnels would ultimately be turned into Picken's Park in his honor, and Mystery Gulch would become a museum dedicated to him.
Jughead has owned many pets in his time, most notably Hot Dog, whom he first obtained as a puppy. He is presumably a lifelong resident of Riverdale, and has been best friends with Archie Andrews since they were both very young, likely due to their similar reputations and their shared knack for weirdness. In time, their friend group has expanded into what it is today, as they all attend Riverdale High together.
Appearance
Default
Jughead is a seventeen-year-old boy with messy black hair, choppy bangs, and a long nose. He is about as tall as Archie, and is noted to be rather lanky in spite of his bizarre eating habits. For his default attire, he wears a blue V-neck T-shirt with two white horizontal stripes in the middle, khaki pants, blue sneakers with white accents, laces and sole, and his signature grey whoopee cap, which also includes a red circle and a white square.
Notably, Jughead's eyes are usually fully open in the TV show, while in promotional artwork as well as the comics, they are almost always half-shut, like in most incarnations.
Alternate outfits
When he is near water, Jughead wears blue swim trunks with gray accents on the sides. During the winter season, he is clad in a baggy white shirt under an open purple hoodie with white accents on the upper portions of each sleeve, he retains his pants and sneakers except is was slightly darker. For sleepwear, Jughead takes off his hat and dons a yellow short-sleeved top that is violet-purple along the top and sleeves, complete with yellow trim around the collar.
In the comics, Jughead's attire varies constantly, as is the case with most recurring characters, although his most recurring garment is a purple long-sleeved top with a white S on the front, a carryover from other incarnations. A sleeveless variant exists for beachside activities.
In The Archies in JugMan, his default look would be slight overhauled. While he retains his trademark whoopee cap, albeit in a lighter shade, his V-neck shirt is now red with white trim on the collar and sleeves; he also wears white khakis with visible pockets, and while his sneakers mostly resemble the ones he wore in the show, they were given additional white accent on the toes. His skin is also little bit paler and his hair and bangs no longer shine dark blue.
For Halloween, Jughead put on a minimalist, tonally poor costume modeled after Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, consisting of a headband with attached antlers, a white neckerchief worn around his head with the knot resting on top, and a red clown nose. On a different Halloween, Jughead dressed up as a mummy, wrapping his entire body in bandages aside from his face, while his bangs peeked out and he retained his whoopee cap.
Other timelines/universes
As a little boy, Jughead had a much smaller frame, but he wore the same whoopee cap that he wears in the present. The rest of his outfit consisted of a light blue T-shirt that was white near the top, with light blue and red stripes on the sleeves, white shorts, and white sneakers with light blue socks.
In an alternate timeline where the generations are swapped, Jughead has a black beard, neater hair, and is missing his whoopee cap. For attire, he wears a red, plaid button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, a moss green tie with lime green stripes on it, and black pants and shoes.
While posing as Captain Hero, his superhero persona, Jughead wears a gray jumpsuit with jagged dandelion yellow accents along his wrists, black briefs held up by a golden belt with a white buckle, and a lemon yellow cape. A dandelion yellow heart rests on his chest, containing an image of a hamburger.
Personality
Jughead grosses out Veronica with his gluttony.
Jughead's role in the series is a juxtaposition between the voice of reason and the comic relief. While he might not come off as particularly brainy, Jughead does show some expertise when it comes to life lessons as well as cooking and food (hamburgers being his favorite), and generally applies common sense to every situation, usually with some sarcasm and snark thrown in. Owing to his laid-back, "take life as it comes to you" attitude and his belief that everything is up to fate, he prefers to stay above any drama that occurs, rarely getting into arguments with other characters unless he's amply provoked.
Likewise, he is a bit of a coward and prefers not to get in on the action while solving Weird Mysteries, but he can nonetheless be heroic in his own right. He is also quite humble and always focuses on the simple things in life, something that spills over into his preferences not just in food but in other areas such as entertainment. Like with most incarnations, Jughead does not appear to have any interest in girls, even stating in "Attack of the 50-Foot Veronica" that he does not like kissing, and admitting to have impossibly high standards in "Alternate Riverdales". Neither the reasoning behind all this, nor his exact sexuality, are ever revealed.
Jughead on the academic decathlon team.
Jughead has a reputation for being a weirdo, owing to his unusually high appetite and metabolism (which he describes as just a sign that he is a growing boy), unhygienic habits, and bizarre sense of humor. Despite all the teasing he receives, however, Jughead appears to be at peace with his eccentricities, even stating that he does not want to change up his image. "It Lives in the Sewers" reveals that he keeps a scale in his bathroom, suggesting that he might be self-conscious about his weight amid his excessive eating habits. One notable aspect of Jughead's character in this series are his "Evening Thinks," a part of his routine in which he goes for a walk around town, usually with his pockets filled with junk food, to figure out the answers to whatever (often weird) questions come to mind.
Jughead oftentimes succumbs to his own weirdness and has his moments of irrationality; he once held a longtime grudge against Quiet Violet after a misunderstanding in his childhood, and is prone to solving his problems with ridiculous solutions or even flat-out goofing off. Despite his silly nature, he is more intelligent than others might think, being wise enough to be a part of Riverdale High's academic decathlon team, and sometimes his weirdness allows him to solve problems with answers that no one else can deduce. Many stories in the comics show that Jughead loves to spout puns, regardless of how much it annoys his friends; however, he is also prone to get annoyed when others use puns against him.
Jughead about to pig out on hamburgers at Pop Tate's Chock'lit Shoppe.
Most notably, Jughead has a massive appetite and food is never far from his mind. According to "Mega-Mall of Horrors", he is Pop Tate's best customer due to the fact that he eats more burgers than anyone else in the restaurant, even reaching a point where he was once temporarily cut off due to his extended tab. Jughead tends to be easily bribed with food, a fact that he is both well aware and ashamed of. In "Dream Girl", it's revealed that Jughead's biggest fear is hamburgers coming to life and devouring him, which might explain why he eats such large amounts of them so often.
After the events of "Compu-Terror", in which he was almost cooked alive over a fire, he was so traumatized that he swore off burgers for a day, even though he doesn't usually lose his appetite in times of distress. In "The Jughead Incident", Jughead confessed that even he isn't immune to feeling sluggish after bingeing on burgers, and some stories have stated that he spends most of his spare time asleep. Despite his gluttonous tendencies, Jughead still has his preferences; in addition to preferring simple junk food over fancy fare, he has a vitriolic hatred of vegetables, preferring to binge on less healthy sustenance, although he does seem to be at least somewhat partial to fruit, especially in desserts.
Alternate Riverdales
In the second Archie Time Adventures episode "Alternate Riverdales", Jughead is a vegetarian and one of the few people who didn't hate Archie Andrews, although he did later become a servant to Vinnie Wells.
Powers and abilities
Jughead on the Teen Scene Investigators.
Jughead's love of food isn't just for show, as he is shown to have a very high metabolism, enabling him to devour heaping portions of food in one sitting without gaining any weight. However, as shown in "Beware of the Glob!", Jughead's appetite is not unlimited, as not even he could devour an entire tapioca monster that was attacking the town (though he brushed this off by saying he could've done it if given a few more hours). He also showed visible pudginess and passed out as a result of his efforts, unlike in most instances of bingeing.
Furthermore, Jughead has a very advanced palette; he is even capable of identifying specific brands of food just by tasting their merchandise. Other stories in the comics show that he has a keen sense of smell, allowing him to sniff out and identify any food that is hidden away. Because of this, he is a surprisingly useful asset to the "Teen Scene Investigators", a detective group he formed alongside his friends. After learning from Matt Clark and Mary Fine that the various aspects of forensics cover all of their interests, he would become the team's "foodologist".
According to "Brain of Terror", Jughead also plays on the school football team, alongside Archie and Reggie, although he might not be very good, given how sluggish his diet makes him. His hat is also able to conceal stashes of food. In addition, the movie reveals him to be talented at playing the drums. In "It Lives in the Sewers", it is revealed that Jughead keeps a baseball bat and tennis rackets in his room, suggesting that he might have an interest in those sports as well.
Relationships
Archie Andrews
Jughead having an in-depth chat with Archie.
Jughead has been Archie's best friend for the longest time. Their friendship is easily the tightest among the friend group. Archie can always rely on him for advice, particularly in situations where even Betty won't talk to him, while Jughead is always there to keep his head out of the clouds whenever he gets too girl-crazy or too wrapped up in his Weird Mysteries, which Jughead is openly skeptical of until he sees them for himself. Notably, Jughead also likes to tease Archie about his rivalry with Reggie.
Reggie Mantle
Out of everyone in his friend group, Jughead is the most outspoken about his dislike of Reggie, mainly because of his immense ego, love of pranks, and his habit of bullying him over his habits and interests. Throughout the canon, Reggie is shown to be the one person capable of legitimately ticking Jughead off, and when his malicious actions were revealed in The Archies in JugMan, Jughead wasn't the least bit surprised that he would do such a thing.
Betty Cooper
Jughead and Betty share a healthy, platonic relationship with each other, with Jughead appreciating Betty's kindness, and Betty being more sympathetic towards Jughead than even Archie sometimes. In fact, she is the only girl he ever shows an interest in. Being the most sensible members of the group, the two often hang out alone and bond over their shared wisdom via intimate chats without the others, particularly whenever Betty has something on her mind, such as in Lord of the Earrings.
Veronica Lodge
Jughead constantly bickers with Veronica, who is easily the most openly disgusted by his antics. As stated by Jughead himself, albeit not to Veronica's face, he finds her high-maintenance and materialistic tendencies rather annoying. While the two are often able to share a space without arguing, he sometimes can't help but take jabs at her, although he is unusually unfazed by the ones she fires back. Jughead didn't even appear to mind being explicitly disinvited to Veronica's pool party in "Attack of the 50-Foot Veronica", and when her opinion of him improved, he insisted on only attending her parties in the future if she promised not to eat all the burgers.
Ethel Muggs
Jughead reluctantly dancing with Big Ethel.
Given their shared eccentricities and similar reputations, Jughead is sometimes the target of Ethel Muggs' advances, much to his embarrassment. The exact reasons as to why either of them feel the way they do about each other are never revealed.
While he claims to want nothing to do with her, however, Shriek suggests that he might reciprocate her feelings, if only slightly, when he is shown to dream about her during a brief nap. Furthermore, in "Dance of the Killer Bees", Jughead, as much as he didn't want to, willingly allowed Ethel to dance with him at the prom, knowing she deserved to have her wish come true after saving the day.
JugMan
Jughead palling around with JugMan.
In The Archies in JugMan, Jughead's softer, less snarky, more nurturing and passionate side is put on display, particularly after he meets JugMan for the first time and protects him from Reggie's schemes, making another best friend all the while. It is also notable for being one of the few times in the canon where Jughead is actively grossed out by something, though he did eventually get over his squeamishness by the end of the movie after JugMan fed him a bug, although Jughead still couldn't keep down worms.
Trivia
- His screams would be reused for JugMan, albeit pitched down.
- He's also known as FP Jones III.
- His favorite color is green.
- He is right-handed.
- His mother makes an appearance in "The Incredible Shrinking Teens", although his father was absent (but mentioned) in the same episode.
- According to her, Jughead inherits most of his personality trairs from his father.
- He is sometimes referred to as “Jug” by close friends, and Reggie often calls him “the Jugster”.
- Jughead has partial ownership of a small motorboat.
- Jughead still believes in the tooth fairy, and is very scared of her.
- As shown in Fear Of Frost, Jughead prefers to ride his bike to school.
- Jughead sometimes serves the refreshments at sporting events, but is often prone to eating the merchandise.
- Some stories suggest that he can show some restraint when carrying out food-related jobs, such as when he manned the cafeteria in The Colossal Candy Caper.
- Jughead is seldom seen without his hat, and even in more frantic situations, it has an uncanny ability to stay on his head at almost all times.
- Unlike most incarnations in Archie Comics, Jughead's sister, Jellybean doesn't appear in this continuity, nor his grandpa Forsythe I.
- Jughead's only absences in the TV series were in "Invisible Archie" and "Big Monster on Campus".
Gallery
