Big Ethel

Ethel Muggs is a character frequently featured in Archie Comics. She is a student of Riverdale High School, sometimes known to her schoolmates by the nickname Big Ethel, though this nickname has largely fallen out of use since the 1980s. She was first drawn by cartoonist Samm Schwartz, probably modeled after a prototype designed by Bill Vigoda for a 1948 Archie Comics story. She has been voiced by Jane Webb, Jazzmin Lausanne, and Michele Phillips. Cindy Ambuehl played Ethel in the television film Archie: To Riverdale and Back Again, and Shannon Purser portrays the character in a recurring capacity on The CW's Riverdale. History and character Ethel Muggs (originally Ethel Dinklehof) was portrayed in the early era as a tall, gangly, plain-faced, somewhat boy-crazy young woman that had a huge infatuation with Jughead Jones. This was explained in her first appearance in Archie's Pal, Jughead #84 as the result of Dilton Doiley's "Electronic Mate Selector" selecting Jughead as "the perfect mate" for her. She usually resorted to devious means to get Jughead in her clutches, and would typically end up running after him. Ethel has also pursued Jughead by appealing to his appetite; the Betty and Veronica comic title often featured real recipes that Ethel used to make her way to Jughead's heart through his stomach. Earlier issues featuring Big Ethel show her bearing a strong resemblance to Jughead, also, with her prominent nose, dark hair, and angular build. In the late 1980s, Ethel was occasionally drawn with braces on her buck teeth. Although Ethel is usually portrayed as drab-looking and gawky, one story involving a makeover by Betty Cooper and Veronica Lodge in an attempt to attract Jughead's attention revealed her to be quite curvy and pretty (albeit still with buck teeth).<ref>Archie's Girls Betty & Veronica #95</ref> Despite her new look, Jughead was as uninterested as ever.