Fredreich Werthers

Fredreich Werthers
Biographical Information
Occupation	Psychiatrist School Counselor (formerly)
Status	Alive
Relationships
Affiliation	Riverdale High School
Relatives	Myrna Werthers (wife)
Appearances
Actor	Malcolm Stewart
First Appearance	"Chapter One Hundred and Eighteen: Don't Worry, Darling"
Last Appearance	"Chapter One Hundred and Thirty-Six: The Golden Age of Television"

“	Don't be fooled by their name. These publications are anything but comic. In their pages, crime is glorified. Acts of wanton carnality are celebrated. Stabbings and beheadings and disembowelings are commonplace, vividly depicted, and offered up to our children like so much bubblegum. If anyone doubts the insidious effects of this subversive medium, let me stress what my extensive research has proven time and again. There is a direct and undeniable link between gruesome acts of brutality depicted in the pages of comic books, and similar acts of savagery committed in real life by the juvenile who read these comic books. Our children are being seduced by violence, by sex, by depravity. Their innocence must be preserved by any means necessary.	”
	— Dr. Werther's editorial on The Register[src]

Dr. Fredreich Werthers is a recurring character on The CW's Riverdale. He is portrayed by Malcolm Stewart.

Dr. Werthers is a child psychiatrist working as a school counselor at Riverdale High during the 1950s, advising Principal Featherhead on the perils of sex, music and comic books for the youths of America. After Featherhead is fired, Dr. Werthers moves to Washington D.C. to further his fight against the decline of American moral values.

Throughout Riverdale

Season 7

Safeguarding the Youth of America

In the Principal office at Riverdale High, Betty Cooper and Toni Topaz meet with Principal Featherhead, who claims that Toni's story on Emmett Till is not suitable for publication on The Blue and Gold. Dr. Werthers argues that the details of the case are too violent and detailed for young and impressionable minds. Toni argues that people need to understand the gravity of what happened so that it doesn't happen again, perhaps in Riverdale next time, though Featherhead claims that no such thing would every happen in their town and reminds Toni that Riverdale High was one of the first schools in the country to integrate, though they don't have any black teachers or study black authors, Toni points out.

Dr. Werthers advice Featherhead

Betty, Toni, Cheryl Blossom and Tabitha Tate are called into the principal's office and scolded for reading an unsanctioned poem during morning announcements. Featherhead explains that all poems read through on the announcements must go through him, and Dr. Werthers lurks near the window of the office.

Dr. Wethers recommends the principal for a week's detention to Ethel Muggs, who was caught drawing violent pictures in Dr. Dilton's class. Ethel's protests about finding herself in a tight deadline to deliver the illustrations to Pep Comics for an upcoming issue on a zombie story are useless. Instead, she only fuels Dr. Werther and thus Featherhead's concerns about violence to which young people are exposed.

Sex Education

Dr. Werthers gives a sex ed class

Dr. Werthers and Principal Featherhead discuss how they're going to address the murder of Ethel's parents. Dr. Werthers believes the best course of action it to carry on with the week's pre-approved lesson plans, that being a scheduled sexual education lesson, which Dr. Werthers decides to give himself, using a diagram of plant reproduction as an illustration. Later, Werthers, Featherhead, and Sheriff Keller confront Jughead about allegedly breaking into Ethel's house yesterday, which he claims he didn't. Dr. Werthers refers to Jughead as a loner, much like Ethel, and asks if they're dating. Jughead claims they're just friends. Nevertheless, Keller and Werthers suspect that Jughead may be protecting her, but Jughead insists that he wasn't at Ethel's house. However, their suspicions of foul play are confirmed after searching Jughead's train car and finding not only graphic drawings of Ethel killing her parents but gruesome comics as well.

Dr. Werthers comments on the disturbing images drawn by Ethel and the corruption media such as Pep Comics have on children before Jughead and Ethel are taken to the Sheriff Station.

Dr. Werthers's Cupid's checklist

Dr. Werthers assesses the compatibility between Archie Andrews and Cheryl Blossom; his so-called Cupid's Check List. As the two are close to getting married, their parents want to make sure they are fully aware of what it entails. The psychiatrist asks them three questions: if they have a similar background, if they are close friends, and if they understand the concept of marriage. As for the former, the Blossoms are descended from European barons and baronesses while Grandpa Artie used to tell Archie about how they barely survived the Dust Bowl. Although Archie prides himself on getting along with everyone, Cheryl admits they're not that close. Finally, Dr. Werthers advises the two on the roles of husband and wife; Cheryl will have to be a great housewife to make sure Archie remains faithful to her, as according to the psychiatrist it is in the nature of men to cheat.

Later, Dr. Werthers phones Penelope Blossom to tell her the two sweethearts have passed the test. Penelope is delighted and sends her regards to his wife, Myrna.

Comic Books: Slaughter of the Innocent!

Dr. Werthers against Pep Comics

Fredreich and Felix meet secretly at Thornhill with Mayor Blossom to discuss recent events. Werthers reassures that Sister Woodhouse has imposed a vow of silence on the youth of the Sisters of Quiet Mercy, including Ethel. The Parent-Teacher Association, however, is still shocked by the murder of Mr. and Mrs. Muggs and wants answers. Dr. Werthers believes that the more the attention is focused on the murders, the more precarious their grasp on the situation becomes. Sheriff Keller is still looking for the Milkman, and the murder weapon but it is a waste of time for Werthers; he suggests stopping rehashing the Muggs murder case and starting a war against Pep Comics. At a following meeting, Featherhead reads the editorial Dr. Werthers wrote for The Register; Comic Books: Slaughter of the Innocent! The mayor congratulates him and Werthers replies he considers it his civic and moral duty before throwing an issue of Pep Comics into the fireplace, declaring that the so-called comic creators must be prosecuted by the law.

Dr. Werthers receives Mrs. Throntorn in his office. The teacher shows him an issue of Pep Comics she confiscated from Dilton Doiley. Dr. Werthers compares the comics to the hydra; for every severed head, another grows in its place. The teacher, however, points out to him another problem, namely, this issue is written by one of the Riverdale High students, Jughead Jones.

Treating Betty

Assessing Betty's behaviour

Dr. Werthers and Principal Featherhead lecture Jughead for being the author of lurid horror comics. Dr. Werthers counters the student's protests, stating that horror comics, like pornography, corrupt and twist young minds. If Jughead does not desist from writing for Pep Comics again and puts it in writing, they will expel him. A few days later, Jughead returns to the principal's office with the signed document and accompanied by Brad Rayberry, his mentor. Although Jughead has agreed to stop writing horror stories, he will continue to write for Pep Comcis with the collaboration of Rayberry. Dr. Werthers is unwilling to compromise, unlike Featherhead, and scorns their attempted protest but is intimidated when Rayberry threatens to take them not to the PTA, but to the Supreme Court if they don't stop harass Jughead. Later, Dr. Werthers is contacted by Mrs. Cooper, who is concerned about the reckless behavior of her daughter, Betty. Dr. Werthers agrees to treat her during school counseling hours, claiming Betty is tormented. To which Betty replies that teenagers with minds and desires of their own are very concerning.

Dr. Werthers and Principal Featherhead are frustrated by the Riverdale Bulldogs' loss to the Stonewall Stallions during a game.

Dr. Werthers is accused by Betty

Dr. Werthers receives Betty in his office for a new session. The psychiatrist investigates Betty's sexual fantasies, mentioning nymphomania and unhealthy sex crazes in describing Betty thinking about sex all the time. She claims to fantasize about kissing Archie, Reggie, Jughead, Fangs, and even Veronica! During each session, Dr. Werthers takes notes of what Betty says and dismisses it as mere notes. A few days later, Betty skips a session because she has some reading to do. The next day, Betty accuses Dr. Werthers of being a pervert after she finds a copy of Nabokov's Lolita in his drawer. The psychiatrist claims to have read the novel in order to understand Betty's psyche but Betty accuses him of being a creepy old man, insinuating Werthers masturbates over notes of her sexual fantasies and that she does not feel safe being alone in a room with him any longer. Dr. Werthers, who in the meantime had kept Betty's parents updated on the prorgresses of therapy, decides not to keep her as a patient any longer.

Principal Featherhead, Dr. Werthers, Sheriff Keller, and Sister Woodhouse are in the principal's office and ask Jughead if he knows anything about Ethel's escape from the Sisters of Quiet Mercy. The boy, however, categorically denies knowing about it.

Physical Appearance

Dr. Wethers is an older Caucasian man with thinning hair who tends to dress formally.

Personality

Fredreich Werthers is an uncompromising man with a high regard for himself. An established psychiatrist in the Riverdale community, he believes it is his moral and civic duty to hold community standards high, as advocated at a meeting with Mayor Blossom, and his editorial on The Register. Dr. Werthers' approach to psychiatry follows the norms of the 1950s regarding his treatment of teenagers, civil rights, and people's sexuality. Dr. Werthers believes that comic books as well as pornography are extremely harmful to young people to the point of driving them to commit criminal and deviant acts. Dr. Werthers has a strong hold on Principal Featherhead and often imposes his views on school decisions. He has a strong dislike for Jughead Jones.

Appearances

Season 7

• "Chapter One Hundred and Eighteen: Don't Worry, Darling"
• "Chapter One Hundred and Nineteen: Skip, Hop, and Thump!"
• "Chapter One Hundred and Twenty: Sex Education"
• "Chapter One Hundred and Twenty-One: Love & Marriage"
• "Chapter One Hundred and Twenty-Two: Tales in a Jugular Vein"
• "Chapter One Hundred and Twenty-Three: Peep Show"
• "Chapter One Hundred and Twenty-Four: Dirty Dancing"
• "Chapter One Hundred and Twenty-Five: Hoop Dreams"
• "Chapter One Hundred and Twenty-Six: Betty & Veronica Double Digest"
• "Chapter One Hundred and Twenty-Eight: Halloween II"
• "Chapter One Hundred and Twenty-Nine: After the Fall"
• "Chapter One Hundred and Thirty: The Crucible"
• "Chapter One Hundred and Thirty-Two: Miss Teen Riverdale"
• "Chapter One Hundred and Thirty-Three: Stag"
• "Chapter One Hundred and Thirty-Four: A Different Kind of Cat" (mentioned)
• "Chapter One Hundred and Thirty-Six: The Golden Age of Television"

Trivia

• Dr. Werthers is not a character from the Archie Comics. He is an original character, created specifically for the series.
• Malcolm Stewart previously portrayed another antagonist in Season 4, Francis DuPont.
• Dr. Werthers is based on Fredric Wertham, a psychiatrist who denounced comics caused juvenile delinquency in his 1954 book Seduction of the Innocent. Dr. Werthers' editorial is titled Slaughter of the Innocent.

Gallery

See also: Category:Images of Fredreich Werthers