All of us who are "Children of the 80s" must surely remember "Scooby-Doo",
the Hanna-Barbera cartoon about four kids and a great dane who drive around
in a van exposing fake ghosts. Now that I look back on it, there are just
a whole lot of things about that cartoon that just weren't quite right.
For starters, you can always figure out who the ghost is. Heck, there are
only two characters in each episode besides the recurring characters and
the "Sherriff", makes his token appearance at the end. I recall one
episode that I watched within the last year where I was thinking that they
hadn't met anyone who could qualify as the "ghost". So, 15 minutes into
the show, for no apparent reason, Shaggy and Scooby go into "town" and meet
some stupid chick. The encounter does nothing to advance the plot. So
sure enough, she turns out to be the "ghost". Usually, of the two guys
they meet at the beginning, one is really friendly and the other one is
just really pissed off at everyone. The ghost is almost always the
friendly guy.
And, as "Wayne's World" so dutifully pointed out, the ending is always the
same. Observe.
Fred or Velma: Now let's see who you _Really_ are!
(Removes mask)
Shaggy: ZOIKS! It's Mr. Jones from the general store!
(Velma or Daphne will usually give some lame explanation of how they
figured it out. It always involved some sort of money-making scheme that
would be ruined if anyone found out about it. They would always use the
phrase "So he dreamed up the CREATURE to scare people away so they wouldn't
catch on..." )
Mr. Jones: And it would have worked, too, if it hadn't been for you
meddling kids!
Sherriff: Well, you won't have to worry about any "meddling kids" where
YOU'RE going!
(Some stupid gag ensues where Scooby puts the creature's mask on and Shaggy
freaks out, only to have everyone laugh at him)
Let's talk for just a minute about these villains. I never could quite
follow their logic. Let me make up an episode so you'll see what I mean.
OK, so there's some elderly couple living in a shack two hundred miles from
the nearest town. Totally unbeknowst to them, there is a valuable treasure
underneath the shack. So the villain dreams up some monster to scare them
away so he can get at the treasure. To that I just say "No." Being a
villain, you take a shotgun, blow their heads off, and that's that. No one
will notice they are gone until it's too late. This is less
time-consuming, and _vastly_ less expensive. Think about it; some of these
"monster suits" and the accompanying special effects could easily have cost
MANY thousands of dollars to build (or, in the case of that episode with
that giant electric dude, a lot more). Speaking of that, what's the deal
with these "explanations" as for how the villain pulled the stuff off? The
stuff that the villain was doing was always _way_ too cool to have been
accomplished by the explanations that they give. How about that one where
the "Abominable Snowman" was using "transparent skis" to appear to hover
off the ground? Give me a break. That dude was floating two, maybe three
feet in the air.
Speaking of which, I am firmly convinced that Velma and Fred, and perhaps
Daphne as well, were the smartest people in the world. I mean, they would
find a broom in a janitor's closet or Shaggy would step in a piece of gum
and Velma would say "A clue! Now this mystery is starting to make sense!"
Shaggy and Scooby, of course, were just a couple of dolts. Speaking of
which, when they invariably "split up", why did they always send the two
cowards off together? I guess if they hadn't, Shaggy and Scooby would
never have been able to improvise some costumes and pretend like they
wanted to cut the monster's hair or something. Even when Velma went with
Shag and Scoob, she would always lose her glasses and be rendered
completely useless.
Not only that, I have got to wonder what Shaggy and Scooby were doing in
the back of that van. I gotta believe they were tripping on Heroin. Look
at the evidence. The shows were made in the 70s. A talking dog, for
crying out loud. Sometimes I wonder if maybe Shaggy was the only one who
could hear Scooby talk. We never did find out what was in those "Scooby
snacks". Why do you think they were always driving around on back roads in
the middle of nowhere? My guess is there ain't no cops out there to bust
up Shaggy and Scooby's little party. And look at the paint job on that
van. The "Mystery Machine"? Yeah, real big mystery there, pal.
There was one thing right about the show, though; Daphne. She was one heck
of a girl. Beautiful, super-intelligent, everything you could want. The
thing is, I really think that she and Fred were getting it on. THAT I
think was why they sometimes sent Velma off with Shaggy and Scooby; Fred
wanted to get a little play and he couldn't with Velma there. Daphne knew
how to dress, too. Purple dress, pink tights, green scarf. As a matter of
fact, they ALL knew how to dress. Fred had a white shirt, blue pants, and
an orange scarf. Velma, orange sweater, red skirt, orange knee socks.
Shaggy, some olive t-shirt that you knew was ratty and needed to be washed,
and maroon pants that you knew were courdoroy. But Daphne, she was the
best. In terms of goddesses of 80s little boys, she ranks below only
Princess Leia and Daisy Duke. Not bad for a cartoon.
And what about the guests? I mean, come on, does a cartoon really need to
have celebrity guests bad enough to put animated versions of Phyllis Diller
and Jonathan Winters on? I mean, how far down into the has-been barrel are
we going to scrape here? What about the recurring guests? Did ANYONE like
Scrappy? Was there a POINT to Scooby-Dum?
Sometimes I wonder if the animators would sit back and laugh at this
moronic, repetitive, formulaic program that they were forcing on little
kids. I think they must have.
But of all the things that tick me off about Scooby-Doo, here is what ticks
me off the most. Blast it, hardly anyone shows it any more. When I was 6,
it was my favorite show. Bring back my childhood. I want to see it on
4:00 on weekday afternoons on every independent station in every city in
America. Maybe again at 4:30. I want to see Shaggy and Scooby have to get
"revved up" before they can start running. I want to see that stupid
episode where they get trapped in the ice cream factory with the chocolate,
vanilla and strawberry phantoms. I want to see a cartoon with Don Knotts
in it. I want to see those first-season episodes where they would play a
disco song and everyone (including the monster, sometimes) would get down
and boogie. Ted Turner, we "Children of the 80s" beseech you, return our
childhood to us!