Scooby Memories

​Well, I’m going to go about this in a different way from previous history posts. Those came at the ends or at the beginning of their respective series; this is right in the middle.

I had intended to make it at the end, after a post in which I review a sample of every Scooby TV show ever and of every Scooby series of movies ever. I then realized figuring all those out would require reading the character’s Wikipedia page in detail, and I thought it would be fun to first draw upon my own vast memory to see what I remember about “Scooby-Dooby-Doo”.

Apparently I first got into it because of my much older sister. That was before I can even remember but she shared that during a 2000 family meal, and then began singing the theme song. I suppose continuing off my footnote in the last post, family meals were another thing I hated. Anyway, I remember one time we were watching a Peanuts special together and she commented on how Snoopy didn’t talk like Scooby-Doo does. Of course, Scooby’s never fought in a World War, but that’s a topic for another time. 😉

The point is that I was a Scooby-Doo fan before I could remember. I liked Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? more than the one billed as The Scooby-Doo Show, mainly because the former had such a creepy opening song (which I mentioned was recreated exactly in the new movie) while the latter’s opening was too sunny and comical. Admittedly, I still laugh remembering the part of The Scooby-Doo Show’s opening when Shaggy broke the fourth wall and sang to the audience.

Also, just a few years after watching many episodes of those shows on local stations weekday afternoons and Saturday mornings, I watched many episodes of The New Scooby-Doo Movies. These were on TBS and it got frustrating how often I didn’t get to see the conclusion of one of the episodes (always two parts) because of the time difference. TBS shows were aired at the same time nationwide, so when the commercials said 6:30 Eastern/5:30 Central it took me a while to learn that that meant 3:30 my time. A lot of funny stuff though, with a celebrity guest in every episode, from the likes of Batman and Robin (drawn the same way as in their Sesame Street appearances around the same time), The Addams Family, Sonny & Cher, Sandy Duncan, The Harlem Globetrotters, and Don Knotts.  One other tidbit: the end of one of the “Part 1” episodes featured Scooby and Shaggy giddily laughing when they stumble upon a popcorn machine. I liked that image enough that I took a picture of it. Since it was in the roll it later went into an album!

Somehow, along the way, given my love of pop culture and my brain capacity, I was able to figure out that Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? was the original show, followed by The New Scooby-Doo Movies and then The Scooby-Doo Show. The cool thing about that last show was how it introduced the hilarious Scooby-Dumb and the adorable Scooby-Dee (although as adults the friend Christian I’ve often mentioned and I got grossed out remembering that she was his cousin and he had a crush on her).

Of course, it was on The Scooby-Doo Show we also met Scrappy-Doo, who wound up getting foregrounded at the expense of Fred, Velma, Daphne, and, to some degree, even Shaggy. In fact I remember at one point the whole opening was just Scooby and Scrappy, although the rest of the gang would SOMETIMES be shown in one shot in a diner at the end. I was happy just to see Scooby-Doo cartoons at all, so I didn’t mind this.  My big takeaway from these cartoons was a question I asked my mom at one point, “Scooby is Scrappy’s uncle? But he doesn’t call him nephew.” My mom pointed out that her brothers in India didn’t call me nephew.

Odd comment on my part. Admittedly I didn’t have any extended family nearby so maybe I wasn’t too familiar with how they addressed each other at all, let alone in English, but why would I expect Scooby to just call Scrappy “nephew”? I could understand more if I’d expected “Nephew Scrappy” as a parallel to “Uncle Scooby”.

Regardless, moving on. I do remember that later on there were cartoons with just Scooby, Scrappy, and Shaggy, and there were no longer any mysteries to solve – just actual monsters pursuing them. Sometimes these later cartoons even ended with the characters running away.

I don’t think these cartoons lasted long, but what seemed even briefer was a subsequent series with the three plus Velma and/or Daphne, but not Fred.

After that was The 13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo. I literally only saw one episode of that (which I think is even less than for the previous cartoon, which I believe I saw two episodes of) but did appreciate learning years later, after becoming a classic/horror movie buff, how it was inspired by the 1960 Vincent Price movie 13 Ghosts.

My love for the Scooby-Doo franchise was so strong that one time, for show-and-tell in 1^st grade, I presented a large piece of paper with cutouts of all the characters and shared a story about them I’d written on the back. I guess my creative writing talent shone through at an early age!

I also remember that one time my parents rented me a video with some Scooby-Doo cartoons and some of the creators talking about him. One of those guys said that it was meant to be a show about four mystery solvers and then they added a dog and he stole the show. At the time I thought this was a case of a Breakout Character like my mom described existing to me sometimes but, years later, I learned it was slightly different. The originally pitched show was too scary, and thus it was decided to make the existing dog the focus and turn the series more comical. Also, his name was inspired by Frank Sinatra’s famous refrain “Do Be Do Be Do”. The idea obviously worked.

All the cartoons so far I either wasn’t born at the original time of or I wasn’t old enough to fully appreciate when they first aired. Years later there would be many cartoons for which I was too old – and in fact those continue to be made! However, in 1988 began the one Scooby-Doo cartoon for which I was in the perfect demographic: A Pup Named Scooby-Doo.

This showed the gang as little children instead of as college-aged. Among the things I remember are Fred being full of obnoxious bravado instead of being the stoic guy we were used to, Velma having seemingly superhuman abilities being able to get a computer out of nowhere and solve things at the speed of light, Shaggy’s slightly younger sister Maggie (a guest star in older cartoons) being a much younger baby called Shuggie, and Fred wanting to pin every crime on a bully their age named Red (as an adult I was reminded that Red’s full name was Red Herring, and got the joke at that point).

On that last note my most lasting memory from this cartoon was in the very first episode. After Freddie, as he was often called, accused Red of a crime and turned out to be wrong, he said “Whoops.” Red said, “I’ll whoops you, Freddie” and rode his bike towards the camera. We saw the others in the gang shriek as the show went to commercial, and after the commercial we saw Freddie with a bike tire track going down the middle of his body. Daphne dabbed some antiseptic or whatever on the large wound, but Freddie jumped around the screen in pain as a result. Appallingly chilling for a cartoon.₁ Glad Red didn’t react that way every time he was falsely accused of something, given it happened every episode!

This was a fun show. In 2^nd grade we had to write one-question surveys and ask the question of people on the playground during recess. I decided on “Favorite Cartoon” and gave a bunch of options. Most of them were pointless, though, because practically everyone chose Duck Tales. A Pup Named Scooby-Doo did get a couple of votes though.₂ Mr. Business Manager, if you’re reading this, do you remember any of it since you were in 2^nd grade at that school at the same time?

After production of that show ceased, there wasn’t any new Scooby-Doo for years. There were still reruns of the first few series on USA Network’s Cartoon Express (a programming block featuring cartoon shows with framing sequences on a train) though, and thus I still had many happy days enjoying Scooby’s presence in the early 90s. I should mention that Cartoon Express also showed reruns of Laff-A-Lympics, which I discerned was made in the late-1970s but didn’t know at the time was originally part of a block known as Scooby’s All-Star Laff-A-Lympics. Anyway, I love when characters from different entities join together, be it in the The Avengers, Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back, Super Smash Bros., Cartoon All-Stars To The Rescue₃, etc. This show featured an Olympics with three teams, in a parody of a series of specials at the time known as Battle of the Network Stars. On Laff-A-Lympics, the teams were the Yogi Yahooies (consisting of characters who appeared in various crossovers with Yogi, including my primary exposures to him: the later series Yogi’s Treasure Hunt and later special Yogi’s First Christmas), the Scooby Doobies (consisting of characters who were part of the Scooby’s All-Star Laff-A-Lympics block itself, including Scooby and his associates, Dynomutt and Blue Falcon, and Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels₄), and the Really Rottens (consisting of villains from the various cartoons, led by Muttley).

By the mid-90s I was done with cartoons, except for older-skewing ones like The Simpsons, so I’ve missed subsequent iterations of Scooby-Doo. I remember one time I was about to watch wrestling and my sister saw Scooby on the screen and said, “I haven’t seen Scooby-Doo in so long.” Then, realizing it was the end credits, she added, “And I guess I won’t be now, either.”

However, around the same time is when my family first got internet access. This is when the world wide web was so small that Yahoo served as a pretty comprehensive directory of what was on there. I first went to the “TV” section of their site, which was unofficially recognized as the internet’s yellow pages. I then went to “Cartoons” and looked at stuff for Scooby-Doo and The Smurfs.

What appalled me was that only one site was a straight-up Scooby-Doo tribute. The others were all joking websites about what a drug-influenced cartoon it was. Hmm, maybe in the very early stages there was some inspiration from drugs, given it was about four young people traveling the country in a van during the late 60s. However, it’s hard to argue that the show as it turned out was drug-related in any way shape or form.

That didn’t stop people from trying, though. One person even had a list “Top 10 Reasons Scooby-Doo Was A Drug Influenced Cartoon” (actually was that taken from David Letterman, LOL?) and it included reasons like “Scooby always talked and no one but Shaggy could hear him” and “Scooby and Shaggy both constantly had the munchies”.

All this was upsetting 14-year-old me. I was glad to see at least one rebuttal against the libel₅ on a different site. This person specifically addressed that top 10 list, refuting every reason. Regarding the first one I mentioned, he said, “That’s just a lie. You watch the cartoon and it’s clear everyone hears him.” Regarding the second one, he pointed out that anyone who has ever owned a dog would know Scooby would constantly want to eat and Shaggy, if you look at him compared to the other characters, is incredibly tall and would need a ton of calories for his huge body.

What I also discovered from these early internet websites is how many people hate Scrappy! I had no idea. While he was never my favorite character, I never had a problem with him. I can understand others’ hatred though. He was so utterly full of himself, and by pushing Scooby into dangerous situations, thinking they could both handle them, he made his uncle look like a fool, too. Of course, he was only supposed to be a child and this might have been okay, even endearing, if he were actually voiced by a precocious-sounding kid. Instead a nasally grown man voiced him. WTF?

The one site I did find at the time that lampooned Scooby-Doo and which I still liked was listing what happened to all the characters after the show ended (this was a rare period in history when there were no new cartoons of his being made). The list went as follows:

Fred – Who cares?

Daphne – Got pregnant by Don Knotts, found it interfered with her career as a porn star, and ran off with one of the Harlem Globetrotters.

Velma – Locked eyes with another woman at the grocery store one day and fell in love with her. They currently live in the suburbs with their two adopted Asian children.

Scooby – Impregnated the previously-thought-to-be-male beer mascot Spuds MacKenzie, which made the executives at Bud Light furious until he disarmed them by saying “Scooby-Dooby-Doo!”

Shaggy – Got into drugs after the show ended. Was last seen in August after having sold drugs to The Grateful Dead’s Jerry Garcia. Shaggy was riding his motorcycle to Mexico saying “Zoinks!” [This was late 1995, and Garcia had died of an overdose that August]

Scrappy – Road kill.₆

Once I’d seen what there was to see as far as Scooby websites, I moved on. However, he became a big part of my life again a few years later.

I had been pushing for years for my family to get a satellite dish. Part of the reason was that our local cable company, Jones Spacelink, was such garbage (and justice was served when they went out of business in the early 2000s!) In 1993, I was SO HEARTBROKEN to read about the new channel that was cartoons 24 hours a day only to find out those fuckers at Jones Spacelink₇ weren’t going to make it available for us. Five years later I had a satellite dish and Cartoon Network!

When I interviewed at Nielsen in 2015 one of the hiring managers commented on how, even in the mid-2000s, most kids watching CN still cited Scooby-Doo as their favorite show on the channel. Of course the Adult Swim programming block, anime, DC comics cartoons, etc. eventually gave CN its own identity but in 1998 it was still all about the old reruns later passed along to their newer sister station Boomerang. While there were reruns of lesser-known shows like Pound Puppies (that I had watched when it was new in the 80s), Scooby-Doo was the king of the reruns. Not only were there so many episodes shown for me to enjoy, even random commercial spots were devoted to original content the network made promoting Scooby and the gang. There was one quick spot with the announcer talking about Velma being the cute one (ugh, I don’t want to describe that anymore). There was another with the announcer commenting on the hilarious absurdity of Shaggy saying “Zoinks!” when running for his life.

There was also this full-length commercial for the network. The only commercial I’ve ever watched that was so bizarre I almost wondered if I’d dreamt it.

The following year, in honor of the show’s 30^th anniversary and a new direct-to-video movie that was made my parents’ local paper featured an article about how Scooby’s popularity spanned decades despite every episode being the same:

• The gang goes to a new location, supposedly just to sight-see
• A local warns them about a monster haunting the area, and we catch a glimpse of said monster
• After they have a scary encounter, Fred suggests a way of catching the monster that puts Shaggy and Scooby in peril
• The plan doesn’t go as intended, but after a bunch of physical comedy the monster is caught
• He is unmasked and revealed to be the only other adult in the episode, who did it for financial gain
• After his whole scheme is described, he says “And I wouldn’t have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for you meddling kids and that dumb mutt.”
• Scooby gleefully says, “Scooby-Dooby-Doo!”

Of course, the addition of Scrappy was specifically because the formulaic nature of the show was leading to declining ratings, so be careful what you wish for!

I’ll take back what I said somewhat about my previous excitement. I only had that satellite dish as a summer treat in 1998. By the time we got it for good in 2000, if I was in the mood to watch cartoons, it was the historical stuff on Boomerang, which had launched by then.

However, Scooby still found ways into my life for the rest of my college years.

There was the cameo/parody featuring Scooby and the gang in that one scene of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (I can’t believe that movie came up twice in one random post LOL) and it was funny!

When the live-action movie came out in 2002, Christian, who was my roommate then, and I almost decided to sneak in just to see how bad it was (no way we were gonna pay for it though!)

Also in 2002, on CN, there was a fake awards ceremony where Scooby got a lifetime achievement award for his contributions to the cartoon industry. There were comments from more recent cartoon stars who idolized him, like Johnny Bravo, and from celebrities who’d worked with him, like Duncan, Knotts, and Tim Conaway. Christian heard that last name and remembered his corny cameo as himself on The Simpsons. That’s twice that show’s been mentioned in this post – shall we go for three?

Anyway, Scooby’s next appearance in my life came way later, at Christmas 2011, when my mom gave me a stuffed version as a present. That’s what you see in this post’s featured image.

In 2012, during its infamous PG-era, the WWE advertised an animated direct-to-video movie they’d made where current stars of the time interacted with Scooby and his friends.

In 2014, to prepare for an interview at Warner Bros., I watched the pilots of some of their TV shows, including Supernatural. I liked it enough but never watched it again. I need to watch at least one more episode though – the one where Scooby and the others guest star!

In 2015, I decided to spin-off my wrestling history podcast into a movie/TV history podcast, where each episode I would talk about a specific character’s appearances in all sorts of media. The first episode was on Rocky Balboa (and John Rambo) and the second was supposed to be about Scooby-Doo. The producer even made a promo photo where my face was superimposed on Shaggy’s as Scooby carried him. Unfortunately, the network went under (and the producer went crazy) and both podcasts ended. I guess now I’m doing this history lesson on Scooby instead.

In 2016, I did have a great Warner Bros. job for a while and saw some Scooby pictures around the lot. He remains a cash cow! In fact, at one point during the last decade I learned that more Scooby series had been made since the previous decade, and if you combine all the shows, our lovable Great Dane temporarily had the record for most episodes of any cartoon ever. The Simpsons later regained the lead but I’ve brought them up for the final time in this post; I’m here to pay tribute to Scooby.

I guess that almost brings us up to the very present day. The one other thing to mention happened just weeks before Scoob! was released. I was in the room while my dad was watching Family Feud and during the bonus round a question was “Name a cartoon character who has been around forever.” The second contestant playing the bonus round said “Scooby-Doo!” but that got ZERO points.

I correctly guessed that Mickey Mouse would be number 1. I’m also guessing Bugs Bunny would be number 2. However, I’m shocked that Scooby got NOTHING, as 50 years is gargantuan. And, to say the least, he’s remained relevant in terms of original content decade after decade to an extent that he’s mostly exceeded Mickey over the past 50 years (obviously I’m not counting theme parks).  Perhaps Scooby’s endless appeal was his own undoing – he doesn’t feel like a character who’s been around forever because he constantly finds ways to be current.

That was that. WOW. Longest post I’ve ever written on this blog. However, although most people won’t remember the way I did, I can safely say that I’m far from alone among people who have been alive for decades during Scooby’s tenure to say I have huge amounts of memories involving him.

Well anyway, my next post should be easier – just cutting to the chase and reviewing a bunch of stuff briefly.

Up Next: Let’s get to it!

1. Granted, no comparison to what we constantly saw on another series of cartoons produced by Hannah-Barbera at one point – Tom & Jerry.
2. What I remember most is that some kid presented me his survey, which asked you to choose your favorite activity between playing baseball, watching TV, playing video games, or reading books. Baseball had four marks next to it, while everything else had zero. I understood why when I chose TV but the other kid said, “Choose baseball!” When I said no he walked away without marking my answer. A moment later I heard him saying to someone else, “Choose baseball!” He grew up to work for Fox News.
3. Oblique reference but very appropriate to that time period!
4. I just learned that the new movie’s Dee Dee was one of the Angels, meaning there was yet another reference to this cartoon block. Also, it was thanks to Laff-A-Lympics that I learned Captain Caveman didn’t always have a son appearing with him, like I and others my age had come to expect watching his late-1980s cartoon.
5. I originally put slander but realized libel would be correct since it was written. I’m anal about certain things.
6. Geez is it any wonder tvtropes.org named the page for characters everyone despises The Scrappy?
7. I get worked up about this stuff.

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