The Mystery of Scooby-Doo

    This was originally going to be a write up of the first episode of ‘The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo’ but after watching it for the first time since childhood there was just nothing there. The animation was low-budget and off-model as well as that kind of squishy (technical term) where they deform too much and too randomly for them to ever feel like actual characters. The writing was stretching towards something actually funny but between the fourth-wall breaking and obvious producer notes it never really rose above annoying.

Honestly that's not a bad look for Daphne.

    Now behind the scenes, that’s where it gets unexpectedly interesting. The creator and head writer of ‘The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo’ was Tom Ruegger. After doing his time in the Hannah-Barbera salt mines as both animator and writer on various and sundry shows he oversaw ‘The New Scooby and Scrappy-Doo Show’ in 1983 which lead directly to his heading this show and, subsequently ‘A Pup Named Scooby-Doo,’ my personal favorite growing up. While the animation in ‘A Pup Names Scooby-Doo’ wasn’t that much of an improvement the writing had evolved and after the first season Tom and many of his people jumped ship to Warner Brothers where he was the creator and head writer for a little show called ‘Tiny Toon Adventures.’ He would go on to create ‘Animaniacs,’ ‘Freakazoid,’ had his hands in a lot of Warner Brothers pies, and then executive produce ‘Batman: The Animated Series.’

    So yeah, this little show, the first one to fully ditch some of the core characters (no Fred or Velma) as well as the first one to have actually supernatural events on screen (and which Wikipedia insists on calling ‘the seventh incarnation of Scooby-Doo’ in a fairly foreboding way) lead directly to ‘Batman: Mask of the Phantasm.’ Suck it, animation snobs.

    Which is neat and all but didn’t help me sit through the first episode of this show which manages to have Vincent Price as Vincent Van Ghoul and doesn’t give him much of anything to do. So as I sat slouching in front of the monitor actively hating the secondary character Flim Flam (look him up if you want to know, I’m not going to talk about him) my mind wandered and I found myself asking why Scooby-Doo was still, in any way at all, relevant?

    The original show ‘Scooby-Doo, Where are You?’ aired 25 episodes between September 13, 1969 and October 31, 1970. The second and I would argue more important show ‘The New Scooby-Doo Movies,’ aired an additional 24 episodes between September 9, 1972 and October 27, 1973. This is the one guest-starring Batman and Robin and the Addams Family. Both shows were on CBS and were, for a cartoon series, relative hits.

    And that was it for years until 1976 when ABC acquired the rights and ‘The Scooby-Doo/Dynomutt Hour’ was born. This show would get renamed and retooled on a yearly basis to steadily degrading ratings until 1979, when the original Poochie himself Scrappy-Doo was introduced, leading to 1979’s ‘Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo,’ the version I think I first ran across in reruns. The show would continue to get remixed and remade in increasingly absurd ways until we work our way back around to ‘The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo,’ the first real attempt at a format update in years.

Whut.

    After that and ‘A Pup Named Scooby-Doo’ it was just syndicated reruns until market forces caused the creation of such basic cable staples as Comedy Central, Home & Garden TV, and of course Cartoon Network. The Cartoon Network reruns caused a resurgence of interest in the characters. The rights to Scooby-Doo had been all over the place for years but eventually Warner Brothers, in possession of the IP of Hannah-Barbera through its acquisition of Turner Entertainment, started producing new shows again, including such luminaries as ‘Be Cool, Scooby-Doo!’ and ‘Shaggy & Scooby-Doo Get a Clue!’

Just, no.

    

    Out of this bunch the only one that’s really interesting is ‘Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated’ from 2010 which rebuilt the show from the ground up, gave the cast families and backstories, a new hometown of Crystal Cove, and leaned into darkness pretty heavily. One of the recurring antagonists was voiced by Udo Kier, to give you some idea. It was heavily serialized and treated the massive back catalog of Scooby-Doo episodes like a kind of background lore, with references and influences from its entire history. There were actual murders and betrayals and mysteries. It wrapped up its story after two seasons and 52 episodes and likely stands as about the best you can do with a bunch of mystery-solving teens and their talking dog.

 

Of course Udo Kier as a bird.

    Not that that’s stopped anyone from trying, there have been plenty of shows since then, including ‘Scooby-Doo and Guess Who?’ which is a deliberate throwback to the old ‘The New Scooby-Doo Movies’ format with guest stars and everything. Not to mention the two live action theatrical movies, two live action tv movies (didn’t even know about them, did you?) the scores of direct-to-video adaptations, comic books, t-shirts, lunch boxes, you name it.

    Which is all very interesting but doesn’t really answer the question I first asked: why is Scooby-Doo still, in any way at all, relevant? After all, there were a lot of cartoon shows in the late 60’s/early 70’s that have been justly forgotten. Not much interest in a retool of ‘The Funky Phantom.’

    I would argue, admittedly without a whole lot of evidence, that the original run of the show was just popular enough to justify ‘The New Scooby-Doo Movies,’ which is where its place in the public consciousness was really locked in. If Sonny & Cher are on a show it must be worth tuning into. Heck, The Harlem Globetrotters appear three times!

    After that it’s nostalgia all the way down. Scooby-Doo is over 50 years old now and by sheer dint of being around that long it no longer needs to justify its own existence. Nobody is ever going to attend a pitch meeting for ‘Scooby-Doo but X’ and end up confused.

    What is interesting to think about if not actually watch is how the characters have navigated the changes over the years. In the first series Fred was the leader just because he was white, male, and had an ascot, Daphne was the hot redhead, Velma had glasses and was alternately brainy or clumsy, Shaggy was the comic relief, and Scooby-Doo was the dog. As the years passed Fred would be characterized as increasingly bossy, Daphne increasingly useless, and Velma increasingly brainy until it resulted in ‘A Pup Named Scooby-Doo’ where Fred was actively stupid, Daphne spoiled and rich, and Velma practically mute and toting around a portable computer. Shaggy and Scooby, by contrast, have remained generally the same: greedy and cowardly. They could have a very interesting lunch conversation with Chuck Jones era Daffy Duck.

    Aside from the very early days and arguably the ‘Mystery Incorporated’ incarnation the show has never been about mysteries or being all that scary. The original did have some decent visuals and I’m sure toddler me might have squirmed at the opening credits of ‘Scooby-Doo, Where are You?’ but really this is a comedy show with a convoluted premise that’s managed to keep its head above water long enough to be culturally relevant in much the same way that Rankin-Bass Christmas specials are. It’s there because it always has been and likely always will be. As long as that little part of your brain pings it as ‘oh, that’s something I recognize’ it’ll find a way to stick around.