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SCOOBY
DOO
"Rooby
Rooby Roooooo!" Popular opinion has it that
Hanna-Barbera’s Scooby Doo went all crap upon the
introduction to the series of his pint-sized nephew
Scrappy. In reality, Scooby Doo was a steaming pile of
talking dog mess long before this. In fact, Scooby Doo
was never good. The adventures of the anthromorphosised
Scooby, dashing-bit-dull high-school jock Fred,
goggle-eyed fatso Velma, red-legged, red-headed
saucestress Daphne, and possibly drug-toking, unshaven,
hippy coward Shaggy were about as unpredictable as dusk
Every
week the same thing happened: Scooby and the gang would
visit some relative, let’s call him "Uncle
Johnny", who lived in an old house/airfield/circus
near a swamp. Upon arriving at the house, Uncle Johnny
would be acting odd/evil/absent, and the house would
seemingly be haunted. The ghosts would chase a terrified
Scooby and Shaggy, who would intermittently distract it
by posing as barbers/butchers/soldiers and give it a
haircut/chicken/orders, and then run away. In the
meantime Fred, Daphne and Velma would’ve found a box
of balloons, and a cannister of helium, which would lead
them to deduce that the ghost is nothing but a
helium-inflated puppet operated by the evil local
sherrif/circus ringmaster, who has been posing as Uncle
Johnny, since having locked the real Uncle Johnny in the
basement. Then the evil fiend would reveal a scheme to
dredge for diamonds in the lake at the back of the
house, which he would’ve gotten away with if it
wasn’t for "You meddling kids". This was all
nonsense.
Firstly,
he would’ve gotten away with it if he’d have just
murdered Uncle Johnny and his meddling relations within
five minutes of them arriving at the house. Secondly,
he’d have probably gotten away with it if he didn’t
spend so much time arsing around with balloons and
sheets and stuff, and just gotten on with looking for
the loot. Lastly, he’d have gotten away with it if he
hadn’t been such an obvious badguy, with a
perma-scowl, and gruff voice. The "reveal" at
the end of each episode was no more surprising than
drawing back your bedsheets of a morning to find the
rest of your body nestling beneath.
Admittedly,
when Scrappy Doo - a smart-arsed, pint-sized version of
Scooby, who would tackle badguys while screeching
"Puppy Power!" - arrived on the show, it had
achieved a new nadir. The appearance of Scrappy (he
really should have been called "Crappy Poo
Poo") pushed out Velma and Fred, and resulted in
episodes splitting into two self-contained stories, yet
this wasn’t the first time the show’s format had
been toyed with. Who remembers the Scooby Doo and
Dyno-Mutt hour, or Scooby’s Laugh-Olympics? Nobody.
The fact remains that Scooby Doo was awful right from
the very beginning.
Bet you
didn’t know this, though: Scooby Doo got his name from
a line in Frank Sinatra’s version of Strangers In The
Night, in which the blue-eyed, Mafia-affiliated crooner
sang "Scooby-dooby-doo". Straight up.
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