It feels so odd to me that I love Scooby Doo so much. It seems... wrong. Out of place. My obsessions with comics and love of Star Trek, combined with a brain that needs to organize everything into nice clear cells on a spreadsheet, seems to have no room for a silly kids cartoon with a mystery-solving dog. But I take pride in my love of Scooby Doo. As if my interest in the character makes me a diversified individual with a range of interests.
Yeah... right.
Scooby Doo is one of those characters in "American Mythology" that seems to have transcended it's original medium. In 1969, Hanna Barbera put out the show as part of it's never ending machine of cartoon shows to fill Saturday morning programming. At the time, there was nothing about the show that would mark it as a decade-enduring favorite. But it grew to be their most popular property.
Scooby is also yet another example of a character changing with the decades to stay popular. Just as Superman and Batman have done, the Scooby Doo show and movies have changed in ways to keep them relevant to the current decade. Changing, evolving, and keeping hints of the elements of the show that made it original during it's debut. Fans of the show can decry things like the addition of Scrappy, or the introduction of romantic sub-plots, or even the use of cell phones and computers. But the mystery solving goofy hijinks of the show have proved to be timeless.
Some of my earliest memories are of Scooby Doo. I vaguely remember a poorly-informed older babysitter putting me in a high chair in front of the show when I was way too big for a high chair. But it mattered not because Scooby was on the TV and doing one of his silly chases through doors that made no logical sense. I remember a coloring book with cut out paper dolls on the back cover. I was excited about that, because I thought that was the closest we would ever get to actual action figures. I remember being at an amusement park with my parents, really wanting a Scooby Doo stuffed toy they had in a gift shop, but knowing I was too old to even ask for such a baby thing.
Nowadays, Scooby toys, plush animals, coloring books, and other merchandise are plentiful. They weren't so much in 1976. My favorite tea glass is Scooby Doo. I never got into Scooby comic books, though.
I think, personally, it's the atmosphere of the show I love the best. Not quite horror, but gothic mystery in characters and setting. The show being too silly to be scary, but I would sure love to find myself trapped in a haunted house with Daphne, exploring spooky corridors and having reality-bending adventures.
Daphne. Daphne... sigh. Another very early memory. First crush.
Now, as an adult, you can find every season of the show available on my Apple TV. It's one of the few shows that all three of my kids can agree on to watch. And it's definitely one of my guilty pleasures. I have no problem sitting and working on the budget with Scooby playing in the background.
Thanks,
DCD
