Need, umm . . . Scooby-Doo help . . .

I don’t even know if it’s Scooby-Doo or Scooby-Do, I’ve never seen the show—but I have to write a column about it. I have a compilation tape of three episodes at home, but before I watch it, I thought I’d ask you guys for any fascinating, pertinent information. All I know is it’s about a bunch of teenagers and a dog and they chase ghosts—am I on the right track? I seem to recall one of the girls is a lesbian and one of the guys is a pothead?

First off - it’s Scooby-Doo. The most important thing to remember is that all episodes with Scrappy-Doo suck suck SUCK. Scrappy is Scooby’s nephew and an abomination unto the Lord.


“My mind reels with sarcastic replies!” - Snoopy

Zoinks! Better get yourself some Scooby Snacks and settle onto the sofa for some fine viewing!

The voice of Shaggy is Casey Casem of American Top 40 fame. Hope that helps. :wink:

Okay, here goes:

It is about a group of teenagers who travel around in a groovy van. They always end up embroiled in some mystery, which they solve.

The characters:
The blond guy–Can’t remember his name. He is ostensibly the leadter.
Daphne: The hot chick.
Velma: The nerdy brainy chick.
Shaggy: The “pothead”
Scooby-Doo: The sort-of-talking-dog.

When they find a “situation,” they always split into two groups. The blond guy, Daphne, and Velma in one group, Scooby and Shaggy in the other.

Scooby and Shaggy always act like idiots, but they are the ones that always find the key to the mystery.

The mystery is usually some guy who is pretending to be a ghost or a monster to scare people away from something. When his ruse is discovered, he usually says something like “I would have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for those meddling kids!”

And Scooby will do just about anything for a Scooby-snack.

Velma’s the lesbian and Shaggy’s the pothead (Incidentially, Shaggy was voiced by none other than Casey Kasem). Fred is kind of the group’s leader and Daphne is the hot one. The gang would stumble upon a supposedly haunted location in their ‘Mystery Machine’, a van with a psychedelic paint job, and set to work getting to the bottom of the mystery du jour. While these mysteries all had a supernatural character to them, it was always revealed by the end of the show that there was a rational explanation for them, usually something to do with a criminal wanting to scare people away from a given location so he could do his dirty work unhindered.

Later shows did away with Fred, Velma, and Daphne, along with the mystery solving, and just had Shaggy, Scooby, and Scooby’s nephew Scrappy Doo. Some episodes also involved Scooby’s idiot cousin(?) Scooby Dum. These episodes were more slapstick in character and (in my opinion) not as good.

I think I watched too much TV growing up.

TMR
If you believed in yourself, and tore enough holes
in your pants, there was always a mist-filled alley
right around the corner.

The blonde guy is gay; the scarf is a dead give-away. Shaggy has a bad case of the munchies all of the time. I’m pretty sure he’s blowing smoke in Scooby’s face, too, because he’s really paranoid. Velma is a lesbian and Daphne is her bitch. I’m pretty sure they are racists too because the only non-whites I can remember them ever talking to were the Harlem Globetrotters. But I haven’t seen the show since I was about 10 years old, so I might be remembering wrong. :slight_smile:

I would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for those meddling kids!


Alcohol and calculus don’t mix. Never drink and derive.

There are five characters to the show:

Fred, the strong, competent, brave one. Fred usually is in the forefront of actually solving the crime, and always seems to create brilliant, Rube Goldberg-esque traps for the villian to fall in to. These traps nearly always have something go wrong with them (Scooby runs in through the wrong door or Shaggy gets himself caught by accident); whether what goes wrong allows the villian to go free or whether it still captures the villian(s) with a modicum of nail-biting tension and slapstick depends upon how close to the end of the episode the trap gets set up. Near the beginning or middle, and Shaggy or Scooby always screw up the trap and let the villain go free (although the villian always leaves a clue behind). Near the end, and the villian still manages to get caught.
Velma, the brainy, bespectacled one. Either she or Fred is the one who figures out the mystery and reveals the villian. In at least one out of ever three episodes, Velma bumps into someone/something and her glasses fly off, resulting in humorous slapstick as she muddles through the chase scene/haunted house nearly blind, despereately searching for her glasses.
Daphne, the pretty (albeit clumsy) one. In episodes where she actually does anything of note, what she does is get caught in one of the villain’s traps or find a secret passage by falling into it.
Shaggy, the hippy-beatnik type with the unsatiable appetite and no backbone whatsoever; and Scooby-Doo, the talking Great Dane, also with an unsatiable appetite and no backbone. These two are the cowardly comic relief, and most of the episode focuses upon them trying to help solve the mystery only to end up being chased all over creation by the villain(s).

Generally, the plot goes like this: for some reason, the gang goes off to ‘Scene of a Haunting’ (usually for nothing to do with the haunting; they just happen to be passing through on their way to some ill-defined event and stumble across a ‘mystery’). Upon realizing that there’s a ‘mystery’ to be found, they start investigating the area, only to run across lots of shady and mean characters who have plenty of motive to scare people away from the ‘SoaH.’ The gang then gets chased by the ‘Monster’ (ranging from Pirate Ghosts to Shark Men to Mummies, depends upon what’s being Haunted by whom); the gang escapes the monster but stumbles across a ‘major clue.’ Eventually, either Fred creates a trap to catch the ‘monster’ or the ‘monster’ gets hoisted by his own petard due to Scooby and Shaggy’s follies. Fred or Velma removes the 'monster’s mask to reveal the real villain, and then proceed to explain why the villain wanted to scare people away and how the clues led them/him/her to figure out who the ‘monster’ really was. End with a small comical scene involving Scooby and Shaggy.

That’s the basic formula. It expands depending upon the season/show you watch; some episodes have ‘special guest stars’ from old, cancelled shows (Sonny & Cher, the Addams family, Don Adams, Don Knotts, Tim Conway); some episodes involve a terrible blight upon the face of cartooning (Scrappy Doo, Scooby’s little nephew who always wanted to beat up the villain, thus theoretically increasing the fun of Scooby and Shaggy’s antics as they try to escape the monster while dragging a belligerent Scrappy with them; but generally, the result was mind-numbingly bad).

One of the few cartoons from my youth that actually doesn’t seem too bad upon re-viewing as an adult (as opposed to the atrocity that was The Harlem Super-Globetrotters; I can’t believe I found that entertaining as a child. And I don’t even want to think about trying to watch an episode of The Robonic Stooges with my cynical and elderly eyes).


JMCJ

“Y’know, I would invite y’all to go feltch a dead goat, but that would be abuse of a perfectly good dead goat and an insult to all those who engage in that practice for fun.” -weirddave, set to maximum flame

Odd that this should come up…I just read an article about Scooby-Doo with some good trivia, including Shaggy’s real name. Unfortunately, that book is at home, so you’ll have to wait until at least noon CST and probably after 5 CST for me to get home and dig it out.

No, no, no. The way it breaks down is this:

They travel around in their Mystery Van (or bus, I don’t remember). Not to be confused with the Magical Mystery Tour, which is waiting to take you away.

The Mystery inevitably will break down. The kids will inevitably be looking for help, when they run into a mystery. Usually some old crusty man trying to scare off developers by dressing as the previously mentioned ghost, monster, vampire, etc. Scooby is always frightened of these monsters, and will inevitably jump into Shaggy’s arms at some point in the episode.

They usually DO split into two groups, Velma, Fred and Daph in one group, Shag and Scoob in another. But Velma will always break from her group, find a hidden door, and discover where the costume is being hidden. Fred and Daphne never discover anything. It is commonly understood that they are off “solving thier own mystery,” Hence the fact that both of them wear scarves ALL THE TIME.

At some point, they will all run into each other, literally, and compare notes, thereby coming to a common conclusion. The crusty old man may utter the previously mentioned phrase, or “Foiled by those kids!” I never understood what tin foil had to do with anything. The show ends with Scooby doing something silly, usually putting on the monster constume, and ends with a still of everyone laughing. The End.

On a related note, I orderd my Scooby-Doo checks two days ago. Zoinks!


A little persistance goes a long way. Announcing:

“I go on guilt trips a couple of time a year. Mom books them for me.” A custom made Wally .sig!

This is great, I gotta print this out for Reference Material. OK, some questions—

• Don’t these kids go to school? Are they drop-outs, or are they older than high school age?

• If Velma’s glasses keep falling off, why doesn’t she get contacts?

• Where are these kids’ parents? They can just all drive off and have adventures whenever they feel like it?

• Scooby talks? Sorta? Does he have a speech impediment? Do these kids notice that their dog can talk? Doesn’t this in itself constitute a mystery?

• Are any of the kids doing it? Besides Velma and her bitch, that is.

• The dog has a “nephew?” Like Donald’s and Mickey’s purported “newphews,” huh?

• Isn’t “Scrappy-Doo” what you have to clean up when you forget to walk Scooby?

John, that was an wonderful summary. It should be pointed out that Scooby had several spin off type shows which included The 13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo and A Pup Named Scooby Doo. In many of these the supernatural entity was genuinely supernatural. Purists like myself will have none of it, prefering to stick to the pre-Scrappy days when many of the chase scenes were accompanied by song. I will admit to a fondness for The Scooby Doo Movies which were the hour long episodes with the special guest stars.

“My mind reels with sarcastic replies!” - Snoopy

Yeah Scooby talks, sorta. Sample:

“Ruh-Roh, Raggy!” = “Uh-oh, Shaggy!”

Swim said:

'Twas the Mystery Machine.


Homepage: http://www.bigfuckinboatwithbadassplanes.mil
Occupation: Swabbie Pounder, First Class
Location: Anywhere you feckless landlubbers ain’t.
Interests: Navy Chow, Port of Call, The Head, Air Superiority
ICQ Number: CVN69 – An UncleBeer Profile

“Avast and ahoy, landlubbers! Shore leave’s in August. Hide your women.” – A WallySig

Not sure if this will help or not, but it is the official Cartoon Network homepage of Scooby.

Scooby is on the Cartoon Network frequently. Note that the times listed are EST.
Also, for an idea of Scooby’s speaking skills, just picture Astro of the Jetsons, with a tad more gruffness.


We went right out there and refused to do accoustical versions of the electrical songs that we had refused to record in the first place.

[ul][li]It’s never addressed. They seem to exhist in a world of perpetual summer vacations.[/li][li]She’s a nerd. She’s be breaking uniform[/li][li]Never addressed.[/li][li]Sort of. See above post.[/li][li]Well, I don’t think Daphne’s there for any reason other than to help Fred releave his sexual tension, thereby allowing him to concetrate my completely.[/ul][/li]
Also be aware that it is my theory that “Scooby snacks” are made out of pot, as Scooby and Shaggy are able to scarf whole hoggies after consuming a scooby snack.

And, of course, Swim meant “Hoagies”.

Eve, what sort of article are you writing? If its in-depth at all, I know that each character in Scooby-Doo is representative of a small liberal arts school in New England. I’m looking it up right now, and will get back to you. But if this is for a children’s publication of sorts, I don’t imagine this info will be entirely engaging for your audience. Please stand by.


I ask not what you can do for me, but what you can do for me right now.

Jinkies!


The Legend Of PigeonMan

  • Shadow of the Pigeon -
    Weirdo of the Night

There was another element of Scooby-Doo reality that I’ve seen nowhere else, the “mask-within-a-mask” phenominon.

The gang has got the Snow Ghost all trussed up with rope, and Freddy is doing the plot wrap-up for the police, he removes the Snow Ghost mask to reveal (Gasp!) Mr. Barnes the the Ski-Lodge owner! But wait! Freddy Grabs Mr. Barnes’ head and yanks. Voila! Mr. Barnes is actually Professor Smith, who knew about the uranium mine under the ski lodge and was trying to scare everybody away so he smuggle the ore to Russia inside the eskimo totem poles etc. etc…

And I would’ve gotten away with it if it weren’t for you meddling kids!