(no subject)

[which_chick]

Didn't get much done today. Spent time with brother-the-younger and his kids, who were out visiting.



Scooby-Doo is all about the debunking the supernatural. It's like an animated mythbusters. It's never a real abominable snowman or a real werewolf or a real ghost. [Note: I am not positing that these things really exist for real. I'm saying that Scooby-Doo could be like X-Files, where they sometimes had a real vampire or real aliens. The X-Files television show allowed for the possibility of real elements of the supernatural. Scooby-Doo does not.] The unexplained phenomenon in Scooby-Doo is always some person with an ulterior motive. Always. There is never a valid supernatural happening on Scooby-Doo. Everything, and I do mean everything, has a rational explanation, one usually provided by Velma. If the fab four were investigating Moses's claims of a burning bush that spoke to him, they'd discover that the culprit was a ventriloquist gardener with a can of gasoline who was angry about the Jews taking up all the landscaping jobs in Egypt and who wanted to convince them to leave the country. (I picked this example because of its relevance to the Jewish holiday of Passover, the very same holiday which is keeping me from my digital camera.)

Scooby-Doo also uses the same plot outline for every single show. This probably saves on scripts. In every episode, the fab four go to some new location. They encounter a monster eyewitness. Then they encounter the monster and enough supporting characters to provide some likely suspects. There's usually also enough exposition for the clue parts. Then there is an obligatory chase scene in which the monster is subjected to physical humor like falling over a cliff or being tripped or having a carton of milk poured on him or whatever. (This part is set to music.) The monster is never seriously injured or killed unless it is mechanical in nature. If the monster is the baddie in a monster suit, he or she is unharmed during the musical chase scene. Then there is the actual Grand Reveal wherein the baddie is unmasked (Frequently the unmasking is literal as all hell.) and the fab four explain how they caught the person. And then there's the Meddling Kids comment. The End.

Modern Scooby-Doo has cellphones, GPS systems, and other accoutrements of modern life. In the episodes I watched, they did not use Google, but I didn't watch *all* of the new episodes. Also, for those who can sing the old theme song, it isn't like that anymore. They have a new theme song now. Fred is "Freddie", which I don't remember him being. However, the character designs are as they ever were and the Mystery Machine is still decorated like a VW Minibus from the sixties hippie era, so it's not like totally updated.

(Duncan and Gwen are pretty fond of Scooby right now, which is why we were watching it.)

Comments

[fooliv.livejournal.com]

I thought for a while there that the villains had become real monsters? Once they brought in the *other* talking dog & got rid of the extraneous humans.

Is there a new series in the old vein that I've missed? To be honest, I was never one of those long-Seventies cultists who worshiped the show, so my knowledge of Scooby-Doodom is markedly shallow and patchy...

[teflon-tim.livejournal.com]

I thought for a while there that the villains had become real monsters?

IIRC, they did indeed try that for a few short-run Saturday series, and in many of the direct-to-video movies, to try and spice things up a bit. And there were certainly "real" monsters in both the ill-fated live-action movies. But apparently for the revived series they went back to what worked best.

And for the record, I wasn't a huge fan of the show either. I am, however, a big fan of the voice work of Frank Welker. He does Fred(die) and Scooby, Megatron from Transformers (of which I *was* a big fan in my misspent youth), and a host of other cartoon voices and animal noises far too numerous to list here.

Yes, sometimes I have too much time on my hands. :)

Scooby Doo

[ardvaark99999.livejournal.com]

Scooby Do is, I think, a martial arts teacher (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_martial_arts_titles#Martial_Arts_Titles), e.g. Sensei Scooby Do, we will destroy the Karate Kid!

That would make a nice mashup for youtube - Scooby Doo versus the Karate Kid. You could go live action or cartoon. It still wouldn't be as good as the one I'm planing on doing with Charlton Heston movies, though:

Ten Commandments/Planet of the Apes/Soylent Green/Omega Man:

Instead of having the Pharaoh played by Yule Brenner as in TC, you splice in Dr. Zaius (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Zaius) from PotA. It would be brilliant.

Re: Scooby Doo

[which-chick.livejournal.com]

I didn't have any sort of large, sprawling, easily-searched information set with a focus on useless pop culture to hand when I was writing the damn thing. And, given my tired brain, I figured that do as in "I do not like them" was pronounced dew and would be close enough. Apparently I was wrong.

[not-your-real.livejournal.com]

Oddly, I found Scooby-Doo to be rather frightening when I watched it during my weekly alone-in-the-house-while-brother-is-off-at-violin-lessons time, despite the anti-supernaturalist message.

My laptop is dropping key presses. Dooom!