September 1, 2020

"The idea was for the new series to be soothing and nonviolent, an answer to the moral panic about violence in the media in the wake of Senator Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination..."

"[They wrote] an adorable half-hour comedy-mystery with a lovable and hapless Great Dane — a character modeled, they often said, on the character Bob Hope played alongside Bing Crosby in the 'Road' movies. After 15 or so drafts, they realized that the dog, Scooby-Doo, was the star.... A half-century later, episodes of 'Scooby-Doo' are still being broadcast.... It has inspired fans in every decade, who cleaved to characters like the beatnik slacker Shaggy (based on Maynard G. Krebs from 'Dobie Gillis') and the bespectacled brainiac, Velma, who would become a lesbian heroine."

From "Joe Ruby, a Creator of ‘Scooby-Doo,’ Is Dead at 87/Charged with creating an animated mystery series, Mr. Ruby and his writing partner, Ken Spears, came up with a show that endures more than 50 years later" (NYT).

26 comments:

rehajm said...

...and the coroner pulls off his mask to discover he's the evil carnival owner!!!

RIP- you brought me joy...

stlcdr said...

Lesbian heroine? I never noticed her getting it in with other female animated characters, or are we judging by appearance only?

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

“We would have got away with it if not for those meddling kids!” Usually said as their mask is pulled off revealing the “good” guy is really the bad guy.

JAORE said...

Velma = lesbian heroine?

Who knew?

Ahhh, but is she the only character that has changed over the years?

Scooby = now considered a canine of color
Fred = still in the closet, maybe even trans
Daphne = woke white girl who knows what POCs really need and think
Every single villain was an evil person wearing a mask = Antifa

Why I'm surprised the Mystery Van wasn't renamed the (all electric) No Malarky Van....

Temujin said...

I was a kid, but loved Dobie Gillis and recognized it as something special and different. I need to go back and look at it again.

Scott said...

"Charged with creating an animated mystery series,"

Sedition? Did it ever come to trial?

Rory said...

Not a fan of the show, but Scooby should be commended for turning his rhotic replacement disability into a lucrative career. RIP

Dan in Philly said...

Thelma may have become a lesbian hero, but most lesbians would do Daphne if given the choice.

gilbar said...

HELLO! Velma is NOT a lesbian!!!
She's Bi! (and, possibly, maybe bestial)!! Just like Daph

Kevin said...

Rut- roh!

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

stlcdr said...
Lesbian heroine? I never noticed her getting it in with other female animated characters, or are we judging by appearance only?

9/1/20, 7:34 AM

"She's plain, smart, and wears glasses so she must be a lesbian."

The "progressives" make exactly the same assumption middle schoolers would have made in 1965.

LordSomber said...

I always thought the cartoon was tired and formulaic, even when I was 9 years old.
Surprised they could milk this for decades.
Then again, if the generational timing is right, you could probably continuously milk nostalgia forever.

Kate said...

Scoob is the best. The person who created Scrappy Doo, however, should be buried quietly in an unmarked grave.

daskol said...

My favorite apocryphal genesis for the show was that each of the characters were actually caricatures of the one of the schools in New England's 5 college consortium: The preppy (Amherst), the pretty dolled up lady (Holyoke), the lesbian (Smith), the dirty hippie/hipster (Hampshire) and then Scooby from UMass.

Wince said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Churchy LaFemme: said...

Mark Evanier had to write the first "Scrappy" script. He's commented on how bad a fit the character was.

The thing about having a tired formula (and it did get that way..) is that once it is so completely well known, you can start working changes on it, like the "Mystery Incorporated" version of a few years ago.

Wince said...

How has Scooby Doo avoided the "white supremacist" label?

The idea was for the new series to be soothing and nonviolent, an answer to the moral panic about violence in the media in the wake of Senator Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination...

RFK, not MLK? (Same year, 1968.)

It has inspired fans in every decade, who cleaved to characters like the beatnik slacker Shaggy (based on Maynard G. Krebs from 'Dobie Gillis') and the bespectacled brainiac, Velma, who would become a lesbian heroine.

All white.

https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/l6rks/the_only_black_people_in_scooby_doo_were_these/

Joe Smith said...

It was a terrible show.

Even as a kid I couldn't take any show seriously that relied upon the trope of the bad guy wearing a costume so perfect nobody could detect it.

Kind of like 'Mission Impossible.' The whole undetectable, perfect mask combined with a device to perfectly mimic someone's voice thing.

So lame.

LordSomber said...

In the near future, college lit professors will explain that Scooby-Doo was in fact subtly narrated through the eyes of Shaggy -- a stoner who was always paranoid and hungry, lived in a van, hallucinated "monsters" and talked to his dog.

mikee said...

Marmaduke, born 1954, suggests Scooby stands on the shoulders of other giant dogs.

KellyM said...

I loved Scooby-Doo as a kid, along with the Speed-Buggy duplicate. I still watch the originals now, as I prefer the animation of those shows versus much of what is being done today. The live-action version first made back in 2002 was pretty good.

@daskol: Perfect comparison.

n.n said...

"She's plain, smart, and wears glasses so she must be a lesbian."

Sexist? Are all females, only females, that fit that description judged and labeled as transgender? Perhaps trans-social?

Yancey Ward said...

My oldest sister, three years younger than me, was a huge Scooby-Doo fan as a child. Me, not so much, though I though Daphne was pretty hot.

Yancey Ward said...

I still remember the first time I listened to American Top 40 in 1979- my first reaction was, "It's Shaggy!".

JMW Turner said...

Yeah, but the Archies had *rhythm*..."Sugah,sugah...

Nichevo said...

"She's plain, smart, and wears glasses so she must be a lesbian."

The "progressives" make exactly the same assumption middle schoolers would have made in 1965.


Totally not my read. I always figured she was a super-nympho fuck machine who shook it twice as hard because she wasn't as pretty as the blonde. Had a build on her, just nerdy.