The strange connection between Bobby Kennedy’s death and Scooby-Doo
May 15, 2020 12:17 PM   Subscribe

 
Interesting.
Now I wonder how 1968 affected the Comics Code Authority.
posted by doctornemo at 12:24 PM on May 15, 2020


Related: The live-action Scooby-Doo movies transcend the Scooby franchise [Polygon]
posted by Fizz at 12:34 PM on May 15, 2020 [1 favorite]


chris_fleming_was_anyone_going_to_tell_me.gif
posted by poffin boffin at 12:53 PM on May 15, 2020


That makes sense. Scrappy was thus introduced later in the series to prepare us all for the soulless wastes of the Reagan era.
posted by mittens at 12:56 PM on May 15, 2020 [15 favorites]


This is timely, as I was going to watch Scoob! with my son this evening. He's a big fan of Scoob and the gang.
posted by Fleebnork at 12:57 PM on May 15, 2020 [1 favorite]




Urban Legend:
  • Fred - Amherst College
  • Daphne - Mount Holyoke
  • Velma - Smith College
  • Shaggy - UMass Amherst
  • Scooby - Hampshire College
False.
posted by plinth at 1:27 PM on May 15, 2020 [6 favorites]


I know it's based on false info, but: Scoobert Doobert.
posted by sideshow at 1:31 PM on May 15, 2020 [2 favorites]


Now I wonder how 1968 affected the Comics Code Authority.

The CCA was mortally wounded at this point - Lee had shown them to be paper tigers half a decade prior.
posted by NoxAeternum at 1:45 PM on May 15, 2020 [2 favorites]


Urban Legend:

Fred - Amherst College
Daphne - Mount Holyoke
Velma - Smith College
Shaggy - UMass Amherst
Scooby - Hampshire College

False.

They all went to Dartmouth.

Fact.
posted by Fizz at 2:19 PM on May 15, 2020 [4 favorites]


On a rowing scholarship.
posted by Fizz at 2:21 PM on May 15, 2020 [9 favorites]


Scooby-Doo’s Wikipedia entry does a better job of specifically connecting its development to the moral panic than this article. It's also a tad overblown to say that action-adventure was banished from Saturday morning for a decade, when Hanna-Barbara itself was back with series like Sealab 2020 and Super Friends only 4–5 years later.
posted by mubba at 2:26 PM on May 15, 2020 [1 favorite]


Scrappy was thus introduced later in the series to prepare us all for the soulless wastes of the Reagan era.

He's since become the franchise's designated punching bag, with the newer entries happily clowning on him.

Also, Playmobil is releasing a Scooby-Doo set as well.
posted by NoxAeternum at 2:26 PM on May 15, 2020 [1 favorite]


DC makes Scooby-Doo comics available for free.
posted by sardonyx at 2:35 PM on May 15, 2020


Theirs was not not reason why,
Theirs was Scooby-Doo, or Die
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 2:51 PM on May 15, 2020 [14 favorites]


Speed Racer and Johnny Quest were both pretty violent and they were all over kid's TV, but they were pre crackdown that the article writes about. I loved them both as a kid, and I'm glad I missed the Smurfs era of cartoons.
posted by Beholder at 3:30 PM on May 15, 2020 [4 favorites]


I was hoping this was going to be something about reacting to conspiracy theories by wanting to teach kids that it's probably not a ghost or a monster causing their problems but a rich dude trying to run some kind of scam involving real estate.
posted by straight at 3:56 PM on May 15, 2020 [62 favorites]


That would have been a much better article than this one.
posted by glonous keming at 4:32 PM on May 15, 2020


I really wish they followed the argument through to the logical conclusion: Lee Harvey Oswald is to blame for Scooby Doo.
posted by Larry David Syndrome at 5:13 PM on May 15, 2020 [2 favorites]


I recall seeing someone point out one of the core values of the original Scooby-Doo series being a subtle anti-authoritarianism: the bad guys are always corrupt adults, whom one might naïvely expect to be pillars of the community, whose schemes are thwarted by some meddling kids.
posted by acb at 5:35 PM on May 15, 2020 [6 favorites]


SPACE GHOST: "So, Scrappy, are you prepared for the soulless wastes of the Reagan era?"
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 6:10 PM on May 15, 2020 [5 favorites]


@mubba, you should watch an episode of Super Friends again. I caught one somewhere a year or two ago, and it's truly bizarre: There's never so much as a punch thrown between the good guys and the bad guys.
posted by phrits at 6:32 PM on May 15, 2020 [2 favorites]


I'll just drop this here: the Scooby-Doo characters were based on The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis characters.
posted by jabah at 6:35 PM on May 15, 2020 [9 favorites]


Meddling T.V. hipsters!
posted by clavdivs at 8:37 PM on May 15, 2020


...and I'd have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for you crazy kids.
posted by lothar at 9:00 PM on May 15, 2020 [1 favorite]


based on The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis characters.

It's true, the original line was Maynard G. Krebs', "...and I would have, like, bopped it, snap dad, if it wasn't for you squares!"
posted by rhizome at 9:02 PM on May 15, 2020 [3 favorites]


taquito boyfriend & I have been watching Be Cool, Scooby-Doo & I'm enjoying it more than I expected from a Scooby-Doo joint. Fred, Daphne, & Velma are defined as much by their flaws as by their areas of hyper-confidence, & the gag writing is solid (a lesser joke writer might have given Fred a fear of widths as a one-off throwaway without ever calling back to it, for example).
posted by taquito sunrise at 9:08 PM on May 15, 2020 [1 favorite]


captain afab: "I read somewhere that Scooby's name was based on a misheard bit from Frank Sinatra's Strangers In The Night"

Was it from earlier in this thread?
posted by Chrysostom at 10:30 PM on May 15, 2020 [2 favorites]


I'll just drop this here: the Scooby-Doo characters were based on The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis characters.

Hanna Barbera tended to steal other programmes wholesale - The Flintstones being The Honeymooners, Top Cat being Bilko. As someone who grew up in the UK in the 1970s, the originals look to me like the cover versions as I never saw them (the exception being Bilko, which the BBC repeated in the early 80s and knocks the cartoon into a cocked hat).

How, technically, did they do the laugh track? My first thought would be Mellotron, but that's probably insane, isn't it? There's that scene in Annie Hall, but even then I don't know how it works.

From TFA:
The monsters they encounter are just humans in disguise.

That's an important lesson for every child to learn, I think.
posted by Grangousier at 2:14 AM on May 16, 2020 [10 favorites]


All you folks who want to read more about the connection between the horror genre and the effects of capitalism on body, mind, and spirit need look no further than David McNally's Monsters of the Market: Zombies, Vampires, and Global Capitalism.

Contains the best explanation of commodity fetishism I've ever read.
posted by Sheydem-tants at 3:48 AM on May 16, 2020 [2 favorites]


How, technically, did they do the laugh track? My first thought would be Mellotron, but that's probably insane, isn't it?

Laff box.

(So, pretty damn close to a mellotron)
posted by condour75 at 4:03 AM on May 16, 2020


Actually, this article says Hanna Barbera skipped the official laff box and just had a few specific cuts of laughter, which explains why it's even worse than a typical sitcom.
posted by condour75 at 4:05 AM on May 16, 2020 [1 favorite]




Feels like there’s an entire second half of this article that’s missing.
posted by TrialByMedia at 7:08 AM on May 16, 2020 [4 favorites]


I'll just drop this here: the Scooby-Doo characters were based on The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis characters.

I remember reading somewhere (USENET? Something less reliable?) that the original concept was British and the show was structures as a rivalry between the preppies and the beatniks. But then the Americans added a giant talking dog which completely changed the dynamic.
posted by suetanvil at 9:06 AM on May 16, 2020


Also: the original ending of Hamlet.
posted by suetanvil at 9:08 AM on May 16, 2020 [2 favorites]


Actually, this article says Hanna Barbera skipped the official laff box and just had a few specific cuts of laughter, which explains why it's even worse than a typical sitcom.

I wonder if they're in the Hanna-Barbera sound effects library that's floating around (alas, I can't find a link).
posted by acb at 9:39 AM on May 16, 2020


“Scooby-Doo, Where are You!” still supplies a dose of action and adventure. But the characters are never in real peril or face serious jeopardy. There are no superheroes saving the world from aliens and monsters. Instead, a gang of goofy kids and their dog in a groovy van solve mysteries. The monsters they encounter are just humans in disguise.

It came out the year I was born. When I got to cartoon-watching age I hated it precisely because the monsters were just humans in disguise. I am not sure what time slot it occupied, but I associate it with the bitter dregs of Saturday morning: Mom's about to pull the plug on the tv to protect my little egg brain, I don't like any of the alternatives, so it's just feeling a mild sense of resentment that I know where this episode is going, have a child's hope that Fred will reach for the mask and pull back a stump, and now there's mom with the chore list.

I was way more into Star Trek: The Animated Series, the Planet of the Apes adaptation, Ark II, and Land of the Lost. I felt like most of the Hanna-Barbera stuff was just too comedic. I was nostalgic for it by the time the 80s rolled through and the toy adaptations were the norm. I remember Thundarr the Barbarian and Flash Gordon as the swan songs.
posted by mph at 10:41 AM on May 16, 2020


Laff box.

Absolutely, genuinely, thank you. When Scooby Doo was first on I didn't think about it at all, but at some point (maybe 1972 or 1973) began to wonder how the hell it was done. My conjecture at the time was dismissed out of hand by more rational adults, and it's gratifying to discover that I was right all along. It's amazing how often that happened.
posted by Grangousier at 1:33 PM on May 16, 2020


All you folks who want to read more about the connection between the horror genre and the effects of capitalism on body, mind, and spirit need look no further than David McNally's Monsters of the Market: Zombies, Vampires, and Global Capitalism.

Also Men, Women, and Chainsaws!
posted by rhizome at 2:30 PM on May 16, 2020


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