Scooby dooby. . .
Paul Little delves into the history of the famous — and possibly most scatterbrained — television dog
Scooby Doo Live! Musical Mysteries is about to hit school holiday stages. It’s yet another incarnation for the long-lived great dane who first saw the light of day on television in 1969 — which makes him 336 years old in dog years. Here we take a look at the some of the lesser-known aspects of one of the most successful cartoon series of all time. What else have you boys done? Scooby’s creators, Joe Ruby and Ken Spears, are still alive, aged 84 and 79 respectively. They learnt their craft working on numerous Hanna Barbera shows, such as The Flintstones and The Jetsons before turning to their own creations. When they were given a brief to come up with a cartoon show involving a gang of kids they asked casually, “Is it okay if we put a dog in it?” They spent some time deciding whether he should be a little feisty dog or a big, loveable, cowardly great dane, modelled after comedian and actor Bob Hope’s screen persona. The latter character seemed to have more potential so won out. At one stage, worried about comparisons to the cartoon strip great dane Marmaduke, they made Scooby a sheepdog but soon changed him back.
A friend in high places . . . Scientist Carl Sagan was a big supporter of Scooby Doo, citing its supernatural debunking plots as a great way to help youngsters develop sceptical thinking. He once lamented that there was no analogous programme to help adult viewers do the same thing. That said, as David Kleeman, executive director of the American Centre for Children and Media once understated: “Overall, [Scooby-Doo is] just not a show that is going to overstimulate kids' emotions and tensions.”
You don’t have to be crazy to work at Mystery Inc but it helps . . .
In “The Psychology of Cartoons”, published in Wired magazine , Curtis Silver psychoanalysed the leads in Scooby Doo on the basis that only clinic psychological conditions