In
the world of Scooby-Doo, every night is a groovy beach party… except when monsters
intervene. When a caveman frozen in the
block of ice appears at the aforementioned groove fest, however, Fred dazzles
the gang with some heavy alliteration: “I wonder where this frozen fright floated in
from.” Obviously there’s a poetic soul
lurking behind that buff preppy sweater.
When
the pesky kids take their discovery to Ocean Land, the scientists there want to bring
Frosty the Caveman back to life. Of
course. Sensible Velma likes him the way
he is, rejecting the hubris of the patriarchal male scientists. Yet, inevitably, the caveman is released from
the ice – and he’s a pretty big guy. It
would be interesting to consider where this particular creep fits into the
tapestry of human anthropology. He’s
identified as two million years old, so perhaps he’s a Homo habilis. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_habilis) In any case, the creature has a club at the
ready and comes out of the ice in a belligerent mood. Is that meant as a statement on the
inevitable violence of humanity, as writ in our genetics? The caveman has no obvious supernatural
connection – except in so far as alternate variations of humanity are inherently
disconcerting and alien.
The
plot thickens when the gang sees a professor communicating with dolphins
through some kind of improbably effective telepathic radio. Shaggy – as comic terror personified – finds even
this image disturbing. “This scene is getting
creepier by the minute,” he declares.
This develops the theme of the implicit horror of the trans-human – even
when manifest in the cute form of a mustached man talking to a babbling dolphin
with a species-transcending radioscope (or whatever). This anthropological angst is somewhat tamed
by a scene where Scooby and Shaggy dress up as maritime creatures, displacing
their horror of an alien proto-self onto a comic motif. Thus, Shaggy’s peculiar declaration: “What
safer way to sneak up on an old gruesome than disguised a as a couple of fish?” Huh?
The most terrifying moment of the episode is, presumably, unintentional. After the criminal is de-suited, Scooby dances with the caveman costume back at the malt shop. The costume wriggles around like a floppy corpse while the others laugh and make jokes. Oh, the horror.
