Scooby-Doo Review: Frozen Fright

“A Frozen Fright is No Delight”

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.