Scooby-Doo Review: “Mine Your Own Business”
The magic of Scooby-Doo
involves the mixture of horror and playfulness – like, of course, the holiday
of Halloween. When the gang arrives at
an abandoned saloon, Scooby and Shaggy immediately indulge their impulse to
fantasize and role-play amid the ruinous tavern. This pair cannot resist the impulse to clown
around. Scooby can’t even walk past a mirror
without grinning at himself and messing about! Mystery
solving and criminal investigation are combined in a tenuous alliance with
mischief and mayhem. This pattern is
highlighted by Shaggy’s frequent failure to correctly identify vital
objects. He reads a map upside down,
lights some “candles” only to discover that they are actually dynamite, and
mistakes crude oil for chocolate syrup. Scooby
even tries to scare Shaggy at one point, suggesting that for all their campy
cowardice, the pair is intrigued by the delights of danger. Of course, their relentless playfulness can also be
productive, at least when harnessed by the more thoughtful and focused members
of the team – at Freddy’s suggestion, Scooby and Shaggy mimic an approaching
train to chase down the villain.
There’s a kind of chant-like poetry about certain moments in
the show. Consider the rhythmic, almost
ritualistic repetition of this exchange:
Hank: “It’s the miner.”
Shaggy and Freddy: “The miner?”
Scooby: “The who?”
Hank: “The miner ‘49er.”
Velma and Daphne: “‘49er?”
Every episode of the show, it seems, includes the quest of
Scooby and Shaggy to eat without limitation – food is their hobby, their
refuge, their playground. Yet it is
inextricably woven into the menace of the situation. “You ask for a sarsaparilla and all you get
is a glass of spider-webs,” observes Shaggy at the saloon. Scooby steals cheese from a mousetrap, to the
vehement annoyance of the rodent. Scooby
may be the only animal that really talks in the show, but he is not alone in
articulating purposes and emotions – these animal intentions provide both comic
relief and a glimpse into world of hidden intelligences, a gentle organic
counterpart to the presence of ghostly agendas and supernatural enigmas. Of course, food (in the form of Scooby
Snacks) works its own magic, transforming Scooby from a coward miming a chicken
to a hero saluting like a dutiful soldier.
In this world, clues erupt from an anarchic Providence –
Scooby runs away, gets caught on a cigar store Indian, and knocks it over to discover
an essential map. Likewise, opening a
door will reveal the villain standing there with inconceivable patience,
apparently just waiting for someone to arrive at that particular spot. In a mine car chase, characters inexplicably
switch vehicles, creating a sense of quantum menace – of discontinuous reality
held together only by dramatic or comedic effect. A mirror will suddenly and impossibly become
a window through which the villain can emerge.
Somehow this brilliant show makes the supernatural mundane (and
therefore conquerable by a child’s imagination) without destroying the
excitement of the unknown. At the same
time, it makes the mundane more supernatural, thus stimulating the imagination
in exciting and unexpected ways.
Images: Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!
Scooby-Doo is © Hanna-Barbera and Warner Bros.
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