Scooby Doo: Mystery Inc

Huh... would you look at that. Almost like they planned it.

Just like how the last episode of Young Justice and the Second Season DVD/soundtrack came out on March and July 16th, respectively, to add to the "16" theme.

I have to say, i don't really understand why the franchise has decided to make Fred Jones a clueless idiot. "A Pup Named Scooby Doo" did it, some of the early movies did it, the live action movies did it, "What's New Scooby Doo" did it, the most recent movies did it and Mystery Incorporated certainly did it. And the fact of the matter is, it's gotten kind of distracting for me: for example; WNSD and SD:MI all had very interesting premises, yet some of Fred's antics are hard to just overlook. Also, some of the most recent movies, like "Camp Scare", "Big Top Scooby Doo (or whatever it's called)" and "Wrestlemania" have ideas and concepts that I should really be into (more or less), but the way Fred is handled is kind of distracting.

All i'm saying is, in the original Scooby Doo shows, Fred, Daphne and Velma were portrayed as the only competent members of the crew while Shaggy and Scooby were the goofballs. Why change Fred?

Because Fred has nothing else that makes him interesting. He's the generic leader guy.

I resent the implication, incidentally, that Fred is depicted here as a "clueless idiot". In fact, there's really no difference between this Fred and the original beyond the way the narrative treats him. The traps are the obvious thing, sure, but there's something more interesting at play here.

Pretty much everyone on Where Are You? was emotionally stunted by sheer dint of it being a kids' show in the 60s. Emotional arcs were not its foray. Mystery Inc. is, by and large, about exorcising the show's demons, the things that had held it back and kept it from functioning in a satisfactory manner as time wore on. And so this emotional stuntedness gets shifted to Fred for two reasons. The first, as mentioned, is that everyone else is more interesting: the show's not going to solve the problem of emotion by giving all its protagonists the same baggage, and there are clear arcs to be drawn from the existing characters singular character traits. But the second is that Fred is simply a natural choice for the embodiment of the show's emotional issues because his lack of personality can then manifest as a sign of what's being held back. Fred's repression, on some level, is already a thing that exists because he expresses less than any other character. And so, by making him only express what the original Fred might've while suddenly surrounded by more fleshed-out characters, it enhances the effect. A man obsessed only by mystery and devoted to his friends in a world where his friends share that sympathy is normal. Such a man surrounded by people with rich emotional lives and desires is a freak.

In that respect, Fred embodies the show: his devotion to the rigid confines of the narrative mirrors the show's prior devotions to such, the very thing that made it seem out of place in the modern cartoon landscape. The franchise grows and matures through him. He embraces his emotions as the show embraces the lack of stoicism in the loud, vibrant present. He embraces his lack of parentage now that Hanna-Barbera is dead and its creative bankruptcy with it. And he embraces himself: it was the way the show put things together that was unhealthy, not any of its moving parts.

Fred Jones is not a "clueless idiot". He's the only clue the show has, the puzzle box it can unravel and use to unlock everything around him. He is the show wising up.

That was beautiful

Fred is the most potentially interesting character because he should be, for all intents and purposes, the one with the least reasons to be traveling around in a van solving mysteries. For all intents and purposes, he should have been the local Alpha Male, white, well placed financially, smart, handsome. Velma is a geek, Shaggy is a social outcast of sorts, and even Daphne is more of a follower than anything (which is why her leader stage in the seventies didn't feel like it worked well), but Fred is the guy where you can come up with a good, deep insight into why would he be doing that. MI did well enough in that regard, so there's that.

That's why Freddie Prinze Jr's take didn't work, because Fred isn't the kind of arrogant shallow spotlight hog seen in those movies. If he craved for social recognition and fame, he wouldn't have to drive around exposing hoaxes; he already had what he needed to stand out socially and have girls hanging from his arms. Fred is about the chase itself, the investigation as its own goal.

As we all know by now, Casey Kasem left us yesterday. As near as I can tell, his appearance as Shaggy's Dad in the S1 Finale of SDMI may have been his final work ever. I wonder now how ill he was when he recorded that, but I am glad his final (or at least one of his final) work involved Scooby-Doo. Shaggy, you reached the stars, and the countdown always continues in our hearts.

Casey Casem is dead?

Wow. Then it's just Frank Welker for the original group huh?

That's scary. It won't be long before we lose everyone involved with the series since the beginning.

So long to both Shaggy and Cliffjumper.

The Original Velma and Daphne are still alive.

So out of curiosity, which of the direct to dvd(or vhs in old days I suppose) movies are worth seeing in you guys' opinion? I remember the one with zombies being pretty cool when I saw it on tv and the witch one not being that bad either. I remember two three next movies being pretty uninteresting though. I guess they are really the same movie with different monster each time, but still, do you guys think any of them are worth seeing?

Zombie Island revived the whole franchise, and it was doing the darker storyline arguably before Mystery Inc made it cool.

Plus, it gave us a chance to see them as adults (though Shaggy, Velma and Scooby looked the same).

I'd give that one a look.

The recent films, starting from Abracadabra Doo are pretty good. The best is probably Phantosaur, but Stage Fright is pretty good too.

I've recently got Scooby-Doo and the Witch's Curse, but that's mostly because that's the debut film of the Hex Girls.

Camps Scare is a lot of fun, imho. Cyber Chase is silly silly silly but it was part of my childhood so I love it. Alien Invasion has some pretty good animation and is also silly fun.

Zombie Island, Camp Scare, Stage Fright, Abracadabra, Cyber Chase and Witch's Ghost are all good, especially the first two. Aloha and Monster of Mexico are quite bad IMHO, Alien Invaders is mediocre, and I haven't watched Mask of Blue Falcon, Samurai Sword and the WWE move yet.

edited 17th Jun '14 7:03:30 PM by NapoleonDeCheese

Samurai Sword is very eeeeeeh, don't bother.

Cyber Chase had a great soundtrack.

I assume that "Cyber Chase" is one of the DTV movies, not the PBS show that might not be very estranged in animation style from Scooby-Doo.

I've been impressed with what Mystery Inc was doing as soon as I found out it was doing it, but I only just got around to starting it the other night (tipped by the death of Casey Kasem).

This really is everything I never thought anything but a parody would do. They're just as jaded from the supernatural always being fake as you'd expect them to be, but never saw before. People who aren't complicit in the mysteries are telling them to drop it because it's not safe for a bunch of teens to be doing this stuff. They explain why everyone is so keen to believe in the supernatural, and it's all about tourism.

There was a Cracked article a few years ago that asserted that spoof has decayed as a genre because good spoofs are just self-aware versions of the source material with a smattering of references, and now source material itself is getting self-aware and self-referential. It cited the 2009 Star Trek movie, but this is a great example too.

edited 18th Jun '14 6:46:15 PM by tparadox

Cyber Chase feels like one of the few times this series has ever cared about the audience actually being able to figure out the mystery, and instead went waaaaay off to the opposite end and dropped hints like anvils.

Yes. We got it. The virus likes baseball.

That said, I still adore that movie. The characters were neat, the premise had lots of Fridge Logic but was still neat, and virus was cheesy but neat and the jokes were pretty good. Plus, there's a sequence dedicated entirely to Mythology Gags and Continuity Nods.

Mystery Inc is awesome, but at the same time I hope it's not a kind of vibe the franchise sticks with. That sort of extreme deconstruction is something they really ought to do only once in a while.

If anything, I hope future series emulate what they're doing with the recent movies instead: self-referential and tongue in cheek, but still playing the formula straight and doing interesting things with the characters all the while.

edited 18th Jun '14 8:35:47 PM by KnownUnknown

Is that not what Mystery Inc was doing?

I mean, I usually hate it when Scooby-Doo is self-referential and tongue-in-cheek, but it works here because it actually fixes the problems it references. It builds up more than it breaks down, honestly.

edited 18th Jun '14 8:41:10 PM by Wackd

No. Mystery Inc, especially as it went on, was an out-and-out Deconstruction, and very aware of the fact that is was - ultimately with Darker and Edgier additions. In earlier seasons it was more of a absurd self-parody, kind of like what A Pup Named Scooby Doo was (though taking itself slightly more seriously than that).

The difference is in how it presents itself. Mystery Inc barely plays anything entirely straight and generally introduces elements in order to toy with them - either for humor (earlier on) or more seriously (increasingly so as the series progresses) - later, and is novel because it turns Scooby Doo into something very different. Mystery Inc does interesting things with the characters, but not in the same way: there's a lot of Character Exaggeration there, mixed with a lot of playing around with Reality Ensues. Etc.

It's kind of like Zombie Island: that movie took Scooby way out of its comfort zone by having the gang fight murderous life-stealing cat monsters and face their grisly victims, and works specifically because it's so different yet reminiscent and still done well. The entire point, arguably, was to take something we knew and suddenly have it face something very different than it's used to - and one of the reasons the earlier movies (which kept up the "the monsters are real bit" were so successful is because they ran along side endless reruns of what it was toying with.

That's not, however, something that happened often (or at least, not a standard) because doing it all the time would defeat the purpose of doing it in the first place.

edited 18th Jun '14 8:57:53 PM by KnownUnknown

Yeah, but what you're suggesting is basically that the franchise continue to have shallow characterization and unfunny jokes so that when the show does actually fix that it comes off as contrast rather than, y'know, what a good cartoon looks like. That the franchise takes shots at itself for this doesn't actually make it enjoyable.

Mystery Inc. works because it screws with things that need to be screwed with. If I see one more installment joke about how dumb "jinkies" is or update the character's outfits without, y'know, actually having better writing, I'm gonna lose it.

There is, in my view, nothing about bog-standard Scooby-Doo worth preserving.

The idea that playing things straight automatically equals flat characterization is very flawed, especially the implication that Mystery Inc is the first time the series has ever not been flat or unfunny, and one of the reasons I used the recent movies as an example is because they're an example of the formula being played straight without the characters being shallow. Heck, even the earlier movies are like that - Zombie Island is very different, but still plays the characters fairly straight and can even be seen as a partial Reconstruction given the time period it was made in.

Likewise the idea that playing things straight means never changing anything which, given how often things are adapted or rebooted that still keep the spirit of what it's using, while still doing new things and going in new directions, doesn't really hold water.

And lastly, if there's nothing about Scooby Doo worth saving, there's no point in actually continuing to do Scooby Doo. If continuing to do Scooby Doo means actually doing something very different yet continuing to try and call it Scooby Doo, than it makes much more sense just to do something different.

As I said, doing deconstructions like Mystery Inc all the time defeats the purpose of deconstruction in the first place - and things like that work because the things they're deconstructing exist in the first place. I say what this series needs is a good Reconstruction to kind of bookend/compliment Mystery Inc.

edited 18th Jun '14 9:49:18 PM by KnownUnknown

And my argument is that Mystery Inc. was one.

I said there's nothing about bog-standard Scooby-Doo worth preserving.

I get the impression we're basically agreeing with each other. We both want better characterization and for the series to move on from breaking itself down and get to the business of being good, we just feel differently about how that should be accomplished.

I'll admit I've not seen many of the movies but generally speaking I'm not fond of the "the monsters are real" business which is why I tend to avoid them.

Scooby Doo Mystery Inc wasn't a Reconstruction - the entire point was to tear down the conventions of the show, but it doesn't really want to build them back up. Just do something very different. Everything reboots at the end, but it's not the same thing.

If you're oversimplifying Scooby Doo to it's most standard form, then of course you're going to get shallowness - but boiling down a formula to it's most bare bones form isn't what "playing things straight" is, or at least that's not what it should be. Compare your average superhero adaptation, especially the good ones: Batman The Animated Series (or the DCAU in general, really), The Spectacular Spider Man, even Batman The Brave And The Bold (which was definitely a reconstruction) - these are very simple formulas and character dynamics, yet these not only kept to them but were able to do go in their own direction as well.

edited 18th Jun '14 9:50:36 PM by KnownUnknown