September 13, 1969 - Never Forgotten: a Foster's Home Community

Ccook50 · 09-13-2007, 10:08 AM

Today, Sept. 13, marks the 38th anniversary of the premiere of Scooby Doo on television. That's two generations of viewers. He's loved by kids and their baby-boomer parents. To more discriminating cartoon buffs, he's anethema.

What makes Scooby run? We may start by looking at the very origins. Hanna-Barbera staffers Joe Ruby and Ken Spears were tinkering around with a concept which was based on old radio mysteries and the old Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew books. They created a team of four teenagers (two boys, two girls) and a sheepdog named Too Much. There were two working titles for this show, Mysteries Five and Who's Scared?, and soon after, the sheepdog was changed to a Great Dane as one of the staffers at H-B raised Great Danes and CBS's Archie show already had a sheepdog named Hot Dog. The original concept art presented to CBS was dark and foreboding, and the network said they couldn't have that on Saturday morning. But without a show at the cornerstone time of 10:30 AM Eastern, the schedule would crumble. Fred Silverman, head of daytime and children's programming at CBS, was on a flight to New York when he heard Frank Sinatra's "Strangers In The Night" on the in-flight radio. The ending hook "scooby-dooby-doo" caught his attention. Once in New York, he called Joseph Barbera and said "Give the show a comedy slant, make the dog the star and call him Scooby Doo."

The rest, as they say, is cartoon history. Scooby Doo, Where Are You! premiered on September 13, 1969 (first episode was "What A Night For A Knight") on CBS and became an overwhelming success. It was number 2 overall on Saturday mornings among kids ages 2 to 11 (only The Archie Comedy Hour rated higher). Everyone knows the standard by now: criminal activities are masqueraded as thinly veiled mysteries of faux supernatural nature, red herrings all over the place, with the ghosts and monsters the kids believe to be real being unmasked as so much baloney. The kids--each patterned after the main characters from The Many Loves Of Dobie Gillis--had a terrific chemistry. Freddy Jones, the stocky blond with an eye for practicality; Daphne Blake, the danger-proned red-head; Velma Dinkley, the short, pudgy brain, and Norville "Shaggy" Rogers, the pencil-thin chow hound. And then there's Scooby.

This gangly Great Dane seems to have stood the test of time because children have loved him. And they love him because he's funny to them and he's honest about his shortcomings. He's a coward and he's not afraid to admit it. (In the first season, he has set his cowardice aside a number of times for the common good.) Thirty-eight years later the series has resolutely refused to succumb to double entendres, grossouts and toilet humor. The show's unwritten laws remain unviolated, and for that we can be grateful.

Eight new half-hours were made for season two (along with the 17 first season shows), and this time seven of the shows had a musical number, a theme that permeated Saturday morning during this time. In 1972, CBS saw an open window to expand Scooby Doo to an hour. To affect this, the show had guest appearances by characters from pop fiction (Batman, The Addams Family) and from show business (Don Knotts, Phyllis Diller). The New Scooby Doo Movies ran two seasons, and there was a discerned lapse of production values in contrast to the first show as well as a lot of padding. The second season episodes were done in Australia and they looked as bad as they were written.

CBS decided to drop Scooby in 1976. Joe Barbera was having lunch with Michael Eisner (head of ABC daytime and children's programming at the time) that spring and commented sheepishly, "CBS is dropping Scooby...would you be interested?" Eisner's eyes popped open and said "WHEN CAN I HAVE HIM?!" Thus, The Scooby Doo/Dynomutt Hour premiered September 11, 1976 on ABC, beginning a ten-year run straight on the network. Dynomutt was a robot dog who was as addle-brained as he was powerful, and he was melded in to the show in his own segment via guest appearances by the Scooby Doo gang. A year later saw Scooby's All-Star Laff-A-Lympics debut, featuring a segment in which 45 Hanna-Barbera characters compete in a send-up of the "Battle Of The Network Stars" trash sports spectacles of the era. Not the best concept, but better than some would have one believe. And it was a curio to see H-B characters that never intermingled before do so now. In 1979, what has been widely regarded as the worst case of cartoon nepotism was launched: Scooby & Scrappy Doo. Scooby was given a nephew that irked Scooby fans and cartoon fans alike. But he would be a mainstay on the show through the 80s. At Comic-Con, Mark Evanier, who wrote the pilot, would comment how people griped as how Scrappy ruined Scooby Doo, and he'd comment "It's Scooby Doo. How can you ruin Scooby Doo?")

The 80s saw Scooby's shows trying so hard to be funny and failing miserably. Shows featured only Scooby, Shaggy and Scrappy, (The Richie Rich/Scooby Doo Show, Scooby Doo/Puppy's New Adventures Show; the second show animated by the Ruby-Spears studio). They brought Daphne back in 1983's New Scooby & Scrappy Doo Show, and Fred and Velma made guest appearances in 1984's New Scooby Doo Mysteries. As it went on, the stories, stituations and resolutions got more and more incredulously mind-numbing and the animation making the first series (which wasn't that bad-looking) look like gallery art. 1985's The 13 Ghosts Of Scooby Doo was a marked change as it dealt with actual ghosts released from a chest that Scooby, Shaggy, Scrappy, Daphne and a newcomer--a kid named Flim Flam--were charged with retrieving. Vincent Price was the voice of Vincent Van Ghoul (a caricature of Price). The best of the 80s Scooby series, it was canceled by February of 1986.

Scooby's final series on ABC was a case of trying to cash in. The critical success of Ralph Bakshi's Mighty Mouse on CBS led Hanna-Barbera to turn the Scooby gang into pre-teen children and designing, writing and animating them as if Bakshi made it. A Pup Named Scooby Doo (1988-93) was the same old same old, and trying to do it like Bakshi didn't make it any better than if Bakshi himself were to have actually made it. It did garner an Emmy nomination, though. Three made-for-TV animated movies were made in 1988 for syndication.

Through the 1990s, Scooby and Shaggy were part of the special Arabian Nights and since 1998 he and the gang have appeared in made-for-video animated movies that Warner Bros. (current owners of the H-B library) produces. In 1997, the gang appeared in a hysterically funny Johnny Bravo episode, and in 2002 and 2004, two unneeded live-action movies have been made. In 2005, the Scooby series picked up its second Emmy nomination when Mindy Cohn (Natalie from The Facts Of Life) was nominated for voicing Velma on the 2003 series What's New, Scooby Doo.

Over 300 separate episode titles encompassing 38 years. Scooby Doo as a character has transcended being a Saturday morning figure and has become a superstar to TV viewers and an icon to the studio that bore him. In the vast history of TV cartoons, you could count the number of characters who could boast that on one paw.

Cassini90125 · 09-13-2007, 11:08 AM

Still one of my favorites; always has been, always will be. I wouldn't call the live-action movies "unneeded"; that title goes to A Pup Named Scooby-Doo and some of the 1980's nonsense (and any episode without Daphne). Regardless, that was a heck of an essay.

For the record, my favorite Scooby series is What's New, Scooby-Doo.

Medikor · 09-13-2007, 11:29 AM

I always watched Scooby Doo but it's never been one of my favorites. I do, however, respect the series history and longevity. Nowadays it's a miracle if a cartoon lasts more than six seasons.

Cassini90125 · 09-13-2007, 01:00 PM

Even more so if it's a good show; there aren't many anymore.

emperor26 · 09-13-2007, 01:10 PM

Still one of the few good shows that Hanna-Barbera has ever produced. It's a shame that the franchise gets un-needed tampering.

BTW, I prefer to watch the original Scooby-Doo.

AerostarMonk · 09-13-2007, 01:10 PM

There's Funky Pete's House of Meats. You know the show about the the jive-talking butcher and his time traveling, dimension surfing shop.

That one may just be in my mind, but let me tell you it's an awesome show.

No, but I love Scooby-Doo. A true generation hopper that one is. I wonder what the show will look like in 2020?

Ccook50 · 09-13-2007, 01:23 PM

This is what CBS's Saturday line-up looked like (with new shows in bold):

8 AM - The Jetsons
8:30 - The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour
9:30 - Dastardly & Muttley In Their Flying Machines
10 AM - The Perils Of Penelope Pitstop
10:30 - Scooby Doo, Where Are You!
11 AM - The Archie Comedy Hour
12 Noon - The Monkees (repeats of prime time series)
12:30 - Wacky Races
1 PM - The New Adventures Of Superman
1:30 - Jonny Quest
SUNDAYS
9 AM - Tom & Jerry
9:30 - Batman

It should be noted that the Batman and Superman shows were by Filmation.

Cassini90125 · 09-13-2007, 01:38 PM

Dastardly & Muttley was a good one. If it ever comes out on DVD, I'm buying it, no question.

GrimTheLost · 09-13-2007, 01:56 PM

That was a real good essay. I loved just about every incarnation of Scooby. Except that new one they have going on with the transforming Mystery Machine.

Cassini90125 · 09-13-2007, 01:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GrimTheLost

That was a real good essay. I loved just about every incarnation of Scooby. Except that new one they have going on with the transforming Mystery Machine.

Huh?? I think I missed something, here. When did this happen?

09-13-2007, 10:08 AM	#1
Ccook50 Foster's Legend Don't forget to turn left at Greenland Join Date: May 2007 Location: Cumming GA Posts: 510	September 13, 1969 Today, Sept. 13, marks the 38th anniversary of the premiere of Scooby Doo on television. That's two generations of viewers. He's loved by kids and their baby-boomer parents. To more discriminating cartoon buffs, he's anethema. What makes Scooby run? We may start by looking at the very origins. Hanna-Barbera staffers Joe Ruby and Ken Spears were tinkering around with a concept which was based on old radio mysteries and the old Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew books. They created a team of four teenagers (two boys, two girls) and a sheepdog named Too Much. There were two working titles for this show, Mysteries Five and Who's Scared?, and soon after, the sheepdog was changed to a Great Dane as one of the staffers at H-B raised Great Danes and CBS's Archie show already had a sheepdog named Hot Dog. The original concept art presented to CBS was dark and foreboding, and the network said they couldn't have that on Saturday morning. But without a show at the cornerstone time of 10:30 AM Eastern, the schedule would crumble. Fred Silverman, head of daytime and children's programming at CBS, was on a flight to New York when he heard Frank Sinatra's "Strangers In The Night" on the in-flight radio. The ending hook "scooby-dooby-doo" caught his attention. Once in New York, he called Joseph Barbera and said "Give the show a comedy slant, make the dog the star and call him Scooby Doo." The rest, as they say, is cartoon history. Scooby Doo, Where Are You! premiered on September 13, 1969 (first episode was "What A Night For A Knight") on CBS and became an overwhelming success. It was number 2 overall on Saturday mornings among kids ages 2 to 11 (only The Archie Comedy Hour rated higher). Everyone knows the standard by now: criminal activities are masqueraded as thinly veiled mysteries of faux supernatural nature, red herrings all over the place, with the ghosts and monsters the kids believe to be real being unmasked as so much baloney. The kids--each patterned after the main characters from The Many Loves Of Dobie Gillis--had a terrific chemistry. Freddy Jones, the stocky blond with an eye for practicality; Daphne Blake, the danger-proned red-head; Velma Dinkley, the short, pudgy brain, and Norville "Shaggy" Rogers, the pencil-thin chow hound. And then there's Scooby. This gangly Great Dane seems to have stood the test of time because children have loved him. And they love him because he's funny to them and he's honest about his shortcomings. He's a coward and he's not afraid to admit it. (In the first season, he has set his cowardice aside a number of times for the common good.) Thirty-eight years later the series has resolutely refused to succumb to double entendres, grossouts and toilet humor. The show's unwritten laws remain unviolated, and for that we can be grateful. Eight new half-hours were made for season two (along with the 17 first season shows), and this time seven of the shows had a musical number, a theme that permeated Saturday morning during this time. In 1972, CBS saw an open window to expand Scooby Doo to an hour. To affect this, the show had guest appearances by characters from pop fiction (Batman, The Addams Family) and from show business (Don Knotts, Phyllis Diller). The New Scooby Doo Movies ran two seasons, and there was a discerned lapse of production values in contrast to the first show as well as a lot of padding. The second season episodes were done in Australia and they looked as bad as they were written. CBS decided to drop Scooby in 1976. Joe Barbera was having lunch with Michael Eisner (head of ABC daytime and children's programming at the time) that spring and commented sheepishly, "CBS is dropping Scooby...would you be interested?" Eisner's eyes popped open and said "WHEN CAN I HAVE HIM?!" Thus, The Scooby Doo/Dynomutt Hour premiered September 11, 1976 on ABC, beginning a ten-year run straight on the network. Dynomutt was a robot dog who was as addle-brained as he was powerful, and he was melded in to the show in his own segment via guest appearances by the Scooby Doo gang. A year later saw Scooby's All-Star Laff-A-Lympics debut, featuring a segment in which 45 Hanna-Barbera characters compete in a send-up of the "Battle Of The Network Stars" trash sports spectacles of the era. Not the best concept, but better than some would have one believe. And it was a curio to see H-B characters that never intermingled before do so now. In 1979, what has been widely regarded as the worst case of cartoon nepotism was launched: Scooby & Scrappy Doo. Scooby was given a nephew that irked Scooby fans and cartoon fans alike. But he would be a mainstay on the show through the 80s. At Comic-Con, Mark Evanier, who wrote the pilot, would comment how people griped as how Scrappy ruined Scooby Doo, and he'd comment "It's Scooby Doo. How can you ruin Scooby Doo?") The 80s saw Scooby's shows trying so hard to be funny and failing miserably. Shows featured only Scooby, Shaggy and Scrappy, (The Richie Rich/Scooby Doo Show, Scooby Doo/Puppy's New Adventures Show; the second show animated by the Ruby-Spears studio). They brought Daphne back in 1983's New Scooby & Scrappy Doo Show, and Fred and Velma made guest appearances in 1984's New Scooby Doo Mysteries. As it went on, the stories, stituations and resolutions got more and more incredulously mind-numbing and the animation making the first series (which wasn't that bad-looking) look like gallery art. 1985's The 13 Ghosts Of Scooby Doo was a marked change as it dealt with actual ghosts released from a chest that Scooby, Shaggy, Scrappy, Daphne and a newcomer--a kid named Flim Flam--were charged with retrieving. Vincent Price was the voice of Vincent Van Ghoul (a caricature of Price). The best of the 80s Scooby series, it was canceled by February of 1986. Scooby's final series on ABC was a case of trying to cash in. The critical success of Ralph Bakshi's Mighty Mouse on CBS led Hanna-Barbera to turn the Scooby gang into pre-teen children and designing, writing and animating them as if Bakshi made it. A Pup Named Scooby Doo (1988-93) was the same old same old, and trying to do it like Bakshi didn't make it any better than if Bakshi himself were to have actually made it. It did garner an Emmy nomination, though. Three made-for-TV animated movies were made in 1988 for syndication. Through the 1990s, Scooby and Shaggy were part of the special Arabian Nights and since 1998 he and the gang have appeared in made-for-video animated movies that Warner Bros. (current owners of the H-B library) produces. In 1997, the gang appeared in a hysterically funny Johnny Bravo episode, and in 2002 and 2004, two unneeded live-action movies have been made. In 2005, the Scooby series picked up its second Emmy nomination when Mindy Cohn (Natalie from The Facts Of Life) was nominated for voicing Velma on the 2003 series What's New, Scooby Doo. Over 300 separate episode titles encompassing 38 years. Scooby Doo as a character has transcended being a Saturday morning figure and has become a superstar to TV viewers and an icon to the studio that bore him. In the vast history of TV cartoons, you could count the number of characters who could boast that on one paw. __________________ "God forgot to make stupidity painful." --Ivan Stang (Church of the SubGenius)

09-13-2007, 11:08 AM	#2
Cassini90125 The Postmaster Love gives you courage that's stronger than anything! Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Saturn Posts: 6,650	Still one of my favorites; always has been, always will be. I wouldn't call the live-action movies "unneeded"; that title goes to A Pup Named Scooby-Doo and some of the 1980's nonsense (and any episode without Daphne). Regardless, that was a heck of an essay. For the record, my favorite Scooby series is What's New, Scooby-Doo. __________________ "Frankie! That weird kid is using a flower pot for a cup!" Sailor Moon. Best Anime EVER.

09-13-2007, 11:29 AM	#3
Medikor Robot Master I'm a bubble man! Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Nova Scotia, Canada Posts: 1,428	I always watched Scooby Doo but it's never been one of my favorites. I do, however, respect the series history and longevity. Nowadays it's a miracle if a cartoon lasts more than six seasons. __________________

09-13-2007, 01:00 PM	#4
Cassini90125 The Postmaster Love gives you courage that's stronger than anything! Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Saturn Posts: 6,650	Even more so if it's a good show; there aren't many anymore. __________________ "Frankie! That weird kid is using a flower pot for a cup!" Sailor Moon. Best Anime EVER.

09-13-2007, 01:10 PM	#5
emperor26 Foster's Legend Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: California Posts: 725	Still one of the few good shows that Hanna-Barbera has ever produced. It's a shame that the franchise gets un-needed tampering. BTW, I prefer to watch the original Scooby-Doo. __________________ See ya!

09-13-2007, 01:10 PM	#6
AerostarMonk Holy Toledo! Just try to relax and I'll try not to steal from you. Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Toledo, Ohio. Posts: 462	There's Funky Pete's House of Meats. You know the show about the the jive-talking butcher and his time traveling, dimension surfing shop. That one may just be in my mind, but let me tell you it's an awesome show. No, but I love Scooby-Doo. A true generation hopper that one is. I wonder what the show will look like in 2020? __________________ From the thinnest thread We are sewn together From the finest string we dangle over time From the highest wire We walk through fire Should our balance ever falter Should our steps be unaligned

09-13-2007, 01:23 PM	#7
Ccook50 Foster's Legend Don't forget to turn left at Greenland Join Date: May 2007 Location: Cumming GA Posts: 510	This is what CBS's Saturday line-up looked like (with new shows in bold): 8 AM - The Jetsons 8:30 - The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour 9:30 - *Dastardly & Muttley In Their Flying Machines* 10 AM - *The Perils Of Penelope Pitstop* 10:30 - *Scooby Doo, Where Are You!* 11 AM - *The Archie Comedy Hour* 12 Noon - *The Monkees* (repeats of prime time series) 12:30 - Wacky Races 1 PM - The New Adventures Of Superman 1:30 - Jonny Quest SUNDAYS 9 AM - Tom & Jerry 9:30 - Batman It should be noted that the Batman and Superman shows were by Filmation. __________________ "God forgot to make stupidity painful." --Ivan Stang (Church of the SubGenius) Last edited by Ccook50; 09-13-2007 at 01:23 PM.

09-13-2007, 01:38 PM	#8
Cassini90125 The Postmaster Love gives you courage that's stronger than anything! Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Saturn Posts: 6,650	Dastardly & Muttley was a good one. If it ever comes out on DVD, I'm buying it, no question. __________________ "Frankie! That weird kid is using a flower pot for a cup!" Sailor Moon. Best Anime EVER.

09-13-2007, 01:56 PM	#9
GrimTheLost Insomniac Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: In the middle of Rabbittown, Ga Posts: 514	That was a real good essay. I loved just about every incarnation of Scooby. Except that new one they have going on with the transforming Mystery Machine. __________________ <a href="http://www.us.playstation.com/PSN/Users/grimthelost"><img src="http://pid.us.playstation.com//user/grimthelost.jpg" width="235" height="149" border="0" /></a>