Scooby and the gang offer lessons for life
I sat in a bean bag chair on my family's living room floor eating a bowl of Cocoa Puffs _ I was coocoo for them. It was 9 a.m., so I was still in my pajamas, one sock lost somewhere in my bed, and my uncombed mop-top leaning like an old barn.
The chair surrounded me like the Blob, a space monster I was actually going to watch that afternoon on Sci-Fi Theater. This was the best time of the week _ Saturday morning. And the bean bag chair, plopped right in front of our Magnavox, was prime Scooby-Doo watching position.
Scooby-Doo was my favorite cartoon. I loved it more than Bugs Bunny, The Flintstones and The Superfriends combined. Every week this group of teenagers would solve mysteries while fighting zombies, vampires, witches and a really cool glowing space monster in a diving helmet. For a 7-year-old kid, TV couldn't get any better.*
Scooby-Doo's been around all my life. The show debuted when I was 4, which means if Freddy, Daphne, Shaggy and Velma were aged appropriately, they'd be near retirement. Scooby, sadly, would be dead.
Let's have a moment of silence.
But, during its run _ skipping over the sad attempt to rejuvenate a cartoon by injecting an annoying nephew, otherwise know as "Scrappy Doo" _ Scooby and the gang made my Saturday mornings a learning experience.
I didn't realize this then, which is good. What kind of kid wants to learn on the weekend? But knowing there was a crime involving an ancient Egyptian mummy, a Neanderthal frozen in a block of ice, or the ghost of a gold miner from 1849 made me break out our circa-1972 World Book Encyclopedia and read a little history.
So, here are a few of the things I learned watching Scooby-Doo:
- Everyone has something to offer. If you're not the muscle, the brains or the money of the group, you're still important . . . you're the bait.
- The villain is always the last person you'd suspect.
- Every haunted house has the ingredients to make a really big sandwich.
- Nearsighted people are funny.
- A hippy, a jock, a debutant, a nerd and a gigantic talking dog can live and work together in harmony.
- Don't anger the Tiki god.
- If you wind a dog's tail really tight, it can be used as a propeller.
- Scooby Snacks probably contain amphetamines.
- Renting a boat near a haunted island is never a good idea.
- Elaborate plans always fail _ random acts of panic don't.
- Werewolves wear pants.
- Kids are pesky.
- There's no such thing as monsters.
*I do not want to hear from you Josie and the Pussycats people. I'm aware of their work. That's as far as I'll go.
