Scooby Doo, You've failed us all!

Recently I had experience of babysitting the kids of some friends while the wives went to the gym.

We got out some toys and some pencils and paper to do some sketching, and the kids unanimously voted they wanted to watch something.  They saw a Scooby Doo movie, and decided it had to be that.

Now, I've never been the biggest fan of Scooby Doo in my life, but I've always enjoyed watching the villains that appear to be supernatural ghosts or wizards or outer space aliens, and watching Scooby Doo and his team find out the truth behind the villains, which almost always entails pulling off their mask in some dramatic fashion to reveal the Janitor or the dude who ran the water slide (a tilt of the hat to Tim Minchin and his poem 'Storm', for those who care :)

So I decided why not?  And although the cover of the movie made me a little squeamish (fairy princesses do that to guys pretty much across the board), I  was interested to see how they were going to pull of the mask on that one, so to speak.  Was it some sort of miniature Robot?  Was it a hologram?  I admit it, I am a geek.  But I am not ashamed of this.

I'll save you the horrors of recounting the movie by summing up:  I cannot summon enough vitriol from the cartoon bashing portion of my brain to accurately describe how horrible it really was.  Don't believe me?  Look at the cover:

See that Fairy in the top right?  Yes, I said fairy.  A dyed in the wool true-blue fairy.  With magical powers.  See the sparkles?  That's right--Magical powers.  And see the "Goblin King" in the top left?  The weird green guy who'se flying in front of the Moon?  No, it's not some angry salesman with a mask being hoisted by some rope trying to scam some money out of some poor schmuck.  It's none other than the "Goblin King", who just so happens to be the father of the fairy "princess" on the right (yes, I said fairy princess.  I told you I couldn't summon enough vitriol to accurately describe it!).

Along the way, Velma gets turned into a werewolf (a real werewolf), they meet a witch with a talking broom (which flies--see the cover), and some other stuff happens.  About this time, my mind was close to the exploding point just trying to think about how they were going to explain all of this weirdness going on.  That would be a lot of miniature mechanical robots, Velma would have to be in on the trick and must be acting like a Werewolf, the broom must have invisible strings to keep it up in the air . . . .

I couldn't stand it any more, so I skipped to the end (the kids were excited to be playing with a kitchen set, so there wasn't much protest) to see how they were going to explain it.  And Boy, was I disappointed, because:  They didn't.  Or rather, they resorted to the tired and juvenile explanation of "magic" (yes, it is indeed juvenile even for a children's movie.  That's how juvenile it is).

Alright, so some people might cry out, "Jeremy, what's so wrong with children believing in a little magic?  It makes the world so wonderfully . . . magical, don't you see?"  My response can be communicated in these fantastic and beautiful lines by Tim Minchin in his poem, Storm:

 . . . If you're going to watch tele, you should watch Scooby Doo.
That show was so cool
because every time there's a church with a ghoul
Or a ghost in a school
They looked beneath the mask and what was inside?
The . . . janitor or the dude who runs the waterslide!
Throughout history
Every mystery
Ever solved has turned out to be
Not magic.


Does the idea that there might be knowledge
Frighten you?
Does the idea that one afternoon
On Wiki . . . Pedia might enlighten you
Frighten you?
Does the notion that there may not be a supernatural
So blow your hippy noodle
That you would rather just stand in the fog
Of your inability to Google?


Isn't this enough?
Just this world?
Just this beautiful, complex,
wonderfully unfathomable 
natural world?
How does it so fail to hold our attention
That we have to diminish it with the invention
Of cheap man-made myths and monsters?
If you're so into your Shakespeare,
Lend me your ear:
'To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
To throw perfume on the violet, is just . . . silly'
Or something like that


(Storm, by Tim Minchin, somewhat paraphrased to fit better into this particular discussion.  My apologies for altering your beautiful work, Tim)


Scooby Doo, you've failed us all.