What Ho Wee Readers, as some of you may have already known by now I’m a wee bit autistic. Why is this relevant to the topic up above our heads? Well, I have the tendency to develop intense hyper fixations. Usually they follow a cycle pattern, with Greek Mythology being one of my most well trodden hyper fixations – I’m even currently writing a novel that’s a retelling of a Greek Myth, that’s how much it fixates me – but sometimes, occasionally my fixations will be kind of random. And my most recent one has been the franchise dedicated to the talking Greta Dane, known as Scooby Doo.

But I hear you say, that’s all well and good, Wee Lassie, but that doesn’t exactly explain the title of the post. And to that I say, no it doesn’t really. So instead I will ask you to think carefully and tell me, what do you think is the main message of this franchise? Let’s think, a mystery solving franchise where more often than not every ghost, or goblin is revealed to be some creep in a mask? Well, that’s obvious isn’t it? The theme of Scooby Doo is the theme of the sceptic. It’s telling you, or rather the intended audience of children, not to take every story you hear at face value. Ghosts don’t exist, so think carefully and dig deeper, and you’ll probably find a rational explanation to most perceived supernatural occurrences. As Velma has taken to saying lately : “There’s a Rational Explanation to Everything.”

Great answer, well thought out and argued, one problem though … Ghosts are real in the Scooby Doo world. Ghosts, Vampires, Werewolves, fairies, goblins, monsters of all shapes and sizes actually do exist in the Scooby Doo Franchise. Starting from about the eighties I think, with the introduction of the Tv show “The thirteen Ghosts of Scooby Doo” – the supernatural was in fact very, very real in the world of the talking Great Dane.

So what does this mean? Is this a sign of the franchise’s slow degradation? That it strayed so far from its original purpose just to keep the interest of an ever easier distracted audience? Maybe, it certainly wouldn’t have been the first franchise, or the last, to degrade in quality over a long period of time. But that argument relays heavily on the idea that the Scooby Doo franchise has declined in quality at all. Some might say it has, but since there have been so many interpretations of the classic cartoon talking Great Dane, that is certainly not a conclusive declaration. Thus if the appearance of real supernatural entities is not a writing blunder, or at least cannot be proven as such, what does that mean for our greater meaning? Think carefully when confronted with supposed supernatural occurrences because there’s a rational explanation for everything … except when there’s not? Well not to put it too bluntly and give the game away but … yes. That’s exactly what it’s saying.

Stop for a moment, and walk with me to this ledge, I’ve not gone insane. I’ve actually thought out this argument a great deal. Okay, I’d like to start by asking you a question. Yes, another one, I know they’re getting rather tedious but come on, just one more then I’ll be done I promise. Taking a step back to our Sceptic take on the franchise, what character would you say most encapsulates this view of the world? If you said any character but Velma Dinkley, than you are wrong and will be going home with no prizes today, Tom. I mean you wouldn’t be even if you did since I don’t know where you live, but that’s the joke. Yes, Velma Dinkley, resident brain behind Mystery Inc. and half the time the one actually solving the mysteries the Gang comes up against. Okay, that’s a bit mean to the others but still … she’s the one seen doing the research, and she’s certainly the character who, shared with Fred, is often the one describing how they worked out the mystery. And most importantly of all, she’s almost always the one actually saying ‘there’s no such thing as ghosts’. She’s the actual skeptic in the group, again while some interruptions make her share this trait with Fred and or Daphne, you’d be hard pressed to find a version of Velma who at the very least didn’t start out a skeptic. And it’s notable that in the more heavily unquestionably paranormal interpretations of the franchise – the eighties films, like the Ghoul School and the Reluctant Werewolf; along with Tv shows like ‘The 13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo” – Velma isn’t present. And when she is either the supernatural is either non existent – think of “Scooby Doo, Where are you?” , “Whats New Scooby Doo?”, “Be Cool, Scooby Doo” -; is something she never sees or remembers – think the modern direct to video movies -, or it’s a revelation that has to be worked up to – think the nineties films like “Scooby Doo and Zombie Island” or the “The Witch’s Ghost” or later Tv shows like “Mystery Incorporated”. Never once in a Velma present Scooby Doo show is it just taken for granted that the supernatural exists. Thus one could make the very real argument, at least as far as the narratives of this decades long franchise is concerned, that Velma Dinkley is the living embodiment of the Sceptic is this world.

And yet it’s notable, that Velma Dinkley is not the most prevalent character in the franchise , she’s not even the second most important character in the franchise . So who is? Well, dear reader that should be obvious by now. The most prevalent characters are Scooby Doo and Shaggy Rogers. Over the various spin offs and re imaginations it is almost always these two characters that remain a consistent presence in the franchise.We can swap out Fred, Daphne and Velma for Scrappy Doo all we like so long as the titular Great Dane and his beat-nick owner remain at the helm. The only show I can think of that deviated from this was Velma – in which it is the titular brainiac who’s the main character, Scooby Doo is no where in sight, and Shaggy – or “Norville” as he’s now called – has been rewritten to be so deeply and pathetically in love with Velma that he will quite literally shape himself into whatever she wants him to be. A simp, with a captain ‘s’. Don’t get me wrong he’s an interesting character, but he’s also … you know … not Shaggy. Not at least the Shaggy that is prevalent in the rest of the franchise. And that who is that, I hear you ask? If Velma is the embodiment of the sceptic, than Shaggy Rogers is her opposite … he is the Believer.

In every single one of the mysteries the gang conducts he – along with Scooby – is the one that always believes the ghost is real. Yes he’s a self proclaimed coward, but that cowardice, that all encompassing fear isn’t fueled by nothing. Scooby and Shaggy take it as a given that the supernatural exists because to them it very much does. They alone – at least in the more modern films – are allowed to remember their supernatural experiences, because they alone have minds open enough not to go mad from the revelation. This was not the case in the nineties films, where the creative team instead chose to shake up the usual formula by allowing the supernatural to be real for the entire gang. Or for the show “Mystery Incorporated” which would follow in the steps of the nineties films by encompassing supernatural elements into its lore, that the whole gang was allowed to both discover and retain the memory of. But this is certainly not a usual trait for most of the shows and films in the franchise.

So what should we take away from this? Is the hidden theme of the Scooby Doo franchise in fact, that we should instead believe everything? That to sew even the barest amount of doubt into the possibility of a single supernatural occurrence will shut ourselves off from the true wonder hiding within our universe? If you can’t tell from my slightly incredulous phrasing, I believe the answer to be … no. It’s not saying that at all. For while it is true that Shaggy and Scooby Doo, are consistently the only ones allowed to retain knowledge of the deeper truths of their world, it’s worth noting that they are nervous wrecks. In fact in recent films, this is gotten so bad that it has started to actually affect the state of Shaggy’s health. And it should be noted that in the majority of cases they aren’t correct in their unwavering belief in the supernatural. The ghosts, or ghouls, do often turn out to be nothing more than a creep in a mask.

I believe what we should take from these two cases, these extreme opposing philosophies, instead is the danger of assumption. Yeah, Velma is usually right when she states that “there’s a rational explanation for everything” – but because she’s usually right, she assumes she’s always right. And so when something steps beyond her limited definition of ‘rational’, she either misses it completely or has to go through a great deal of pain – sometimes both psychologically and physically – to comprehend what she’s actually seeing. Something that is more than a little bit of handicap to a seeker of truth, which is what Velma claims to be. On the other hand while Shaggy and Scooby are not blind to the hidden truth of the world, their initial assumption that all the ghosts they meet are real – while also having a tole on both their psychological and physical well being – is not really conducive to mystery solving either.

Sometimes the ghost is nothing more than a man in a mask, but other times he is real – and it is when we assume he is always only ever one of those things, that is when we will fail to solve the mystery.

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