remember my scooby contest? well here are the three winners! and their thoughts on why they love scooby! popbytes out for now!
1st place!
Visions of Velma by Samantha Spotwood
Although I watched Scooby Doo a lot while growing up, I can relate to it much more as an adult. As a chubby woman with short auburn hair and glasses, you could probably figure out that I would identify with Velma; poor neglected, brilliant Velma. Velma crawls on the ground grasping blindly for her lost glasses in almost every episode. This is so me. You laugh? You think I make this up? Ha! Being a TV addict, I often fall asleep wearing my glasses and have spent many a morning literally running my hands across the mattress in search of them. I recall the funniest of these mornings; I had searched to no avail and finally called my children into the room to help me. On all fours, glasses, unbeknownst to me, almost in my reach, I look up at my children. They stare at me and try to hold back their laughter. My son picks up my glasses and hands them to me.
“Here you go, Velma,” he says with a smirk, then runs out of my room laughing with his sister.
I stand up, holding my glasses in the air and shout down the hall, “I’ll take that as a compliment, because VELMA ROCKS!”
2nd place!
My obsession with Scooby-Doo stems from one source: Scooby Snacks by Jason C
From the first episode I ever watched, I was fascinated by these treats that could inspire such bravery from a dog who was normally unburdened by motivation or courage (much like me). What were they? Surely, they weren’t just dog treats (Shaggy ate them too, after all). If I could just get my hands on some, maybe I’d be able to fight ghosts too.
As a kid, I understood that Speed Racer got his power from the Mach-5, and that He-Man got his power from Greyskull. I could also, being reasonably well-adjusted, dig that I would never have access to either one of those things.
But there was always hope finding Scooby Snacks. Every day after school at 3:30, I’d sit down with a different food in front of the TV, and whenever Scooby showed up, I’d down as much of it as I could. Triscuits, Wheaties, matzhoh, granola, you name it, and I tried it, hoping it would make me a mystery solver worthy of at least replacing Fred (who frankly never did much for me). No luck.
A few months ago, I was back home with my 6-year old nephew. At 3:30, the world stopped and the TV switched on for Scooby-Doo. I sat down with him, and he ran off to the kitchen. When he returned, he had two packages of those Fruit Snacks by General Mills (imagine gum drops and you’ll be close) that were shaped like Scooby characters and branded as “Scooby Snacks”.
We watched the show, ate the snacks (we went back for seconds and thirds), the buzz hit, and we were Mystery Solvers for the rest of the afternoon. Scooby Snacks are everything they were cracked up to be.
3rd place!
Scooby Slacker by Max B
Many years back (13 to be semi-exact), I saw a great movie called “Slacker”. It was Richard Linklater’s first movie. Anyway, he had an interesting take on the philosophy of the Scooby Snack as a type of currency. It was presented as a conversation between two ‘slackers’ in a bar in Austin. It always stuck with me. Here’s an outtake from the script:
SCOOBY DOO PHILOSOPHER: …Like Saturday morning cartoons is all a bunch of values and junk they’re throwing at you. Like take Scooby Doo, you know? Scooby Doo, like, looks at you, and it’s like there’s Shaggy, and there’s Scooby Doo, and they say, “Hey, why don’t you beat the shit out of this bad guy and like we’ll give you a Scooby snack” And he’ll go, “Oh, duh.” And they’ll say, “Well, two Scooby snacks.”
PAPA SMURF: Yeah, bribery
SCOOBY DOO PHILOSOPHER: Yeah, exactly. That’s what they’re teaching kids…it’s all bribery. They’re teaching kids fucking bribery…Hey, listen, tell you what, I’ll buy this round if you score me a pack of smokes, man.
(He gets up and heads toward the cigarette machine)
PAPA SMURF: All right man, but I don’t know…sounds like you’re plugging for