By Marriya Schwarz
For many of us, Scooby-Doo marks a time of innocence. The formula of the franchise was simple: An evil monster wreaks havoc, our main characters investigate the scene, they catch the monster, and they reveal it’s just a regular human being in a mask. As kids, this was deeply calming that monsters didn’t exist and everything had a logical explanation. (Even though the gang was really riding on that “monsters don’t exist” concept and what was fantasy versus reality, but none of them seemed to think the fact they had an unexplained talking dog was weird. One of the biggest plot twists would be if Scooby was a man in a mask the entire time who wanted free rent and Scooby snacks.) Plus, it made us have this idea that people only dress up to commit acts of evil. At this point, the concept that criminals could be hiding in plain sight among us and going to our same grocery stores, shopping malls, and even serving in our Congress was unheard of. Therefore, I felt pretty safe as long as I didn’t see a snow creature coming after me down ski slopes or a ghost of a dinosaur trailing me in a museum.
And then the live-action Scooby-Doo said “wait, what if we completely destroy this concept and make all of the monsters real?” And oh boy, they ran with that.
But although problematic, as a child, the live-action Scooby-Doo was my favorite film of all time—until I learned to develop taste in movies and Scooby-Doo: The Movie was replaced with a far superior film (Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed.)
It all goes back to my sleeping difficulties in my youth. Even as a child, one of the biggest problems that plagued me was intense insomnia. To counteract this, my father gave me the advice of replaying every detail of a movie in my head to fall asleep. So, for the next five years of my life, I played Scooby-Doo: The Movie in my head every single night. (Look, some people can quote all of Godfather or Die Hard, but I can do the famously Oscar-snubbed 2002 film, Scooby-Doo: The Movie. “I’m a lover-boy of George Clooney-proportions” is probably my favorite line if anyone was wondering.)
The basic premise of the movie—recited by someone who has mentally rewatched it a thousand times—is that Mystery Inc. consisting of Fred Jones (Freddie Prinze Jr.), Daphne Blake (Sarah Michelle Gellar), Shaggy Rogers (Matthew Lillard), Velma Dinkley (Linda Cardellini), and Scooby-Doo (Neil Fanning) are investigating a ghost who’s bent on destroying a toy factory. Although they solve the case, the mystery ends up creating friction between all the members that even Shaggy’s edible metaphor of them all being a banana split with Fred as the banana, Daphne as the pastrami and bubble gum-flavored ice cream, and Velma as the sweet-and-sour mustard sauce somehow isn’t able to remedy. Being upset that Fred takes credit for all her ideas, Velma decides to quit. And Daphne who’s tired of being kidnapped decides to follow suit. Soon, the whole gang parts ways. Two years later, however, they are all individually called upon by Emile Mondavarious (Rowan Atkinson) to investigate how college students are completely changing personalities while at the amusement park, Spooky Island. And although they don’t want to work together, they soon realize they work best as a team and end up saving the day.
But growing up with this movie constantly in your head makes you realize… certain things.
For one thing, the screenwriter James Gunn has stated that the movie was originally supposed to be an adult parody of Scooby-Doo. Therefore, Shaggy Rogers was originally supposed to be a stoner (which I think still came across because they literally named his love interest Mary Jane.) They also had to use a lot of CGI to try to erase cleavage (If you listen closely, you can hear Henry Cavill’s deleted mustache breathe a sigh of relief.)
But although they switched it to a kid-friendly version, adult-appropriate remnants still remain. Even the opening of the film is pretty creepy. After Daphne gets kidnapped by the ghost, she complains that he “pawed [her] for an hour and a half.” And after we reveal that the ghost is really the creepy janitor who was upset when the owner of the toy factory wouldn’t go on a date with him, it just highlights this repeated concept of the lack of consent throughout the film. Later, due to the hijinks of the Daemon Ritus, Fred’s soul ends up trapped in Daphne’s body. With a pretty creepy smile, he sees this gross ‘silver lining’ of the situation, which is that he “can look at [himself] naked” in Daphne’s body. Even as a child, I had a sense that wasn’t okay, but the movie itself played it off as a comedic moment.
And there are so many of these PG-13 scenes that I truly didn’t get as a kid. For example, the big problem that brings Mystery Inc. into this situation is that students are coming to Spooky Island on Spring Break and leaving as “sober well-behaved college kids.” And apparently, they all decide this must be a case of brainwashing—which makes me wonder if I’ve just had an evil monster hiding inside me and using my skin to parade in the sunlight this entire time. And the relationship between Daphne and Fred is hinted all the way back in a flashback Velma has in which Scrappy-Doo (Scott Innes) urinates on Daphne to “mark his territory” all because Fred doesn’t have “the scrote for the job” which is a slightly horrifying line for a kid’s movie. Plus, as soon as the monsters take over the bodies of Velma and Fred, they immediately change their clothing to low V-neck-and-skin-showing attire, which really isn't necessary. However, with a monster inside her, Velma doesn’t have to wear her glasses, so it really could be a viable alternative to contact lenses.
Nevertheless, there are some good parts of the movie. For example, when the gang arrives at Spooky Island, Mr. Mondavarious advertises a slew of Disney World spoofs, including the Electrical Torture Parade, It’s a Dead World After All, and Splatterhorn—I imagine Warner Brothers got a real kick out of that. Plus, Mondavarious’ evil plan involves using the one pure soul to fully transform him into an all powerful ruler. And this one pure soul happens to be Scooby-Doo, giving us scientific evidence that dogs really are “good boys.”
But above all else, Scooby-Doo: The Movie gave us the best version of Daphne Blake we had seen on screen. After all, this was a woman who decided she was “over this damsel-in-distress nonsense” and decided to do something about it by “transform[ing] [her] body into a dangerous weapon” with serious martial arts skills. Because of how many times she absolutely kicks ass in Scooby-Doo: The Movie, it was the most empowering we had ever seen this character.
Originally, in the first 1969 series, Scooby-Doo: Where Are You?, the writers genuinely forgot to give her a personality. Fred Jones is described as the leader and the one who thinks up all the traps, Velma is the smart one, and Scooby and Shaggy are the hungry and scared ones. Daphne, however, is simply labeled as “danger-prone.” Her whole purpose is literally to fall through floors and get kidnapped, which isn’t an active character trait. While everyone else gets lines specific to their characters, Daphne gets to say things like “But how?” and “You were right, Scooby. That is scuba gear.”
But luckily, this new 2002 kick ass version of Daphne continued into the second live-action film, as well as the cartoon series on at the time, What’s New, Scooby-Doo? In both of these, the wonderful thing about Daphne Blake is she’s strong, courageous, and empowering without losing a shred of her femininity. In fact, she often uses her skills in makeup and fashion to greatly benefit the group by picking locks with tweezers and getting out of cages with pore strips. Seeing a strong woman who could be strong and feminine was such an empowering thing to see as a child, and maybe that’s why I connected with the movie originally.
Unfortunately, this version of the character didn’t stay with the franchise. In 2010, Scooby-Doo: Monsters Incorporated launched, and it gave Daphne the shining personality trait of just being in love with Fred and constantly trying to get his attention. But the whole beauty of Daphne was that she was confident in herself and didn’t need to prove anything to anyone—after all, this was supposed to be the same character who had the sheer audacity to wear a whole t-shirt with her own face on it out in public in Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed. And although she became more confident and independent in the second season of Scooby-Doo: Monsters Incorporated, the opening animation title credits were never changed. In this opening, each character gets an object showing their personality: Fred has a remote to spring traps, Velma has a laptop, Shaggy and Scooby both have a pile of hamburgers… and Daphne has a framed photo of Fred and a generic flashlight.
In conclusion, regardless of the inappropriate jokes, the weird farting competition between Shaggy and Scooby, and the annoying reveal that this was all orchestrated by Scrappy-Doo, I’ll always look back on Scooby-Doo: The Movie as giving us the best possible version of my favorite character.
(And although Scrappy-Doo was revealed to be the villain, all of the monsters came about because they built a theme park on ancient ground thought to be “a thoroughfare to the supernatural realm.” So, in the end, isn’t the true villain colonialism? Try unmasking that, Velma.)
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