Day 13 - Scooby Doo, where are you?

One of my all time favorite television shows is the original Scooby Doo Where are You? series. As a child, I would love Saturday morning cartoons because I would get to watch Scooby Doo with my dad. It was my favorite show to watch growing up and it still is. I absolutely adore this loveable great dane and his gang, so I thought that I should definitely watch and discuss the series before the year comes to a close.

I decided to bust out my Scooby Doo Creepiest Capers DVD and watch some of earliest episodes. As I paid attention to the details so I would know what to talk about, I realized how prominent and important the sound effects and the musical score are. I've always noticed the cheesy sound effects, but I never realized how dominantly they are used. From the sounds of trap doors, rumble of the mystery machine, and clanking of armor, the sound effects are what provide most of the laughs for the audience.

I also paid attention to the cel animation while watching Scooby Doo and gang. I noticed that the majority of the episodes have flat, unmoving backgrounds, while the characters glide across them on a separate cel layer. When I was younger, I never would have noticed this element of the show. However, whenever there was a close up of one of the characters, for instance Shaggy, he would move around and there would be little white flecks that openly showed the separation in the two layers.

Though I think Scooby Doo Where are You?'s sound effects, cheesy catchphrases, and occasionally poor animation can be construed as tacky, this show will always remain a favorite because of these same tacky elements and all of my memories of watching the show with my father.