50 years of Scooby-Doo

Scooby Doo is a cartoon that has been 50 years in existence and probably belongs to every generation that grew up watching it. However, the 90s kids, with their ample cartoon network screen time, could stake a slightly higher claim over this extremely entertaining dog and his ghostbusting gang, the Mystery Inc.

I often find myself feeling pity for our younger generation who never got to experience this really good series and thereby understand why the incredibly bizarre team of four teenagers—Fred, Daphne, Velma and Shaggy—and a Great Dane who could talk was such a big deal for us.

The original series Scooby Doo, Where Are You? was written by Joe Ruby and Ken Spears, and produced by Hanna-Barbera productions.

Often the crimes were easy to solve and the killers/perpetrators usually wore a mask (sometimes multiples ones!) which would be exposed at the end.

It might seem basic right now, but back then this whole CID/CSI-in-cartoon-format-for-kids concept was a joyride like no other.

For kids like us who read a lot of Stephen King and watched a lot of cartoon network, Scooby Doo opened a new world of possibilities.

However, this cartoon taught us more than just solving silly mysteries, Scooby Doo and his friends taught us several lessons.

For example, we learned how haunted houses and strangers living in them should be avoided at any cost!

Being a true skeptic, Velma, the geek in the team, would not drop reason, even when her glasses dropped, and when things got too spooky.

Trying to keep pace with her brains and racing against the gang to figure out who the human under the mask would be was another thing that Velma taught us around the show.

From Shaggy and Scooby, I learnt something that might sound cheesy but make total sense when you think about it—that fear and bravery can co-exist.

In fact, in many ways, fear motivates you to fight—did not Shaggy and Scooby run faster when they were scared beyond their wits? Another motivator was the Scooby snacks and nice sandwiches that worked like charms to get Shaggy and Scooby to face their worst fears.

Scooby Doo also taught us that we should never lose our cool during danger and that the scariest monsters are the ones we create within ourselves.

Watching every single of those 'freaky' occurrences decoded with rational explanation gave me such immense satisfaction, like the kind you get today while watching ridiculous superstitions being shredded by scientific arguments.

It drilled a fact into my head, that maybe we do not always see the clear picture, and that sometimes, if not always, the explanation can be elusive but never non-existent.

This year, as we celebrate 50 years of a mystery-solving dog who talks to humans and has nephews and cousins who are just as smart, let us remember what big difference good cartoons such as this one can make.