Zoinks

Scooby-Doo was the cartoon that defined my childhood. I remember being very little and watching my first episode, terrified and enthralled as an Egyptian mummy stalked through a shadowy museum -- the beginning of a lifelong interest in the horror genre.

It's a great show. It portrays the fearlessness of human beings in the face of horrors and greed, first by showing the gang braving all sorts of garish technicolor creatures and then by uncovering smuggling and sabotage operations underneath. It shows the strength of friendships across social strata with the inclusion of four basic stereotypes: the prep, the pretty girl, the layabout, and the smart girl. It gave Little Me countless stellar examples of how the villainous laugh should sound. It crossed over with the Addams Family animated series for one glorious animated hour. Also, its second season has neat music. Hey girl, you've got me running. Na nana na, nana na.

The show even featured two redheaded girls onscreen for Little redheaded Me to see and feel less singled out about. My six-year-old definition of diversity was two different shades of red and the occasional guest star blonde. Go ahead, judge me. It's okay. I deserve it. But back then I was the only redhead in a school full of people happy and willing to make carrot jokes and tell me I was weird. Being able to come home to Daphne and Velma meant something to me, their 60stastic fashion choices notwithstanding. The solidarity between a child and a cartoon.

I have countless Scooby-Doo movies on VCR that I've refused to give away, and not just because one day owning a VCR will be a vintage thing cool people do. I'm attached to these movies. Even after I've surrendered to the relentless march of technology and convenience and just bought them on Amazon Instant Video, having the actual tapes and cases around just makes me feel better. They're relics from a time when VCR was actually a thing and I was small enough to believe in a very different world. Talismans agaist feeling untethered from myself.

People can make a difference. You can commit to villainous theatrics, dress up like a monster to safeguard capitalist interests, and change the landscape of folklore and urban legend. Or you can investigate what frightens you, uncover hidden truths and argue for your experiences, expose the machinations of schemers and smooth-talkers and set one little piece of the world right.

There's a lot of hope to take away from Scooby-Doo. The show always has a happy ending: four kids in a malt shop with the mystery solved. Everyone together, no one lost or gone. I'm a jaded twenty-two-year-old and I know that you don't always get a neatly packaged happy ending, much less one with milkshakes and a laugh track. But seeing one anyway is softening, somehow. Scooby-Doo is a children's show at heart, and children deserve to have that sense of peace. Reliving it as an adult has meaning, too. If we are what we believe, then optimism has a lot to promise for us all.

The puns are pretty great, too.

#ScoobyDoo