For Everything But...'s May 2021 issue, I designed and lead the publication, while also writing an opinion piece. The story in original format can be found here.
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.
Comments