Scooby Dooby Doo, what the hell have they done to you?!
It feels wrong to be banging out a column that’s, in effect, anti-puppy. That’s kind of like arguing pizza is gross, or that beaches are overrated. But a new TV series is taking cute-pet overload to a terrible extreme and must be called out for its folly.
These geniuses have gone and cast a real dog as Scooby-Doo.
Before I get to the obvious insanity of that choice, what exactly is this stupid show?
Called “Scooby-Doo: Origins,” it’s a live-action Netflix program coming in 2027 that will depict the founding of Mystery Incorporated — Fred, Shaggy, Daphne, Velma and Scoob — at a teen summer camp.
Ruh-roh. The title is already annoying, for some reason imposing a mythic self-seriousness on a franchise named after a talking hound. And who cares how some 1970s potheads met? They’re comedy monster hunters who pal around with Jonathan Winters and Don Knotts. They’re not Darth Vader.
“Origins” is executive produced by Greg Berlanti, so expect a CW-y approach similar to “Riverdale” or “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.” Darker, hotter, dryer. That mold seems a strange one for a silly story whose four-legged main character is motivated primarily by tasty Scooby Snacks, but these people can’t help themselves.
Nobody is itching for a cool update of it, or any more “Doo” at all for that matter.
“Scooby-Doo” as a brand is more exhausted than a pooch outside in August. There have been 38 direct-to-video releases alone. Remember the Freddie Prinze Jr. and Sarah Michelle Gellar movie in which the gang jetted to a boozy island resort for spring break? If you said “no,” lucky!
Worst of all with the new series, though, is the spin on the marquee canine.
To match the flesh-and-blood actors playing the group, the show is using an actual pup. Bonkers.
Scoob will still talk, apparently. He’s being voiced by Frank Welker, the original Fred and Scooby for more than 20 years. Perhaps there will be internal-monologuing without any mouth movements, like the literature-loving Jack Russell Terrier on “Wishbone.” Surely they can’t take the “Mr. Ed” route and rub peanut butter on his gums to get ‘em flapping.
How depressing we have to speculate about this at all.
One of the biggest downsides to Hollywood’s mostly mishandled plundering of intellectual property has been the habit of taking animated 2D cartoons and redoing them with real people and real (or, at least, real-looking) animals.
Disney is the chief offender, having churned out a pile of uninspired remakes (“The Lion King,” “Lilo and Stitch,” the upcoming “Moana”) because their shallow talent pool can’t come up with any fresh ideas and recent bosses have run the company with less innovation than a Cheesecake Factory.
The live-action trend is, and has always been, dire.
Cartoons caper, actors lumber. They wind up drained of color and devoid of magic. They dilute humor and fun. And they contribute to the long-observed decline in childhood creativity and imagination that’s been accelerated by handheld screens and mindless social media scrolling.
Am I putting too much blame on a sweet little dog on a TV show? Maybe. But it’s a slippery slope to a post-apocalypse dystopia where a trained rabbit plays Bugs Bunny.
I can hear those IP addicts over at Warner Bros. now: And we would’ve gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for you meddling critics!
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