Let's talk for a minute about Scooby-Doo. The first time the world saw him in his current form was in the 1969 series Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, a show so awesome it doesn't even matter that the exclamation point in the title may have been misplaced. Hell, one could make an argument that this was all part of the silliness of the show, but regardless of if it was an honest mistake or an inside joke, it's excused because again, the show is awesome. What makes this show so special? Well, that's pretty simple. Let's take a look at the other Hanna Barbera shows that were on television around the same time as the release of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!: Looney Tunes, Wacky Races (and the spinoffs, The Perils of Penelope Pitstop and Dastardly and Mutley in Their Flying Machines), Top Cat, Johnny Quest, Yogi Bear, The Jetsons, and The Flinstones. Other than Johnny Quest, those are all comedy shows without much depth or atmosphere to them. None of those shows really ever have any serious issues on them, or any dark tones or implications. What made Scooby-Doo so special when he first showed up on the scene was that his show was dark, it had mysteries, and most of all, it had fear. It was of course, still a comedy show - it even had the laughtracks so prevalent in cartoons at the time - but there was danger, and sometimes the images we saw were frightening and unsettling. Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, was dark, but not in that overstated, "I'm the god damn Batman!" way everything seems to be these days. It was a show that didn't try to be dark, because it didn't have to; it was thick with atmosphere and unsettling imagery. It was evident from the swelling of the music and the frightening monsters that this show took itself seriously, but then from the jokes and cartoon physics that it also had plenty of levity to it as well.
Of course, following the outrageous success of that program, Hanna Barbera released tons of copy-cats: Jabberjaw, Josie and the Pussycats, Goober and the Ghostchasers, The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan, Clue Club, Speed Buggy, and the Funky Phantom. Those shows vary in terrible-ness, but they teach us something, so turn on your learnin' receptors and prepare to engage learn mode: kids aren't fucking stupid. That's right! Despite what the producers of every shitty cartoon out there seem to think, shows for kids can be dark and feature the fun of having being scared to death just like shows for adults, and they can do it without being heavy-handed or forgetting they are a silly cartoon. Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! paved the way for generations of western animation, a children's comedy show which featured mysteries rife with red herrings and villains who were downright scary. It was all about creating a comedy show that everyone can enjoy, but putting it in a dark and sinister atmosphere where the audience can be thrilled (and chilled) by scary and frightening shit.
So, what happened? Well, somewhere through the 7 incarnations of Scooby-Doo that were in-between the release of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! and What's New Scooby-Doo?, the darkness was lost. It's hard to say exactly where the show stopped being atmospheric or compelling on a primal level, but it's easy to say one thing: this latest series is way the fuck passed that point. This show always takes place during the daytime, the sun is always shining... it's just too god damn bright. Hell, even the Zombie Island movie got this part better than What's New Scooby-Doo?, at least that movie created a scary and dark setting for Scooby and the gang to solve the mystery in, with macabre imagery recurring heavily.
The most basic element of what made Scooby-Doo scary was the atmosphere, but the thing that really helped push it over the top was the villains. Scooby-Doo has always been a comedy series, but when the bad guys showed up, shit got real for a minute. Do you remember how you felt the first time you saw this?
if this is the first time you have seen this fuck you
Your whole world was turned upside down. "Woah! That wasn't like other cartoons at all, that just scared me! That was exciting!" These monsters had a whole fucking feel to them, they had some character and dammit, they looked evil. You had the Space Kook, that evil clown that hypnotized you, the Creeper, the Witch and her Zombie, the Black Knight, pirate ghosts, the Witch Doctor, Miner 49er, those terrible chained phantoms, a crazed robot, and an evil Yeti monster with evil-looking horns. In the new series, you have two episodes about a snow creature, and the first one sort of looks evil but the second one is just basically that stupid Jack Frost movie monster. There's a ton of episodes about boring normal ghosts with no cool gimmicks like the Miner or the pirate ghosts. Worst of all, there's episodes with no monsters at all, including one about the Mystery Machine getting possessed, one about a mysterious disease spreading in animals at the safari, and one about Shaggy growing into a giant (I shit you not).
I know at some point in this wall of text you're expecting me to disparage the theme song for the new series by pop-rock band Simple Plan. This music simply isn't my taste, but that doesn't mean it's bad (I imagine it's Simple Plan's best song); it ain't like any of the other Scooby-Doo theme songs have really been my cup of tea either. One thing that does bring to mind though is the visible degradation of the celebrity cameos. In the old series, you had guests like Don Knotts, Phyllis Diller, the Globetrotters, and fucking Batman and Robin. You know what you get in the new series? ryan sheckler.
So what does this all amount to? What is the crux of the argument here? What makes this new incarnation of Scooby-Doo the worst thing in the whole fucking universe? It completely lacks the atmosphere of the original show; a show that was all about atmosphere.
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