Saturday Mornings

Last night, a friend of mine told me that he wasn't allowed to watch cartoons when he was a kid. Man, I can't imagine my life without cartoons! I got addicted to TV at an early age- and it all started with cartoons.

My favorite cartoon was "Scooby Doo". The premise of the show: four kids and dog traveling around the country, in a van named the "Mystery Machine", while solving mysteries and revealing scandals.

The cast:

Fred~~ the good-looking blonde stud, whose job it was to drive the Mystery Machine, wear an ascot and look for clues.

Daphne~~ the nemph in the short skirt. Her job was to seduce Fred while they both looked for clues.

Velma~~ the legally blind geek. Her job was also to look for clues, but she lost her glasses at least once in each episode and spent most of the time crawling on the ground, and occassionally shouting "Jinkies!".

Shaggy~~ the beatnik. He had a goatee and an untucked T-shirt. Rumor has it that he was a stoner and his real name was Norville. He was also supposed to look for clues, but spent most of the time in search of food-- bad case of the munchies, I guess.

Scooby Doo~~ the Great Dane and star of the show. Not only could he talk, but he walked on two legs, most of the time. His job was to look for clues, but he spent most of his time palling around with Shaggy and getting "Scooby Snacks" and then searching for food.

I don't know how these 5 ever got together in the first place, or how they could afford gas for the van. None of them had jobs, and they never got paid for solving mysteries. But they were diligent and put their lives on the line every week. Although they were confronted by werewolves, ghosts, witches, Bigfoots, phantoms and vampires daily, they were always able to prove that the "monster" was really some local guy that they had met earlier in the episode. The guy usually had an evil scheme that he thought would increase his business. Sometimes he just wanted privacy and thought that by creating the illusion of a monster, folks would stay away. Not these kids- their common goal in life was to shine the light on corruption and scandal-- like Ralph Nadar or the Smoking Gun!

I always loved the last line of each episode when the villian, after being revealed, would always say the same line: "I would've gotten away with it too, if it weren't for those medelling kids!".