#but i wonder if i could fit the claw machine fellas in here

[gamebunny-advance]

"Get encased, idiot."

[ayellowbirds]

Keshet Rewatches All of Scooby-Doo, Pt. 5: “Decoy For a Dognapper”

(”Scooby-Doo, Where Are You”, Season 1 Episode 5)

AKA “That Old-Fashioned Racism”

I’m trying out a format change, starting with this post, because the errors that I was seeing with Read Mores only seem to affect Text Posts and not Image Posts, even if the only difference is whether there’s a text header or a main image. If y’all prefer this style or the text posts, let me know!

The episode opens on a crisp Autumn day, and unlike the norm the four prior episodes established, nothing immediately spooky happens. Instead, we’re reminded that yes, Scooby is a dog, as his sniffing about in the leaves of an affluent-looking neighborhood leads to him catching sight of a well-groomed poodle being walked by an old lady. Scooby pulls up some flowers and tries his best to look charming.

He’s ignored, the poor hump-backed bow-legged mole-chinned fella. Takamoto's intent for Scooby to be a less than ideal specimen really shines through in moments like this, though I suppose his iconic status has dulled that idea over the decades. That said, i am reminded that one of the few times a dog reciprocates Scooby’s romantic intent, she turned out to be a space alien in disguise.

Just after Scooby is rejected, karma strikes: “Princess” is snatched up by a masked dognapper just as she and her owner walk behind some bushes that conveniently save on the animation budget by not showing the complex motion of grabbing the dog i mean, hide the details of the dognapping.

By the time Scooby rejoins the gang at yet another beach party (consisting of Fred and Daphne dancing while Velma and Shaggy roast weenies), the sky has darkened. Instead of explaining why he’s upset using his words, Scooby utilizes his eldritch powers once more and turns on the radio just in time to tune into a flash bulletin announcing the third theft of a prize-winning dog in as many days.

Scooby is very serious about this, pushing the gang to investigate. But his determination has its limits when it turns out that the next dog in line to win an upcoming competition is a Great Dane, well, you can see where this is going.

Fred has a “tiny” transmitter to plant on Scooby, which must have seemed impressive by the standards of 1969. It’s as big as a bath bomb.

Daphne tosses him a Scooby Snack for courage, though Shaggy catches and eats the first one she pitches, rationalizing that he’s going to have to be the one walking the decoy dog, and then it’s time to wash and groom Scooby. Cleaned up and given a shiny new collar, Scooby strikes his best possible posture while out on the town, and even manages to attract some attention.

When this random pink pooch tries and fails to get Scooby’s attention, she kicks a whole bin’s worth of garbage at the duo in a fit of rage. It’s an extended sequence that doesn’t seem to add anything to the plot except suggesting that Scooby is, however briefly, convincing as a show dog. But it’s really weird, because, well... look at this dog. She has a collar, so she’s not just a stray. She's pink, at odds with the vaguely naturalistic color schemes of, well... any other animal in the entire show.

The entire scene could be cut for time without losing anything in the episode, so the best i can figure is that it’s literal filler.

Soon after, the dognappers snatch Scooby amidst a smokescreen, and Shaggy gives chase on a borrowed motor-scooter. While the Mystery Machine reroutes to follow Scooby’s signal, Shaggy sees something unexpected just as he’s catching up to the dognappers:

Yes, this is bound to be a thematically consistent episode. The whooping, shrieking image of a stereotypical Native of the Great Plains appears, causing Shaggy to crash. Shaggy identifies this figure as “Geronimo” for no reason except that he’s a stupid white kid in the sixties.

Meanwhile, Scooby winds up in the villains’ hideout, where he’s quickly identified as a fake by the costumed mastermind, who is similarly clad in a bad caricature of indigenous American garb, looking like some white animator’s idea of what a traditional dance costume might resemble.

In an especially bizarre moment, Scooby resists being tossed out by extending his previously unseen claws to hold tight onto the wooden floor. Scooby has retractable claws. WHAT IS THIS DOG?

The gang finds no sign of the native who spooked Shaggy, but Velma does find a stone tomahawk just laying in the dirt by some train tracks. She identifies this as “an authentic Indian relic, at least 1000 years old”.

Without any testing or reference materials.

Without questioning why it was just sitting around in the open.

A thousand years old, she says.

Guay de mi. Shaggy concludes that this means ghosts, but the gang pick up on Scooby’s signal again and follow it, while Scooby once again demonstrates his retractable claws by extending an especially long one to cut a hole in the wooden crate he’s trapped in.

SCOOBY-DOO, WHAT ARE YOU?

After Scooby’s rescue, the gang backtracks, and are shot at with arrows—that Fred identifies as factory-made and inauthentic, because I guess he thinks no self-respecting native would use anything other than home-made traditionally-crafted arrows. Shaggy and Scooby cry out in terror over the prospect of being scalped.

Interesting fact about the practice of scalp-taking: there’s evidence to suggest that it was introduced to the Americas by white people, and that it was much more widely practiced by settlers—colonial authorities offered bounties on native scalps, and both Confederate and Union soldiers are documented to have engaged in the gruesome practice on people of all ethnicities.

But Shaggy’s a white dude in the Sixties, so we just get to see him being a racist making jokes about his hair being scared.

The gang look to where the arrows came from, and catch sight of the remains of a cliffside city in the general Southwestern style, looking like it may have been referenced directly from ��Montezuma’s Castle”. As they make their way up to it, they catch sigh of the lead villain, who is shaking some maracas and affecting a stereotypical accent completely unlike the way he was speaking in front of Scooby earlier.

As he disappears, Velma comments that he speaks excellent English “considering he’s supposed to be 1000 years old.” Again, how is she drawing this conclusion? There’s nothing in the episode to suggest it, and Velma just comes off as spouting the typical attitudes of white American culture that indigenous peoples are long dead and gone.

As the gang continue onward in spite of their ignorance, they rouse a colony of adorable bats, that start chattering and flying around.

Shaggy and Velma start to flail madly in spite of the bats not being animated as actually flying at them, just around... until one snatches Velma’s glasses right off her face, and then drops them on Scooby. There’s a great shot from Scooby’s perspective through the lenses of a bat zooming right at him, and he flees.

But even better is the one moment when Shaggy follows Scooby into shelter. “Ri, Raggy,” says Scooby in his usual distorted doggy speech. Without missing a beat or any sense of it being unusual Shaggy responds in kind:

“Ri, Rooby.”

It’s a weird little moment of Shaggy’s guard being down so much that he picks up on Scooby’s vocal tics, and to be honest, it’s adorable.

The “thousand years” bit continues as the gang explores and "Geronimo” (again, they have no reason to call him that) continues to warn them away with fakey accents and flashy displays.

The weirdest moment of the episode comes during their explorations, while Shaggy is distracted with raiding the dognapper’s food supplies to make an overwhelmingly meaty sandwich with every kind of cold cut i’ve ever heard of. Scooby investigates a cabinet, and then, behind him, a stone in the wall opens up to reveal a secret hole...

...and a hand reaches out to shove Scooby into the cabinet, sending him through another passage and down a chute that leads right to the room where the stolen dogs are kept, along with Daphne after she got caught in another secret passage trap herself. But nothing’s holding Scooby, and he’s able to easily untie Daphne and set the dogs free.

So... what was the point of pushing him? Whose hand was that?

After a few more secret passage antics, the dogs are freed, and—hey, wait a minute, how’d all these secret passages get into these ancient ruins? There’s more of a story here than just the dognappers, but the episode never goes into it.

The dogs chase down the main villain (his henchman is never seen again, and there’s no evidence he’s ever caught), who is revealed as Buck Masters, a dog owner himself who had pretended his own dog was stolen and put on a pretense of offering a reward for the crooks. Buck had extensively interacted with the gang earlier in the episode, so it’s not too surprising he immediately recognized Scooby, but one has to wonder why he didn’t warn his own henchman of the gang’s involvement. 

In any case, his incompetent racist deception is revealed, and the gang have foiled his plan! Oh zoinks, are we going to finally hear it, that immortal line?

Hey, that’s not how you pronounce “meddling”!

In a heartwarming moment, Fred explains that they had to get involved, because they had a dog of their own, and “we love him very much.”

The episode ends on one last little stereotypical gag, as Scooby makes a feathered headdress shadow on the wall by posing with a duster and toy tomahawk.

Oy.

(like what i’m doing here? It’s not what pays the bills, so i’d really appreciate it if you could send me a bit at my paypal.me or via my ko-fi. Click here to see more entries in this series of posts, or here to go in chronological order)