Scooby-Doo: Does TV dog Scooby-Doo have bit in the movies?

(Edited highlights of the panel's review)

Watch the whole programme - 12 July 2002

MARK LAWSON:
I am the right age for this. I grew up watching him. Does he belong in cinema?

ADAM MARS-JONES:
I enjoyed this. It's obviously not aimed at PhDs. It isn't sophisticated, but it isn't innocent, so it's slightly falling between those two stools.

It was interesting that they can't decide whether to introduce the love interest and keep it there, or keep the couple between being the dog and the man, who both from their interest in food must be neutered and not aggressive. They are manic and laid-back. No one drug can be responsible for that.

MARK LAWSON:
They are trying to do two things. They are trying to appeal to people in their late 30s, 40s, who watched it, but also trying to appeal to children.

TIM LOTT:
They are trying to appeal to Frat house dope smokers, and there are a few kind of knowing references to Mary Jane and so forth, but they don't go the whole way. It's half done.

It was a rotten cartoon in the first place. I always loathed Scooby-Doo. There is a hilarious quote with one of the actors, I think it was Fred, who said, "I wouldn't take on the role until I thought it achieved the quality of the original," which it does, which means it's appalling.

It's exactly the same as one of their episodes stretched out. It's a ludicrous plot. The dog doesn't work at all. I much preferred him as a badly drawn cartoon, essentially. It loses what innocence it did have in making it hi-tech.

MARK LAWSON:
When Germaine set out on an academic career, you probably never expected to have to talk about Scooby-Doo. You do now.

GERMAINE GREER:
I think it's going to get into the same trouble as Spider-Man, in that you can't find the right kids for it. In this case, it looks as though it's made for ten-year-olds and it's trying to induct them into heterosexuality, amongst other things.

But all the people who care about Scooby-Doo are your age, and they are never going to get these 40-year-old 10-year-olds. It's never going to work somehow. It seems to have another aim, which is to beat the imagination as flat as tin. You no sooner have an idea than you are exhausted with it, and you have another one.

ADAM MARS-JONES:
You weren't happy?

GERMAINE GREER:
We worked so hard to get to that point.

ADAM MARS-JONES:
But the disco ball did it for you?

GERMAINE GREER:
Nothing did it for me.

MARK LAWSON:
The computerised dog?

ADAM MARS-JONES:
Just about OK. At least with Casper the friendly ghost if you put your finger in him, you feel you wouldn't leave a mark that was hollow.

MARK LAWSON:
Scooby-Doo opened around the country today.