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The Scooby show that was actually funny.

It’s okay, you can admit it. I did years ago. Scooby-Doo sucked. You know it, I know it, even Scoob knows it. Sure, we all watched the show in its various incarnations as kids and we enjoyed it, but looking back, it the same damned episode over and over and over. And the ones with Scrappy-Doo were still the same episode, just with an added kick to the nuts for the viewer. However, there was one incarnation of the show that actually was funny: A Pup Named Scooby-Doo.

It was 1988. We had already seen the Muppets reduced to toddler age for the Muppet Babies show, and somewhere around this time, Flinstone Kids revisited the stone-age pre-puberty. Looking to revive the Scooby franchise, Hanna-Barbara went the same route, and in doing so, made a show that was actually funny and entertaining. Here, Scooby and the gang are little kids (well, kids and a puppy) and they run the Scooby-Doo Detective Agency. All of the elements from the older shows are here as well, but turned on their ear in humorous ways. They still deal with “ghosts” who turn out to be one of the usually two or three supporting characters in the episode. They even have the little musical montages while the monster chases them. But it’s actually funny. All of the characters’ traits are exaggerated here; Daphne is super-conceited, Fred is near brain-dead and always blames every mystery on either local bully Red Herring or evil Mudmen from the Earth’s core. Visual gags often evoked the style of Tex Avery. It was just so different from what we were used to from Mystery, Inc.

After several “bargain” releases of selected episodes, Warner Brothers has released the complete first season of the show on DVD. Comprising two discs, we get all 13 episodes and a nice number of special features. There’s an animatic version of an alternate version of the opening to the show. An interactive map takes the viewer on a tour of other special features, most of which have producer Tom Ruegger discussing how they came up with certain aspects of the show.

Okay, so even if it sucked, we all loved the New Scooby-Doo Mysteries, in which the gang would team up every episode with a different celebrity or famous character (Batman, Jonathan Winters, etc.), but hands down, A Pup Named Scooby-Doo was not only the best of the series, it was a very entertaining show all on its own.

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