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Chuck Jones and other great studio animators sneered at the
cheap look and lazy craftsmanship of Hanna Barbera's television cartoons in the
1960s, but there's no question HB's original, 35-year-old Scooby-Doo, Where
Are You! is enduringly beloved. Watching all the shows back-to-back reveals evolving complexity in the
scripts. Over time, Scooby-Doo's creators added multiple bad guys in
cahoots with major villains, and developed sub-plots, backstories, and even
appealing allies and friends of Mystery, Inc., a traveling band of young
debunkers of supernatural phenomena. Riding around in their psychedelic Mystery
Van, preppie leader Fred and his friends--haughty Daphne, brainy Velma,
quasi-hippie Shaggy and Shaggy's best pal, Scooby, an excitable Great
Dane--chase down and are chased by alleged ghouls who generally turn
out to be venal humans running various scams.
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