Christopher Orr discusses the enduring (amazing, actually) popularity of Scooby Doo. As he notes, "Scooby-Doo, believe it or not, has over the years been the subject of at least 19 TV series (on CBS, ABC, the WB, Cartoon Network, and Boomerang); more than 40 animated films; and two live-action movies in the early 2000s, the first of which grossed $275 million worldwide."
He gives credit to producers William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, "story writers" Joe Ruby and Ken Spears, and animator Iwao Takamoto. I could name a dozen or more folks who deserve mucho credit but none more than Don Messick, who invented and performed for 27 years, the infectious and funny sounds of the title character. Mr. Orr also offers a quote from Carl Sagan (our national "science guy" before Bill Nye) that the show was a "public service…in which paranormal claims are systematically investigated and every case is found to be explicable in prosaic terms."
As one of the legions of soldiers who worked on the Great Dane, it pleases me to think of the show in those terms. It never occurred to me before quite that way and I'm one of those people who believes that there are no such things as real magic or paranormal occurrences, and it didn't dawn on me that that was an underlying premise of what I was writing. But yeah, if we taught some kids that there's always a real-world explanation, that might be the most valuable lesson that was ever in any cartoon show or comic book I worked on. (The other lesson — which I believe in and was aware I was conveying — is that it's always better to out-think the bad guy as opposed to overpowering him.)
I was not fond of Scooby Doo when it debuted on TV and would have passed on writing the comic book had not I been eager to work with Dan Spiegle, who was drawing it at the time. I'm still so very glad I did…but I also came to appreciate the simplicity and beauty of the original, unimproved Scooby Doo format. The umpteen variations on it have prolonged the property's existence while at the same time demonstrating how they can't improve upon it. Wait'll you see how the next five or ten "new looks" prove that.