If it wasn't for those meddling movie-makers, nothing would have come along to soil our cherished memories of the cartoon Scooby Doo, writes Róisín Ingle.
ZOINKS! Despite the fact that they have made a dog's dinner out of a much-loved cult cartoon, the makers of Scooby Doo are celebrating and rumour has it they are already planning Scooby-Two.
In some parts of the world this absurdly awful live action rendition of one of the best cartoon series ever, has outdone Tom Cruise's Minority Report at the box-office. A cinema icon like Tom being beaten by a digitally-created talking pooch? It's almost as unbelievable as one of the gang's supernatural plots.
The digital whizzkids responsible for the latest incarnation of old cartoon favourites were in nappies when Velma (nerdy specs and jumper), Daphne (long legs and hair), Fred (chiselled jaw and cravat) and Shaggy (hippy goatee and knocking knees) got together to form Mystery Inc.
Their trusty side-kick Scooby Doo (speech impediment and insatiable appetite) was originally inserted for comic relief but soon became the cornerstone of the cartoon.
The gang travelled around in a psychedelic van known as the Mystery Machine solving, like, mysteries that always had a rational explanation and ended with nice but dim Fred stating: "Well, I guess that wraps up another mystery."
The series was first screened in 1969 and ran for 310 episodes. Scooby animator Iwao Takamato, who produced many of Hanna-Barbera's most loved characters, based Scoobert - the dog's real name - on a Great Dane owned by a woman in his office. "I decided that Scooby would be the very opposite of what a champion should look like," he said.
So we were given a loveable dog who pronounced every word with R as in "Raggy, ret's rav rum rooby racks" (Shaggy, let's have some Scooby snacks) and spent his time dressing up in women's clothes to escape detection or devouring food.
The plots were reassuring in their predictability although this, and the sometimes crudely drawn animation, won the cartoon no fans among more intellectual critics.
Still, each Saturday morning you could be sure a sinister benefactor would employ the team to solve a mystery which involved ancient sarcophagi, villains in suits of armour and lots and lots of clues. Shaggy was perpetually scared, Scooby spotted the ghosts before everyone else and Velma sussed out the mystery with a little help from Daphne and Fred.
Along the way, what our intrepid sleuths believed were ghosts or ghouls were revealed as being mere special effects created by a battered cine-projector. And you could always bet your last Scooby snack that at the end of the cartoon the villain, now devoid of his latex mask, would cry: "If it wasn't for you pesky kids and that stupid dog I would have gotten away with it."
The New York Times reported David Kleeman, the executive director of the American Centre for Children and Media, as saying the predictability of the cartoon was an integral part of it's appeal. "I doesn't take very long for kids to know and expect that whatever it is - a ghost or a werewolf - it is really just someone playing a trick."
This premise, that there is always a rational explanation for the bogey man under your bed, is completely undermined in the film.
The terrifying monsters turn out to be very, very real and Fred's attempt to provide reassurance to the contrary rings hollow. This is a travesty but the movie's desperate attempts to keep the older fans who remember the original cartoon on board are even more unforgivable.
At every opportunity, Scooby fans are bashed over the head with knowing references. Elements of the cartoon that we took for granted - Fred wanting to go off with the gorgeous Daphne to hunt for clues, Daphne always ending up as the one captured by the baddies - are highlighted in a manner so totally over the top that their charm vanishes.
Long-held suspicions that Shaggy must be under the influence of illegal substances are hinted at with clouds of smoke over the Mystery Machine.
Thankfully the notion that uptight Velma might have been a closet lesbian is left well alone. (Originally, the film included a kiss between Velma (Linda Cardellini) and Daphne (Sarah Michelle Gellar) but it was ditched because, unlike all the fart jokes, it was deemed inappropriate for children).
Like the best cult programmes, Scooby Doo is an all-pervasive icon. Last year, shooting victim Natania Reuben used Scooby to describe her reaction after seeing what she claimed was rapper Puff Daddy brandishing a gun in a New York nightclub.
"I felt like Scooby Doo, when he's running and not getting anywhere," she said.
Yesterday, a chef in England revealed he had sculpted a 4ft Scooby using only lard. It's currently on display at Tutbury Castle in Staffordshire. "I've been a Scooby fan for years. When I heard about the new film I decided to try a statue and once I started it just got bigger and bigger."
Fans have always searched for deeper truths in Scooby Doo. Writing on the web, one obsessive lists Ten Reasons Why Scooby Doo Was A Drug-Influenced Cartoon. Exhibit A: Scooby and Shaggy "always had the munchies" and "were constantly giddy and laughing".
Delving even deeper, the author of A Marxist Reading of Scooby Doo suggests the cartoon "taught our generation to accept what had decades before been seen as entirely unacceptable. Without a doubt the Scooby Doo cartoon greatly contributed liberality to its audience." What the film contributes is a plot that just doesn't work, along with unfunny burp 'n' toilet jokes.
In the movie even Scooby's nephew Scrappy Doo reaches obnoxious highs which eluded him in the cartoons.
If it wasn't for those meddling movie-makers, nothing would have come along to soil our cherished memories of the original adventures of Mystery Inc.
Scooby Doo, how could you?