From: Mark Evanier <[m--v--r] at [delphi.com]>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.misc
Subject: Re: Scooby Doo Question --- PLEASE HELP!
Date: Thu, 28 Jul 94 04:18:04 -0500

I think, if you watch them in chronological order -- and no Scooby-Doo
fan should watch out of sequence -- you'll find that the first season
that Scrappy-Doo was in (the only one I had anything to do with) was very
much in the Scooby tradition.
 
What basically had happened was that All Concerned (ABC, Hanna-Barbera)
agreed that Scooby's show had gotten stale...but it was still doing too
well to cancel.  So, starting that year, each season would commence with
a meeting where someone said something like, "Well, how do we make it
different this year?"  Perhaps that even started a year or two BEFORE
Scrappy came along.  But it had gotten to the point where a writer would
come in and tick off a list of twenty ideas for Scooby scripts and the
Story Editor would sit there and say, "We did that one, we did that one,
etc.."  So Scrappy was a way of generating some new business, new stories.
I wasn't wild about the character but he kept the show alive for a while.
(I realize I am giving you a serious answer to a silly question but that;s
the mood I'm in tonight...)
 
By the way, does anyone know what TV show SCOOBY was originally based on?
As you all know, THE FLINTSTONES was inspired by THE HONEYMOONERS, TOP
CAT by SGT. BILKO and THE JETSONS by the BLONDIE TV show.  SCOOBY-DOO
started life as a variation on another TV show but, by the time it got
on the air, the format had changed so much that the live-action source
was not too recognizable.  Anyone want to hazard a guess as to what it was?