Jeepers, It's The Creeper

(Prelude: As of now, this is still the longest paper I've written in college. This was for my cinematography class and we had to analyze the style and choices that were made for a show or movie.  3/3/17)

    For the past couple of months, I have been given signs that I should watch the original Scooby Doo series, Scooby Doo, Where Are You?. The first sign was that my friend was wearing Scooby Doo pants a couple weeks ago. The next sign happened when my dad mentioned how the show had the one with the snow ghost and how whoever voiced him sounded funny. Those first two signs were in the same day and I didn't even tell him about the pants my friend wore. Scooby Doo must have just been in the air that day. I told him about how my friend wore the Scooby Doo pants and he thought it was weird how it was “in the air” too. Another one was when I was in the shower and the Scooby Doo theme song came into my head out of God knows where and for whatever reason. The last one was today when I was looking on Twitter with my friend and I saw this old video that's been going around lately of the original cast members of Scooby Doo, Where Are You? doing their character’s voice. I started talking about it with my friend and he watched them all too and we looked on the Internet for places to find the original run of Scooby Doo and my friend found a website that did just that. I finally got to relive my childhood a little bit and take a bite out of that nostalgia cookie. It is funny because I was originally going to write this paper on a Mad Men episode until I was smitten by the idea of reliving a Scooby Doo episode that is ingrained in my DNA at this point and they both take place during the 60s. First, I will tell you a little bit about how cartoons were made back then, how they used visual components, movement, depth, color, and rhythm. 

    I don't know a ton about animation and specifically not animation in the late 60s and early 70s. If I had more time I would research it and I probably will research it more when I have free time, but I will do my best explaining and applying what I do know about it in relation to some cinematographic elements. You need to know a little bit of background of animation in order to talk about the cinematography of it. The first thing you need to know about animation is what a “cel” means. A cel is short for celluloid and it is a transparent sheet that you draw or paint on to make animation. I know that at this time in animation they used a method called “limited animation” where they would mix and match parts in animation instead of drawing an entire new cel every time. It makes sense for efficiency and cost, but it didn't always make for the best quality of cartoon entertainment. I noticed many things just in this episode that were kind of sloppy work. The most noticeable example of this is when the gang are at the bank president’s house and the bank president, Mr. Carswell, has half of his left leg “gonesville” as Shaggy would put it when they are in a wide shot. I noticed this even when I was a kid, but there is another example that I noticed this time around because of what I know about animation. When it is a close up profile of Scooby Doo, you can see the a line where they kept his body the same, but just painted his mouth to move. Another example of this is how they used the same motion for the Creeper three different times. These are all examples of visual components that take you out of the visual story. It is odd though because some aspects of the animations are corners cut, but other aspects are unnecessary yet great. For example, the movement of the characters are great. Each character has a different and unique walk and run. Another thing they did well was use a close up of Velma explaining something with Scooby in the background looking confused and goofy, which was a good use of depth. They could have just used a blue background like they used before, but they did not and it helped the story along and also kept the kids interested by having Scooby on screen. One other way they kept kids interested was the use of colors. Like a lot of cartoons, advertisements, etc… all of the characters are colorful, a tactic that they have been using for decades before that and still use today. Also, the Mystery Machine is very fun and colorful as well. To connect back to the limited animation cinematography, they simply use a blue background with a little bit of texture for the Mystery Machine sequences to make it easier for the animators. Finally, I want to point out how they used rhythm very well because they walk a really fine line when it comes to genre. The show has elements of a sitcom, horror, and a kid’s cartoon. They have to spend more frames and pause longer on the jokes for the laugh track to come in. Another thing they do for rhythm is spend time on transitions of the outside of a scary house or the outside of the barn where they are having their school dance to get you acclimated to the scene they are about to deliver on. That is a hard balance to calibrate with all those genres.

    As the credits rolled I realized how many people were involved on that episode. They named a lot of people, but no “cinematographer” or “director of photography”, but I imagine someone like “the layout artist” has a similar job of a director of photography. None of the choices they make are right or wrong, but if it depends on what I want, I would want to keep everything the same. It is interesting watching animation knowing what I know now about animation and seeing it with new eyes in a way. The animators did it their own way with visual components, movement, depth, color, rhythm. Everything, good and bad, about Scooby Doo, Where Are You? is charming and I would not want them to change it.