Would You Do it for a Scooby Snack?: Shadow Encounters in the Saturday Morning Psyche of Scobby-Doo

By Craig Titley

“Saturday morning cartoons are regarded by most American adults over the age of forty as having marginally more redeeming social value than hard-core pornography.”

Thus begins Timothy and Kevin Burke’s examination of cartoon culture, Saturday Morning Fever (1). Yet despite this commonly held PTA watchdog sentiment, beginning in the mid-1960’s kids all across America, myself included, shared a weekly ritual of waking up at the crack of dawn, grabbing a box of sugar-coated cereal, sitting in front of the television set (the closer the better), and watching cheap, and often badly drawn, cartoons for six straight hours. Saturday morning became a “generational rite of passage for the children who consumed it, a goldmine of in-jokes and cultural reference points” (Burke 8). For nearly everyone else “‘Saturday Morning’ has long served as a shorthand epithet for culture judged to be juvenile, low-quality, moronic, mind-numbing, or cut-rate” (Burke 1). Too bad for them. And too bad for all those who were unwilling or unable to enter the Saturday Morning temple and discover the vast treasures buried therein.

“One of the reasons we like to go to movies and plays,” according to Joseph L. Henderson, “is that they also give us the psychic exercise that our dreaming life gives, only more so” (73). And even more so still: cartoons. With their disregard for the rules and laws of the physical world, cartoons truly are dream-like in their very nature. And as with dreams, they can offer glimpses into the inner workings of the psyche and into the depths of the unconscious. Those that have endured have endured for a reason: they have a resonance which points to a deeper well filled with mythical and psychological truth.

The most enduring Saturday morning cartoon (ergo, in my opinion, the one with the deepest well of truth) is Scooby-Doo. Debuting as Scooby-Doo Where Are You! in 1969 with an 11.6 rating “that had never been equaled in Saturday morning television” (LoCicero 30), Scooby-Doo in its various incarnations ran until 1991 “making it the longest running [Saturday morning] cartoon in history” (LoCicero 28). Since then Scooby-Doo has remained in syndication and has spawned a merchandising empire as well as two successful live-action feature films (the first of which was written by your most humble author). The reason Scooby-Doo continues to captivate the attention of children, stoned college students, and nostalgic adults is because it resonates with a basic psychic truth. Beneath the vibrant colors, the sight gags, the Scooby-Snacks, and the Mystery Machine, lies the key to understanding and confronting our personal shadows.
The shadow, according to Jung “represents first and foremost the personal unconscious” (93). It “personifies everything that the subject refuses to acknowledge about himself and yet is always thrusting itself upon him directly or indirectly--for instance, inferior traits of character and other incompatible tendencies” (221). Henderson calls this personal shadow “self doubt” (70).

Robert Bly calls it the “the long bag we drag behind us” filled with “so many of our angers, spontaneities, hungers, enthusiasms, our rowdy and unattractive parts” (24).

Hunger? Self doubt? Inferior traits of character? In the cartoon world of Scooby-Doo, these descriptions clearly point to the lazy, cowardly, gluttonous duo of Shaggy and his inseparable Great Dane sidekick, Scooby-Doo. However, before we dive much deeper into the animated psychic “ink” well of the Scooby-Doo shadow world, we must first review all the characters and the machinations of the standard Scooby-Doo mystery/plot.

Originally slated with the very Jungian-sounding title “House Of Mystery” (Barbera 170), Scooby-Doo Where Are you!, as it was re-titled, features a cast of five: four teenagers -- Fred, Daphne, Velma, Shaggy -- and Shaggy’s dog Scooby-Doo. In each episode the gang, usually in Fred’s van “The Mystery Machine,” ventures from the safety of their Malt Shop world into the great unknown where they encounter a spooky ghost or monster. After splitting up to solve the mystery -- Fred, Velma, and Daphne on one team; Shaggy and Scooby on the other -- the gang reunites and the monster is unmasked (usually in spite of a best laid plan run amuck) and revealed to be an all too human “local” who was trying to scare people away from some secret treasure. And, of course, he would have gotten away from it if it weren’t for those meddling kids...and their dog.

Although on the animated surface the show stars a cast of five, when the depths are sounded we find only one psyche. When Shaggy and Scooby are considered as one inseparable entity (as their similar names and dispositions seem to suggest), the “meddling kids and their dog” become a quaternity that, according to Jung, is the symbol of “psychic wholeness” (Edinger 79). But even more specifically, the gang is a quaternity composed of a trinity plus one: the three super-sleuths Fred, Velma, and Daphne plus the super-sloth Shaggy/Scooby.

“Trinitarian symbols [...],” according to Edinger, “imply growth, development and movement in time. They surround themselves with dynamic rather than static associations” (182). This would clearly be the obsessive mystery-solving trio of Fred, Daphne, and Velma. On the other hand, “[q]uaternity, mandala images emerge in time of psychic turmoil and convey a sense of stability and rest” (Edinger 182). This accurately describes the often petrified behavior of the fourth entity, Shaggy/Scooby. Jung himself “tended in most cases to interpret trinitarian images as incomplete or amputated quaternities” (Edinger 179).

Furthermore, Edinger notes that Jung continually “returns to the alchemical question: ‘Three are here but where is the fourth?’” (189). And now we can grasp the deeper psychic truth in the show’s title. Scooby-Doo, where are you, indeed? The three sleuths are incomplete without their Shaggy/Scooby fourth.
The “psyche of every individual,” according to Jolande Jacobi’s examination of Jungian theory, “develops into a totality comprising such different components as the ego, the unconscious, the persona, the shadow, etc.” (58). Likewise, Fred, Daphne, Velma, and Shaggy/Scooby represent parts of a psychic totality. Their container, the mysterious psyche, is represented in the cartoon by “The Mystery Machine,” the gang’s sole means of transportation. Of the four interacting psychic parts, the relationship between Fred and Shaggy/Scooby provides the key to understanding the ego and its relationship with the unconscious and the shadow.

Fred (Freud?), the group’s leader and the literal driving force inside the Mystery Machine, is the ego or ego-complex, “the center of the field of consciousness” (Jung 213). He is strong, brave, wise, and is usually the first to say, “Well, gang, looks like we’ve got ourselves another mystery to solve.” Like its animated representative Fred, “when the ego wants something, nothing should be capable of interfering. The ego would thus be assured of an impregnable position, the steadfastness of a superman or the sublimity of a perfect sage” (Jung 123). And it’s got a groovy set of wheels to go with it.

Fred, with his superman traits and all-American good looks, also serves another psychic role: the persona. “If there is such an entity as an ego concept [...],” claims Henderson, “the outer aspect of it is a persona, that is, how we present ourselves to the world” (71). Jung refers to the persona as “a kind of mask, designed on the one hand to make a definite impression upon others, and, on the other, to conceal the true nature of the individual.” Furthermore, this “division on consciousness into two figures [...] is bound to have repercussions on the unconscious” (94).

Enter Shaggy/Scooby.

“The opposite of the persona is our shadow” (Henderson 71), and in the world of Scooby-Doo, the aptly named Shaggy and his hairy animal counterpart Scooby-Doo are the opposite of the Fred persona. This hairy dog/man is slovenly, gluttonous, fearful, primal, and instinct driven. It is the bag that Fred is always dragging behind.

However, at the beginning of each Scooby-Doo episode Shaggy/Scooby is not yet recognized by Fred and the gang as the shadow of the Scooby-Doo psyche. They are a psychic agency “whose deepest nature is still unfathomed” (Jung qtd. in Jacobi 14). Instead the Shaggy/Scooby presence is simply tolerated as a bothersome, bumbling tagalong. Thus, in Jungian terms, Shaggy/Scooby initially appears as a complex reflecting the shadow archetype that lurks in the unconscious. Not until the Mystery Machine psyche encounters, unmasks, and, in the words of Robert Bly, “eats” the unconscious shadow will the “Fredian” ego-complex recognize and accept Shaggy/Scooby as the shadow-side of its psyche.

The “seminal function” of a complex is to provide a “life-renewing and life-promoting source” that serves to “raise the contents of the unconscious to consciousness and mobilize the formative powers of consciousness” (Jacobi 29). Jung asserts that complexes “provide the royal road to the unconscious” (Jacobi 6). And what better guide to the unconscious than a complex in the form of a hairy dog-man. Symbologists Jean Chevalier and Alain Greenbrant insist, “[t]here cannot be a mythology which does not associate a dog [...] with death, Hell, the underworld or with those invisible realms ruled by the dieties of Earth or Moon” (296). In other words: the unconscious. Hence it is the dog-man Shaggy/Scooby who is always first to spot the shadow monster that in turn mobilizes the detective powers of Fred, Daphne, and Velma and sends them into the realm of the unconscious.

The unconscious in the world of Scooby-Doo takes many forms: a museum filled with ancient artifacts, a graveyard of sunken ships, the ocean depths, a haunted castle filled with secret passages and hidden rooms, an abandoned mine shaft. Almost always it is shrouded in fog. And without fail, it is “haunted.” The daemons or demons that haunt the Scooby-Doo unconscious are often of a mythic, chthonic form: a black knights, an ape, a caveman, a spacemen, a zombie, a witch, even the ghost of Dr. Jekyll’s Mr. Hyde. These are the shadow archetypes that manifest as the Shaggy/Scooby complex.

Once the shadow form has been encountered in the unconscious, the quaternity splits and remains split until the shadow has been tagged and bagged. The trio of Fred, Velma, and Daphne break away to solve the mystery and to set a trap for the shadow monster--which they still interpret as a foreign entity--while the “splinter psyche,” Shaggy/ Scooby, searches for food and tries to stay out of harm’s way.

In the Scooby-Doo psyche it is the “Fredian” ego-complex that sets the trap for the shadow, but it is always Shaggy/Scooby that accidentally springs it in the truest sense of a Freudian slip. This “happy accident” brings the quaternity back together into a state of psychic wholeness that allows for the capture and unmasking of the shadow. As Robert Bly puts it, “[t]he image of the Wild Man [shaggy dog-man] describes a state of soul that allows shadow material to return slowly in such a way that it doesn’t damage the ego” (Bly 53). Because ultimately, the shadow “must be accepted. Only then can wholeness of personality be approached” (Edinger 142). If the contents of the personal shadow are resisted, as they are at the beginning of every Scooby-Doo episode, then the danger is that they will be projected into the outside world, changing that world “into the replica of one’s own unknown face” (Jung 92).

In the animated world of the Scooby-Doo world the shadow figure is often, quite literally, a projection. Many of the ghostly, shadow images and supernatural phenomenon encountered by the Scooby-Doo gang where created, within the show’s animated “reality,” by a movie projector. Robert Bly, masterfully connects the literal and figurative projectors/projections in a way that would make Velma proud:

Certain figures who have been rolled up inside a can, doubly invisible by being partially “developed” and by being kept always in the dark, exist during the day only as pale images on a thin grey strip of film. When a certain light is ignited in the back of our heads, ghostly pictures appear on a wall in front of us. [...] Our psyches then are natural projection machines. (21)

When the projector in the Scooby-Doo world is turned off and the mask is finally removed, the shadow is revealed to have an all-to-human face. It is one of us, and a part of us.

Jacobi states that a “kinship appears between the concepts of the complex and the archetype; the relation between the two proves to be complementary and reciprocal” (30). The common ground shared by the Shaggy/Scooby complex and the complimentary shadow haunting the unconscious is elucidated by the motive of the unmasked shadow: greed. Almost every Scooby-Doo mystery involves someone trying to scare people away from a secret treasure: jewels, gold coins, money, artifacts. Just as Shaggy/Scooby has an insatiable appetite for food and Scooby Snacks, the shadow monster always has an insatiable appetite for wealth. Symbolically, these treasures suggest soul and enlightenment. The shadow-side of the Scooby-Doo psyche may very well be an insatiable lust for life.

Yet this shadow-side, easily witnessed in Shaggy/Scooby, remains undetected or ignored by the ego-complex until its encounter with the projection in the unconscious. The final stage of this shadow encounter, according to Bly, “amounts to the state of mind in which we retrieve [those things that have been forced into our bags] and the whole process of retrieval could be called eating the shadow” (38). It therefore should come as no surprise that eating and consumption play such a big role in the world of Scooby-Doo. For “eating the shadow,” or honoring the psyche’s shadow material, is the goal of the entire journey. By doing so, access is gained to the energy “once unavailable to us” (Bly 25). The energy of, say, one Scooby Snack? Or maybe two?

The lessons learned from cartoons, absorbed consciously and unconsciously during years of animated Saturday Morning fever dreams, have resonated for many, myself included, throughout the years. Although on the surface, Scooby-Doo may appear to be about nothing more than four kids, a dog, and their spooky mystery-solving adventures, it is really about one psyche and the solving of a universal mystery: the mystery of the personal shadow.

Zoinks!

Appendix I
Scooby-Doo Where Are You! Season One:
Images of the Unconscious (IU) and Shadow Manifestations (SM)

Episode 1.1 “What a Night for a Knight”
IU: Museum
SM: The Black Knight

Episode 1.2 “Hassel in the Castle”

IU: Haunted Castle on an Isolated island
SM: Ghost

Episode 1.3 “A Clue for Scooby-Doo”

IU: Ocean/Graveyard of Ships
SM: Glowing Ghost Diver

Episode 1.4 “Mine Your Own Business”

IU: Ghost Town/Abandoned Mine
SM: Ghost of The Miner Forty-Niner

Episode 1.5 “Decoy for a Dognapper”

IU: Pueblo Indian Village
SM: Indian Spirit

Episode 1.6 “What the Hex Going On?”

IU: Old Kingston Mansion and Mausoleum
SM: Ghost of Elias Kingston

Episode 1.7 “Never Ape and Ape Man”

IU: Mountain Movie Set/”Rigged” Mansion Set
SM: The Ape Man of Forbidden Mountain

Episode 1.8 “Foul Play In Funland”

IU: Abandoned Amusement Park
SM: Robot Man

Episode 1.9 “The Backstage Rage”

IU: Strand Theater/Backstage and Understage
SM: Phantom Puppeteer

Episode 1.10 “Bedlam in the Bigtop”

IU: Circus
SM: Ghost Clown

Episode 1.11 “A Gaggle of Galloping Ghosts”

IU: Frankencastle
SM: Werewolf, Vampire, Frankenmonster

Episode 1.12 “Scooby-Doo and a Mummy Too”

IU: Archeology Building/Egyptian Museum
SM: Mummy of Anka

Episode 1.13 “Which Witch is Which?”

IU: Swamp’s End
SM: Zombie and Witch

Episode 1.14 “Spooky Space Kook”

IU: Abandoned Airfield
SM: Spaceman From Another World

Episode 1.15 “Go Away Ghost Ship”

IU: High Seas Fog Bank/Ghost Ship
SM: Ghost of Redbeard the Pirate

Episode 1.16 “A Night of Fright is No Delight”

IU: Haunted Island Mansion
SM: The Phantom Shadow

Episode 1.17 “That’s Snow Ghost”

IU: Isolated Mountain Lodge
SM: Yeti Snow Ghost

Works Cited

Adams, Michael Vannoy. The Mythological Unconscious. New York: Karnac, 2001.

Barbera, Joseph. My Life in ‘Toons. Atlanta: Turner Publishing, 1994.

Bly, Robert. A Little Book on the Human Shadow. Ed. William Booth. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1988.

Burke, Timothy and Kevin Burke. Saturday Morning Fever: Growing Up with Cartoon Culture. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 1999.

Chevalier, Jean and Alain Gheerbrant. The Penguin Dictionary of Symbols. Trans. John Buchanan-Brown. London: Penguin, 1994.

Edinger, Edward F. Ego and Archetype. Boston: Shambhala, 1992.

Henderson, Joseph L. “Shadow and Self.” Shadow and Self: Selected Papers in Analytical Psychology. Wilmette, IL: Chiron, 1990. 63-99.

Jacobi, Jolande. Complex/Archetype/Symbol in the Psychology of C.G. Jung. Trans. Ralph Manheim. Bollingen Ser. 57. Princeton: Princeton UP. 1959.

Jung, C.G. The Essential Jung. Ed. Anthony Storr. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1983.

LoCicero, Joe. Scooby-Doo: Character Reference Guide Part 1. Ed. Mark Hughes. Hollywood: Hanna-Barbera Classics, 1995.

Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!: The Complete 1st and 2nd Seasons. Hanna-Barbera Golden Collection. Warner Home Video, 2003.

Posted by john at June 7, 2006 03:24 PM