Glenda never listen to the adults, and
Glenda Williams Paper 3 Final Draft T/T 9:10 1980’s and Class The issue of age class in America is portrayed in “A Pup Named Scooby Doo.
” The kids on the show are always being told to let the grown up’s handle the bad guys, even though the kids are the ones who always find and unmask the bad guys. They may just be children, but that doesn’t stop them from always getting the bad guy. In almost every episode you will hear some adult, telling the kid’s to either get out or go somewhere else, to leave it to the adults. The kids however never listen to the adults, and keep on with their investigation; the adults are really clueless in the show.The gang is usually wrong at first, they falsely accuse someone innocent, but after a chase by the monster. Then some of Velma’s excellent detective work they get the bad guy. The villain then say’s something along the lines of “I would have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for those kids and their dog.
” By this point we know that the adults were wrong, that without the gangs work the villain would still be on the loose. The adults never admit that they were wrong, which in my opinion is wrong; credit is due, where credit is due. In the show there are five main characters.
All five have their own little business called “The Scooby Doo Detection Agency. ” The first character is Scooby-Doo he is the joker of the show, he also loves food, and when in a situation is the first to hide. Scooby lives with Shaggy, who is also a glutton for food, and whose dad is a police officer. Then there is Fred, who is the leader of the gang, he also is a know it all and seems to always blame the neighborhood bully for anything that goes wrong. Velma is the brain of the group; she is the first to solve the mystery and is always looking for clues.
Finally there is Daphne, she hates getting dirty, she is self-centered, and her family is rich. In the episode “A Bicycle Built for Boo” has an excellent support of my thesis. The episode starts out with Scooby going outside to roll Shaggy’s newspapers for his route. As he is doing that, a monster appears who scares Scooby while he is cowering in fear the monster steals Shaggys bike. The gang then gets together in their headquarters, which is located behind Shaggys house. The gang then has Scooby sniff out the trail and it leads them to the printing press, the editor of the paper was very upset that they were there.The editor Mr.
Conrad yells at them to leave, and says a printing place is no place for kids. Before they leave Scooby sniffs out a clue which is green ink for the press, Scooby seems to be allergic he then knocks over the median. The woman is posing as median, which in reality is part of the treasure department. When she was faking to channel the monster she told them to get out. I believe this was her attempt not to have children involved in her investigation, even though the kids beat her to the punch, and caught the villain. She also got locked in a closet by the monster and the kids rescued her.The monster turns out to be the paper’s editor in disguise, trying to counterfeit money.
“The Fonz and Laverne and Shirley retained their dignity in their everyday struggles against class biases” (Butsch). This quote from one of my sources, states that all television shows have their inner struggles. The second episode I watched was “The Sludge Monster from the Earth Core.
” The show starts out with Shaggy and Scooby in the living room when a breaking report comes on the Television. The news reports that the bank has been robbed. Scooby and Shaggy do not seem so concerned about it and say good night.
When Scooby goes to his dog house he finds the monster. He runs inside the main house and tells shaggy what he seen, they then call a meeting of the Detective agency. He then tells the rest of the gang that he seen a monster, they do not believe him and think he is just tired or say that there is no such thing as monsters.
It seems that they do the same thing to Scooby, which the adults do to them. The gang then goes in and investigates when they rest of them finally meet the monster; they then realize that Scooby really did see a monster.They run out and run right into Shaggy’s dad, who is a police officer, he tell the kids to go inside, that it is too dangerous for them.
His dad also does not believe them when they tell him that there is a monster in Scooby’s dog house. The gang goes back in Scooby’s doghouse and finds an underground tunnel that leads to the bank. While they were investigated at the bank the door is unlocked and the bank manager comes in and yells at them for being there. Which it turns out that he is in fact the one stealing the money from the bank.Television shows in the 1980’s that kids related to shows with kids on them, they could probably relate to the characters issues (Mares). Which in fact may be why the kids are discriminated against on the show, kids can relate to that.
In every episode there is always a bad guy, and the kids always are the one to catch them, in one way or another. No matter how many times the kids catch the villains, the adults always tell them to stay out of it. The Show displays how kids are discriminated against, just because they are young. There is also ageism in there group, when they do not believe each other.The gang to me seems to be able to hold their own, plus some. The underline reason for this as a television show is that it is appealing to the audience.
The audience can also relate to this, children can easily relate this, no matter what year it is. I came to this theory about the show from watching the episodes very closely, kids are just not treated with the respect that they should have. Every time an adult is on the screen they are saying something that is against the kids, either telling them to leave or it’s not safe for them. There is no adult on the show that is ever okay with the kids doing their investigation.
It leads you to the conclusion that they think that kids can’t do what adults can do. However the kids do it better than the adults. No matter what the kids seem to do the adults never give them the respect they deserve, or if they do it isn’t for long. Butsch, Richard. “Social Class and Television”. Museum TV. N.
D. The museum of Broadcast Communications. October 19, 2011 Mares, Marie-Louise. “The Multiple Meanings of Age for Television Content Preferences”. International Communication Association.
2009. 511-515. Communication and mass media complete. Conference. October 19, 2011.
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