Script for Episode One of The Apocalypse Reviewed: Scooby-Doo: Mystery Incorporated

Welcome to The Apocalypse Reviewed where we look at how American culture copes with climate change through stories about the end of the world. My name is E and, today we’re looking at the cartoon series Scooby Doo: Mystery Incorporated and the idea of how a timefulness mindset changes the way we process current events.

But let’s start with Scooby Doo.

Scooby Doo has been running in some form since the 1960’s, with each iteration a little different than the last. The original series Scooby Doo, Where Are You? was mostly focused on villains who were unmasked and revealed to be people. Other iterations, like the movie Scooby Doo: Zombie Island, which was released in 1995, or Scooby Doo and the Thirteen Ghosts, a series from the 1980’s, put more emphasis on the supernatural.

But the iteration that I want to talk about is Scooby Doo: Mystery Incorporated, which ran from 2013-2018. This show was one of the rare occasions where there was both a traditional mystery that unmasked a person and a supernatural story line. The episode by episode plots expose criminals around the town of Crystal Cove, where the mystery crew lives. But the multi-season overarching plot is about preventing the end of the world by the hand of the Evil Entity, hence it’s selection for this podcast. 

The show leans on Babylonian mythology for much of its supernatural plot; though, the show doesn’t actually stick that close the original myths. The Evil Entity, along with some other characters, are referred to as anunnaki, which the show defines as spirits from another dimension. The definitions from the mythological traditions of the ancient Sumerians, Akkadians, Assyrians, and Babylonians vary a bit. But they generally describe the anunnaki as deities. Their specific roles change a little over time and across cultures, but they are generally associated with humanity and the afterlife. And, sticking with the theme of Babylonian language, the apocalypse event in this show is referred to as Nibiru. In Babylonian astronomy, Nibiru referred to the equinox. In the show, it refers to a planetary alignment that weakens the barriers between the dimensions of the anunnaki and Earth and allows the anunnaki to cross over. Generally, the anunnaki sought to help humankind grow and thrive, but the Evil Entity wanted to destroy them and their planet instead.  Before the events of the show, the Evil Entity planned to cross dimensions during a Nibiru to sow destruction and chaos. He succeeded in getting to Earth, but the other anunnaki discovered his plans before he could enact them and trapped him in a crystal sarcophagus prison.

Sometime before the 1400 or 1500s, that sarcophagus ends up in Crystal Cove with the Evil Entity still in it. Throughout most of the show, the Evil Entity remains captured under Crystal Cove, causing a low-grade corruptive influence on the area, making residents commit crimes as ghosts, ghouls, and monsters, which explains why it’s such a common practice in this particular Scooby Doo universe. Additionally, the Evil Entity has the power to manipulate people, and he used this power to bring together groups of mystery solvers—always four people and an animal, and he referred to these groups as the “Children of Nibiru.”

His hope was that he could influence the Children of Nibiru to solve the mystery of planispheric disk, which would unlock his prison, and release him. And their animal mascot would be there for the Evil Entity to possess in the way that anunnaki do to roam the Earth.

Of course, none of these groups really know that any of this is happening as they solve the mystery of the planispheric disk, and only two groups later realize the larger mystery at play. In each group, the four humans share the traits of Fred, Daphne, Velma, and Shaggy, and each group has a talking animal. I’ll go through the timeline of the different groups in a moment but suffice it to say— there are eight different iterations of these mystery solvers and they’re spread out several centuries, and the story line of the Evil Entity starts even earlier than that.

The events discussed in the television show range from the Old or Middle kingdoms of Ancient Egypt to the colonization of the American continents to the Victorian era and all the way up to modern day, which was 2013-2018 while the show was being produced. And the actions of the “Children of Nibiru” during these different time periods, starting in the early 1500’s-ish, build upon each other and lead to Fred, Daphne, Velma, Shaggy, and Scooby solving both the mystery of the planispheric disk and the Evil Entity. So, you have this story line of detectives mitigating an apocalypse that stretches out for hundreds of years, which is so interesting.

I find in a lot apocalypse media the apocalypse event happens relatively fast. In a lot of zombie movies, the zombie apocalypse takes about a day to a couple weeks. Natural disaster apocalypses are a matter of days. In the tv series, Good Omens, the biblical apocalypse happens over the course of eleven years; though, the friendship of two of the characters stretches across six thousand years. The Legend of Korra and Scooby Doo: Mystery Incorporated are relatively unique in the idea of stopping an evil entity from unleashing chaos and destruction on the world by using the knowledge left behind from those who came before them, which is to say there’s an element of timefulness to this story.

Timefulness is a term coined by Marcia Bjornerud, an author and geology professor at Lawrence University. In her book, Timefulness, she talks specifically about the idea of having a timefulness mindset, which means thinking in respect to timescales far beyond you. And considering how the far-past impacts the present, and how your actions will impact the far-off-future. She references a few cultures, throughout the book, whose styles of thinking and decision making reflect the same principles of timefulness that she talked about. One example is the seventh-generation philosophy of the Haudenosaunee people. The Haudenosaunee, sometimes called the Iroquois or the League of Five Nations by the French and English, are a confederation of six nations (the Seneca, the Cayuga, the Oneida, the Onondaga, the Mohawk, and the Tuscarora).

To quote from their website, “the seventh-generation value takes into consideration those who are no yet born but who will inherit the world. In their decision-making chiefs consider how present-day decisions will impact their descendants. Nations are taught to respect the world in which they live as they are borrowing it from future generations. The Seventh-Generation value is especially important in terms of culture. Keeping cultural practices, languages, and ceremonies alive is essential if those to come are to continue the practice of Haudenosaunee culture.” Obviously, this principle is more all-encompassing and culturally-based than the idea of timefulness, but they both share the active appreciation and consideration for timelines that extend beyond a single person or single generation.

Humans often struggle to imagine large numbers. We can picture 10 m&m’s, but try to picture 10,000 or 100,000 m&m’s and you’ll struggle. The same thing happens with time. We can generally imagine how things will be like in 10 minutes or 10 days. When we start to plan out to 10 years, things get fuzzier. 100 years can be a lifetime. Go out to 1,000 or 10,000 years and that becomes particularly hard to picture. The art of imagining timelines like that often needs to be taught, either culturally like it is for the Haudenosaunee, or through different academic disciplines like history or geology.

Personally, I started to understand timefulness through studying geology and specifically geologic time. The geologic timescale stretches out over 4.56 billion years. For about a quarter of the Earth’s existence life didn’t exist. It took about 2.1 billion years before photosynthesis began adding more and more oxygen to the atmosphere. The ancestors of most major animal phyla came from the Cambrian explosion about half a billion (or specifically 541 million years ago). Dinosaurs were around for about 177-167 million years, and they’ve only been extinct for 66 million years. Humans, homo sapiens, have been around for less than a million years.

I think about this a lot when it comes to climate change and mass extinction, both of which we’re currently living through. Most mass extinction events have been caused by climate change. Sometimes it’s warming, other times cooling. There are mass extinction events that unfolded over the course of 12 million years.

We can imagine what will happen in our lifetime, but struggle with the time that goes beyond that and how our actions will impact the future. And what we also fail to realize is how long, the decades almost centuries, of work that was done to establish the climate situation that we’re in now. While 150 years is very, very little in geologic time, it’s a significant amount on other timelines. It out-scales a human life. 150 years could span 5 or 6 generations. Climate change is a long-term disaster that requires sustained long-term effort to undo the worst effects. In the past it’s unfolded over millions of years, now it’s unfolding over hundreds. This pace is unprecedented and often people forget that.

The quickness of the apocalypse narratives in media, if we read modern day apocalypse narratives as stories coping with the culture’s anxiety of climate change, which I do, then these stories indicate a failure to understand this timefulness aspect of climate change. Instead, short-term apocalypses and ones that start at the drop of a dime, represent the shorter-term emergencies that Western culture more readily deals with (like the immediate aftermath of a natural disaster) rather than a long-term emergency like climate change.

So, what I find appealing about Scooby Doo: Mystery Incorporated is this attention to time. The series showcases eight different mystery solving crews, who were all brought together and manipulated by the Evil Entity, and who are working to put together the planispheric disk. Our favorite meddling kids are consistently building upon the work done by the groups that came before them, figuring out how to put together the planispheric disk, but also learning who the Evil Entity is and how to destroy him for good.

And these mystery solving groups start pretty far back. The first one is the “Hunters of Secrets,” a group of Mesoamerican teenagers, and their talking jaguar, Spot. They are the first ones to assemble the planispheric disk and figure out how to destroy the Evil Entity. They’re stopped short by a conquistador, placing them sometime in the 1500’s.

Next we have the Fraternitas Mysteriym and their donkey Porto, a group of friars that lived in the late 1500s. 

After them were the Alianzna Misterio and their skunk El Fushi. They were a group of masked Mexican mystery solvers. When they lived is pretty unclear, but I’d hazard sometime in the mid 1700s to the early 1800s based on their clothing. In particular the masks that they wear are red, Zorro style masks. Zorro is a character, who first appeared in a 1919 novel by Johnston McCully, and Zorro’s stories take place between 1769-1821. So, I think that the inclusion of the masks in the character designs of this mystery solving group are meant to call back to that time period.

Then we have the Mystery Gang, which was comprised of four cowgirls and their bull Tiny. Cowboys and cowgirls are generally associated with the mid-1800’s in America, so I’d put them around that time period.

Then in the 1880s-1910s you have the Benevolent Lodge of Mystery and their orangutan Mr. Peaches.

Then in the 1930s, is the Mystery Fellowship comprised of a rich Crystal Cove family and their cat Whiskers.

Following them is the original Mystery Incorporated who were active in the 1980’s and were from Crystal Cove. They play adult characters in the series, both helping and sabotaging the Second Mystery Incorporated throughout the series.

The Second Mystery Incorporated being comprised the four meddling kids we know and love: Fred, Daphne, Velma, Shaggy, and Scooby Doo, who are working in the present day (2013-2018) to figure out the mystery of Crystal Cove.

We see throughout the show how the different teams provide different information to the second mystery incorporated. They appeared as ghosts to provide clues and warnings. Velma’s research of the “Hunters of Secrets” group is what leads her to understand how to destroy the Evil Entity. The lost locket of the original mystery incorporated is what gets them interested in the mystery in the first place. In other words, the second mystery incorporated wouldn’t have put together the mystery if the people before them hadn’t figured out some of the clues beforehand and then left more clues in their wake.        

But what does any of this mean in terms of coping with climate change? How does the averting of this apocalypse provide the modern-day viewer relief? And it’s simple really. This show explores the importance of connection to history, to place, and to other people. The second mystery incorporated wouldn’t be able to put together the clues if they people before them hadn’t left some behind. They would have never gotten involved in the mystery if they hadn’t known their town and their landscape as well as they do, given that the clues are hidden all around Crystal Cove. And they wouldn’t defeat the Evil Entity without the support of one another.  

It’s cheesy, I know. But mental health experts who research the effects of climate change on mental health, say that connecting with place and community help build resilience. Understanding how both the geologic and human past impact the present is part of how we connect with the places we live and the communities we engage with. And having those connections to place and people gives us a feeling of control, increased understanding, and sense of belonging, which, in turn, helps us better respond to adversity.

In the How to Save a Planet podcast, Christine Nieves Rodriquez, a writer from Puerto Rico, talked about how her community, following Hurricane Maria, started working together to understand what resources they had across their region. They started bringing a map to community gatherings so that people could add information that would be useful in the event of another hurricane. Because the pooling of resources and connection within communities is how we survive things like climate change. In other words, if you’re feeling overwhelmed by climate change, 3 good friends, a talking dog, a van, and a natural curiosity about the landscape and history around you is not a bad place to start. And if you don’t want to be a meddling kid, then start by engaging with your community.  Drop some homemade cookies off at your neighbor’s front door with a note that you’re there if they ever need something. Because in the event of a disaster, your neighbors are likely going to be the first ones to check on you to see if you’re okay.

And start thinking with a timefulness mindset. Consider how your decisions now will impact you a decade later. As Bjornerud puts it, “If widely adopted, an attitude of timefulness could transform our relationship with nature, our fellow humans, and ourselves. Recognizing that our personal and cultural stories have always been embedded in larger, longer—and still elapsing—Earth stories might save us from environmental hubris. We might learn to place less value on novelty and disruption and [instead] develop a respect for durability and resilience.” End quote.

And the process of thinking in a timefulness mindset might even help us build our own resiliency in the face of climate adversity. Just like the mystery crew stood in the face of the apocalypse, knowing that they were only one group in a long line of people who have tried to solve and stop this same mystery.

I give the apocalypse of Scooby Doo: Mystery Incorporated 3 Scooby snacks out of 5.

This podcast was written and produced by me, E Pellegrino, and edited by Amanda Saladino and Rachel Britton. The music is by 126ers and JHS Records.  If you’d like to support this podcast, become a patron at Patreon.com/theapocalypsereviewed. There are lots of fun perks like livestreams, apocalyptic postcards from yours’ truly, and annotated transcripts with jokes and notes about science, mental health, my writing process, and the apocalypse media I consume. Again that’s Patreon.com/theapocalypsereviewed and un-annotated transcripts can be found at my website elizabethpellegrino.com.

And a quick disclaimer before I go. If you are considering watching this show after listening to this podcast, please be aware that there are jokes, visible language, and tropes that are racist, anti-indigenous, xenophobic, sexist and that make fun of extremely unhealthy relationships. I say all this so that, if you do start watching this show you aren’t caught off guard like I was. I definitely think that there are good things to take from this show, but it’s also really important to be critical of the media that we consume. For other triggers, please search for “Scooby Doo: Mystery Incorporated” on Doesthedogdie.com

Thanks for listening. See you for the next apocalypse, until then, take care.