{"id":37383,"date":"2019-09-15T02:23:29","date_gmt":"2019-09-15T02:23:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/uncategorized\/2019\/09\/15\/explainer-the-strange-connection-between-bobby-kennedys-assassination-and-scooby-doo\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T19:31:40","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T19:31:40","slug":"explainer-the-strange-connection-between-bobby-kennedys-assassination-and-scooby-doo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/news\/your-navy\/2019\/09\/15\/explainer-the-strange-connection-between-bobby-kennedys-assassination-and-scooby-doo\/","title":{"rendered":"Explainer: The strange connection between Bobby Kennedy\u2019s assassination and Scooby-Doo"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Scooby-Doo, one of the most enduring animated characters ever to emerge from U.S. television, celebrates his 50th birthday this month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Created by Hanna-Barbera Productions in 1969 for CBS Saturday morning, the original series \u201cScooby-Doo, Where are You!<\/a>\u201d premiered on Sept. 13, 1969, ran for two seasons and spun off 15 subsequent series.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The formula of four mystery-solving teenagers \u2013 Fred, Daphne, Velma and Shaggy along with the titular talking Great Dane \u2013 remained mostly intact as the group stumbled their way into pop-culture history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But as I explain in my forthcoming book on the franchise, Scooby-Doo\u2019s creation was no happy accident; it was a strategic move in response to cultural shifts and political exigencies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The genesis of the series was inextricably bound up with the societal upheavals of 1968 \u2013 in particular, the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Scooby-doo balloon rounds the corner of Broadway and 34th street during the 2006 Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City.\n(Air Force)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

More horror, better ratings<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the late 1960s, the television and film studio Hanna-Barbera was the largest producer of animated television programming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For years, Hanna-Barbera had created slapstick comedy cartoons \u2013 \u201cTom and Jerry<\/a>\u201d in the 1940s and 1950s, followed by television series like \u201cThe Yogi Bear Show<\/a>\u201d and \u201cThe Flintstones<\/a>.\u201d But by the 1960s, the most popular cartoons were those that capitalized on the secret agent craze<\/a>, the space race and the popularity of superheroes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In what would serve as a turning point in television animation, the three broadcast networks \u2013 CBS, ABC and NBC \u2013 launched nine new action-adventure cartoons on Saturday morning in the fall of 1966.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In particular, Hanna-Barbera\u2019s \u201cSpace Ghost and Dino Boy<\/a>\u201d and Filmation\u2019s \u201cThe New Adventures of Superman<\/a>\u201d were hits with kids. These and other action-adventure series featured non-stop action and violence, with the heroes working to defeat, even kill, a menace or monster by any means necessary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So for the 1967-1968 Saturday morning lineup, Hanna-Barbera supplied the networks with six new action-adventure cartoons, including \u201cThe Herculoids<\/a>\u201d and \u201cBirdman and the Galaxy Trio<\/a>.\u201d Gone were the days of funny human and animal hijinks; in their place: terror, peril, jeopardy and child endangerment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The networks, wrote The New York Times\u2019 Sam Blum<\/a>, \u201chad instructed its cartoon suppliers to turn out more of the same \u2013 in fact, to go \u2018stronger\u2019 \u2013 on the theory, which proved correct, that the more horror, the higher the Saturday morning ratings.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such horror generally took the form of \u201cfantasy violence\u201d \u2013 what Joe Barbera called<\/a> \u201cout-of-this-world hard action.\u201d The studio churned out these grim series \u201cnot out of choice,\u201d Barbera explained. \u201cIt\u2019s the only thing we can sell to the networks, and we have to stay in business.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Barbera\u2019s remarks highlighted the immense authority then held by the broadcast networks in dictating the content of Saturday morning television.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This tin lunch box was made by Aladdin industries in 1962. The Flintstones ran from 1960-1966 on ABC, and was the longest running prime-time cartoon until The Simpsons. (National Museum of American History)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In his book \u201cEntertainment, Education and the Hard Sell<\/a>,\u201d communication scholar Joseph Turow studied the first three decades of network children\u2019s programming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He notes the fading influence of government bodies and public pressure groups on children\u2019s programming in the mid-1960s \u2013 a shift that enabled the networks to serve their own commercial needs and those of their advertisers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The decline in regulation of children\u2019s television spurred criticism over violence, commercialism and the lack of diversity in children\u2019s programming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No doubt sparked by the over-saturation of action-adventure cartoons on Saturday morning, the nonprofit corporation National Association for Better Broadcasting declared that year\u2019s children\u2019s television programming in March 1968 to be the \u201cworst in the history of TV.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Then Sen. Robert F. Kennedy discusses school with young Ricky Taggart of 733 Gates Ave. on Feb. 4, 1966. (Dick DeMarsico\/World Telegram & Sun, now in the collections of the Library of Congress)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Political upheaval spurs moral panic<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cultural anxieties about the effects of media violence on children had increased significantly after March 1968, concurrent with television coverage of the Vietnam War, student protests and riots incited by the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As historian Charles Kaiser wrote in his book about that pivotal year<\/a>, the upheaval fueled moral crusades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor the first time since their invention, he wrote<\/a>, “televised pictures made the possibility of anarchy in America feel real.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it was the assassination of Robert. F. Kennedy in June 1968 that would exile action-adventure cartoons from the Saturday morning lineup for nearly a decade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kennedy\u2019s role as a father to 11 was intertwined with his political identity, and he had long championed causes that helped children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alongside his commitment to ending child hunger and poverty, he had, as attorney general, worked with the Federal Communications Commission to improve the \u201cvast wasteland<\/a>\u201d of children\u2019s television programming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy speaks to a crowd through a megaphone outside the Justice Department in 1963; sign for Congress of Racial Equality is prominently displayed. (Warren K. Leffler\/\nnow in the Library of Congress)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Just hours after Kennedy was shot, President Lyndon B. Johnson announced the appointment<\/a> of a National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the commission\u2019s formal findings wouldn\u2019t be shared until late 1969, demands for greater social control and regulation of media violence surged directly following Johnson\u2019s announcement, contributing to what sociologists call a \u201cmoral panic<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Media studies scholar Heather Hendershot explained<\/a> that even those critical of Kennedy\u2019s liberal causes supported these efforts; censoring television violence \u201cin his name\u201d for the good of children \u201cwas like a tribute.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Civic groups like the National Parent Teacher Association, which had been condemning violent cartoons at its last three conventions, were emboldened. The editors of McCall\u2019s, a popular women\u2019s magazine, provided steps for readers to pressure the broadcast networks to discontinue violent programming. And a Christian Science Monitor report in July of that year \u2013 which found 162 acts of violence or threats of violence on one Saturday morning alone \u2013 was widely circulated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The moral panic in the summer of 1968 caused a permanent change in the landscape of Saturday morning. The networks announced<\/a> that they would be turning away from science-fiction adventure and pivoting toward comedy for its cartoon programming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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April 8, 1968 photograph showing a soldier standing guard at 7th and N Street, N.W., Washington, D.C., with the ruins of buildings that were destroyed during the riots that followed the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. (Warren K. Leffler\/ Library of Congress)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

All of this paved the way for the creation of a softer, gentler animated hero: Scooby-Doo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the premiere of the 1968-1969 Saturday morning season was just around the corner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many episodes of new action-adventure series were still in various stages of production. Animation was a lengthy process, taking anywhere from four to six months to go from idea to airing. ABC, CBS and NBC stood to lose millions of dollars in licensing fees and advertising revenue by canceling a series before it even aired or before it finished its contracted run.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So in the fall of 1968 with many action-adventure cartoons still on the air, CBS and Hanna-Barbera began work on a series \u2013 one eventually titled \u201cScooby-Doo, Where are You!\u201d \u2013 for the 1969-1970 Saturday morning season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cScooby-Doo, Where are You!\u201d still supplies a dose of action and adventure. But the characters are never in real peril or face serious jeopardy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are no superheroes saving the world from aliens and monsters. Instead, a gang of goofy kids and their dog in a groovy van solve mysteries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The monsters they encounter are just humans in disguise.<\/p>\n\n\n\t