“… and I would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for you meddling kids!”
— Every Scooby Doo Villain, ever
Before Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, and 24-hour round-the-clock kids’ programming, we Boomer and Gen X kids had to rely on Saturday morning cartoons for our entertainment needs. Pretty much anyone over a certain age remembers getting up early every Saturday morning to sit in our pajamas in front of the TV, chowing down on Sugar-Frosted Cocoa Bombs and watching hour after hour of poorly animated cartoons.
One of the most beloved and enduring of those crappy cartoons is Hanna-Barbera’s Scooby Doo franchise. Did you know there have been 16 different Scooby Doo shows?
Scooby and the Gang – Old School
From the original Scooby Doo, Where Are You? (1969-70) to Scooby Doo! Mystery Incorporated (2010-13), a number of different variations on the theme have been tried – my personal favorite is The 13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo (1984) with guest star Vincent Price. Other incarnations included The New Scooby Doo Movies (1972-73), where the Gang solves mysteries with the assistance of various washed-up Hollywood celebrities like Don Knotts and Sandy Duncan.
Then there are the series like The Scooby and Scrappy Doo Puppy Hour (1982-83) that introduce (not very successfully) other less talented members of the Doo family like the annoying Scrappy Doo, Yabba Doo (Scooby’s cowboy brother), and perhaps worst of all, his cousin Scooby Dum.
Yes, most of these shows are as bad as they sound.
Yet regardless of quality, Scooby Doo is a venerable pop-culture icon that has persisted and evolved from the 60s all the way into the direct-to-video/streaming era.
*****
If you remember Scooby and his teen detective companions, Meddling Kids, author Edgar Cantero’s second English-language novel, is going to seem familiar.
Two boys, two girls, and a large, enthusiastic dog driving around in a crazy vehicle, solving mysteries. Masked monsters that turn out to be mean old white guys. Chase scenes through shadowy woods and spooky haunted mansions. Elaborate Rube-Goldberg-type traps to catch the villain. It’s all there.
But have you ever wondered what became of Scooby, Fred, Daphne, Velma, and Shaggy after they solved their last mystery? In Meddling Kids, Cantero’s group of pre-teen detectives, now grown up, return to the scene of their greatest case… and stumble into the world of HP Lovecraft.
The pre-teens of the Blyton Summer Detective Club – Andy, Kerri, Nate, and Peter – gathered each summer at Kerri’s aunt’s house to unravel mysterious local happenings. When they solved their biggest case ever in the summer of 1977, they were the talk of Blyton Hills and even made headlines in the local paper.
Just as in all the Scooby Doo mysteries, the case of the Sleepy Lake Monster turned out to be just an old dude in a mask, trying to scare away rival treasure hunters. But over a decade later, the kids are still haunted by the horrible things they saw in the abandoned Deboen mansion… things that couldn’t be explained by rubber masks and sound effects.
Now thirteen years have passed, and the Meddling Kids aren’t kids anymore. All of them are troubled twenty-somethings, haunted by the events of that fateful summer. Andy’s an escaped felon, wanted in multiple states. Kerry is tending bar in New York, using alcohol to keep her nightmares at bay. Nate has been in and out of mental hospitals in New England. Even Peter, who later became a rising star in Hollywood, was unable to escape the burdens of the past and took his own life. (Don’t worry, he’s still part of the story, as his ghost tags along as part of Nate’s hallucinations.)
And now something is calling them back to Blyton Hills to take care of some unfinished business.
Before you can say “Ruh Roh,” the survivors (plus one ghost and a new dog) reunite for an epic cross-country road trip, returning to the scene of the mystery. There they hope to find closure and put to rest the nightmare that’s been pursuing them for over a decade.
Sadly, Blyton Hills isn’t what it used to be. Most of the residents have moved away, and many buildings and homes are abandoned.
Could it have something to do with the town’s persisting monster problem? Is it a diabolical plot by a giant evil corporation? Or is it actually something authentically supernatural this time?
Unlike the Scooby Doo shows, where mysteries are always solved in under an hour (barely mussing Daphne’s perfect hair or wrinkling Fred’s unfathomable ascot), there’s real danger afoot. Maybe even apocalyptic-level danger.
Though the Scooby Doo villains were no match for the cunning detective work of Fred, Daphne, Velma, and Shaggy, the villain the Blyton Hills kids face is competent, genre savvy, and just as adept with pop-culture repartee as our sleuths.
The malevolent force behind the mystery of Sleepy Lake is much more powerful and manipulative, with something a lot more sinister in mind than driving off rival real estate investors or scaring competitors away from a lost treasure. This villain knows how to leverage the kids’ fears and emotional scars, but this time the stakes are literally life and death.
And it’s not just the head villain who is a threat to the group… again, HP Lovecraft showed up at the party this time.
While few residents of Blyton Hills remain, there are hidden hordes of vicious killer fish people (The Shadow Over Innsmouth, anybody?)… and something much darker – and much, much larger – lurking deep within the lake.
What will happen to our post-adolescent detectives when they come up against the real thing?
Meddling Kids is nirvana for the nostalgic pop-culture enthusiast, with more pop-culture references and fourth-wall-breaking snark than you can shake a Necronomicon at. Not just Scooby Doo references (my favorite is the ”Zoinx River”) and Lovecraft (including Miskatonic University, Arkham, and fish people) but hints of the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew mysteries, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and more.
The name of the town itself, Blyton Hills, is borrowed from Enid Blyton, author of the Famous Five and Secret Seven kid detective novels. It even touches on Stephen King’s It – a group of kids reuniting as adults to fight a monster they thought had been vanquished.
It definitely helps to be familiar with the shows or with the kid-detective genre to get the inside jokes.
But while on the surface Meddling Kids may seem like a clever pop-culture lark, it isn’t really about the mystery itself – it’s about the characters who solve it. It’s about growing up, and it’s about closure. About facing your fears and confronting the bullies and the baggage of your childhood as an adult.
On their long cross-country road trip, Andy, Kerri, and Nate have plenty of time to talk things over, and Peter’s ghost even comes along for the ride. And though Tim the Weimaraner, great-grandson of their original dog companion can’t talk (not even “Ruh-Roh”), we do have some access to his canine thoughts on certain matters.
There’s a lot to like in Meddling Kids, with lots of action and suspense and skillful development of its quirky characters. Edgar Cantero’s creative wordsmithery and original writing style keep the reader engaged and amused while still maintaining the tension needed for an effective horror tale. There are some genuinely scary parts that will satisfy horror fans as well as situations and jokes that will thrill Scooby Doo fans and Lovecraft lovers alike – two fandoms where you wouldn’t expect much overlap. But judging from the book’s commercial and critical success, I know I’m not the only one with a foot in both camps.
I enjoyed Meddling Kids, and I recommend it for anyone who likes horror fiction with a touch of nostalgia and maybe even a little comedy. It’s a fun and subversive tribute to the stories that entertained us once upon a time and a reminder of the pleasure and sense of adventure we still get in revisiting them, no matter how old we are.
