Fun Fact of the Week #373

11/1/2021

Beverly D'Angelo, an actress perhaps most famous for her role as Ellen Griswold in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, started her career painting Scooby-Doo animation cels at Hanna-Barbera.

This fun fact was found on Tom Sito's blog (scroll down to the bottom of the post). Tom is a professional animator who was featured in Scooby-Doo, Where Are You Now?.

17 Comments

Carson Maitland - Smith link

11/1/2021 08:29:13 am

52 years of Scooby-Doo well spent 🤎

James Dixon

11/2/2021 12:28:40 am

This would never have occurred to me. How weird.

Carson Maitland - Smith link

11/2/2021 03:52:45 am

Where Are You Now's terrible

whackman

11/2/2021 07:52:04 am

Agreed this was rather disappointing. Acting is poor, animation is poor - they reuse old cartoon snippets and revoice them. it's true the original material was on a tight budget, but this was truly done cheap which made this special rather embarrassing.

whackman

11/2/2021 07:33:44 am

Jonathan Stern took part in an interview the day before the special aired. He mentions Scrappy and the reception behind him. While slightly edited, here is what he said:

JM: Was that a risk? Did you need approval to say what you say about Scrappy-Doo?

JS: Well I certainly needed approval, and I think [the Mystery Machine Gang] actually bad-talked Scrappy-Doo a little bit more in the first draft of the script. And that got noted out. There is enough consensus amongst the many people that I was working with that Scrappy-Doo is not a high point of the Scooby-Doo franchise. I think there’s a lot of comfort level in making Scrappy-Doo the butt of jokes. If you watch the Scrappy-Doo episodes, he’s not nice to Scooby. He’s kind of a jerk. I feel if you watch it, you feel protective of Scooby and the other characters. Scrappy doesn’t belong here. Stop bothering them! And little things. Why does he have such a more fluid way of speaking English than Scooby? It really undermined… it suddenly made Scooby the dumb one of the partnership. I didn’t like that. Obviously Scrappy has not become a permanent fixture in the Scooby universe. I’m sure there are some Scrappy fans out there. But also every reunion special has its dramatic moments, so we had to find our dramatic moment.

https://www.animationscoop.com/interview-jonathan-stern-on-new-cw-special-scooby-doo-where-are-you-now/

I really don't agree with Stern's comments on Scrappy.His inclusion made Scooby the dumb one of the partnership? I disagree and his inclusion was a much needed one IMO, hence I'm tired of him being a poster child for disliked characters.

WildwindVampire link

11/2/2021 08:31:34 am

This was a really interesting interview! Thanks for sharing it. I don't agree with his Scrappy comments either, and it's shocking to hear they even removed some of the Scrappy bashing that was originally there. People seem to forget that he saved the show in 1979...without him, the show may have been cancelled because the ratings towards the end of The Scooby-Doo show were getting bad.

I was also interested to hear that the idea for this was tied to the Friends Renuion. The Friends Reunion literally came out two days after this was announced in May, so they pretty much announced the idea right as they came up with it.

Carson Maitland - Smith link

11/2/2021 08:42:26 am

If Warner Brothers had an online survey,

We would have more than enough feedback for improvement for future generations of Scooby-Doo fans.

Becker

11/3/2021 11:50:48 am

You're spitting facts. Wow, I actually agree with Carson. This tv special gets worse the more I think about it.

Matt

11/2/2021 10:28:29 am

Interesting fact. Actually possibly my favorite Christmas movie

WildwindVampire link

11/2/2021 11:49:04 am

It's one of my faves too!

James Dixon

11/2/2021 10:47:04 am

I thought she would've been better known for the first Vacation movie.

WildwindVampire link

11/2/2021 11:49:57 am

I feel like Christmas Vacation has more of a cult following, but I could be wrong. I don't know if I've even seen the original Vacation, to be honest.

James Dixon

11/2/2021 01:58:15 pm

Out haven't watched the original? Whaaaaaaaaaaat.

I had no idea the Christmas special had a big following. I could be misremembering, but I think the Christmas movie is more family friendly than the original.

WildwindVampire link

11/2/2021 08:34:26 pm

I have a vague feeling I may have seen it, because I feel like I remember the scene with Wally World, but if I have seen it, I barely remember it.

The Christmas movie isn't necessarily family friendly. There's a lot of swearing in it and a few sex jokes, but it's the other one could have been worse. I feel like European Vacation even involved nudity at one point, which this definitely didn't have. In the version I've seen of Christmas Vacation on TV, they just edit some of the scenes with more pronounced swearing out rather than bleeping it. The scene at the store with Clark hitting on the woman with innuendos is edited out, plus I believe a couple others like when Clark is swearing pretty heavily about his boss not giving him the Christmas bonus.

Matt

11/2/2021 07:19:55 pm

Christmas Vacation is probably more popular mainly for its recognition as a classic Christmas movie, and Christmas movies get shown A LOT

WildwindVampire link

11/2/2021 08:36:10 pm

Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head there. Christmas Vacation is shown by dozens of TV stations every Christmas, whereas Vacation isn't really shown much. Recently, there was one year my local theater even had a few special showings of the film despite it coming out decades ago.

James Dixon

11/14/2021 03:29:14 pm

True, Christmas Vacation's poster is pretty iconic in and of itself.

Fun Fact of the Week #373

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