Sixteen Ways No One’s Written about Scooby-Doo

I.

On a foggy night in

September

The only thing moving

With clockwork precision

Was Mystery, Inc.

II.

The Mystery Machine

Ran on eight legs and four paws

Even underwater

—Take that, Batmobile!

III.

What flavor is courage?

Does it squish or crumble

Between your fingertips?

Even a four-year-old knows

It’s not vanilla.

IV.

Comic kismet’s prima lex:

The most unlikely people in the world

Can be friends if one of them has

A van, one has contraband,

And another has specs,

That could signal

Alien spacecraft.

V.

“Jeepers!”

—Danger-prone Daphne’s so astute.

“Jinkies!”

—Sounds like Velma’s found another clue.

Shaggy’s met an oogly-boogly

—“ZOINKS!”

“Scooby Dooby Doo!”

VI.

Oh, unsinkable Slayer of Sunnydale,

Trade your glossy, golden locks for unnatural rose,

Your heels for purple platform boots,

And leave your Black Belt at home.

Your Watcher should have told you

Sleuthing’s not a fashion show

Bird-boned limbs and a bitchin’ soundtrack’s

All you really need to catch those pesky spooks.

VII.

In the Zen of Scooby

There are three essential truths

(Which have nothing to do

With Rube Goldberg contraptions

Monsters or masks, and

Everything to do with

Cold-cut-filled fridges

In haunted mansions):

Om…Nom…Nom….

Om…Nom…Nom…

Om…Nom…Nom…

VIII.

Fill in the blank:

I miss you ____________.

a) Withers

b) Dinkley

c) (Dude, it’s a trick question.)

IX.

No one ever

Shit

In the Mystery van

No one ever

Bit it

In the Mystery van

No one ever

DID IT

In the Mystery van

No one.

Not.

Once.

X.

Oh, sway-backed omnivore,

Did you raise a January paw

When Iwao Takamoto

Rode to the Gardens of Blessing

Section 3, Lot 1390, Space 3

Cut! Print!

That’s a wrap.

Forever,

Amen.

XI.

Sarah Michelle Gellar once flew to Mexico

In a flowered, psychedelic wedding coach.

Apprehension overtook her

When she mistook

Dead Chico’s only son

For Fred Jones.

XII.

Scooby loves Scooby Snacks,

Shaggy loves Scooby Snacks.

Hey, Polar Bear,

What would you do

For a Scooby Snack?

XIII.

There’s a hassle in the castle

And nowhere to Hyde

(That’s your cue, Scooby Doo).

What the hex going on?

Which way is witch?

A gaggle of galloping ghosts

Couldn’t say for sure.

Better mine your own business

Leave werewolf stuff alone

It’s snow fun and it snot fair, but

Wen his annoit half-right have erred alight full?

XIV.

According to the Alimentary Law

Of Ingestible Physics

Any food left unattended

In a Scooby Doo lunchbox

Will….  ….      …   ..    .

XV.

Everything I know about

(Somethin’ strange)

Paranormal investigation

(When it don’t look good)

I learned from

(Who ya gonna call?)

Uh… sorry, Scoob’.

XVI.

No apparition’s ever very bitchin’

After the big reveal; so what’s a poor

No-longer-numinous slob to do,

But sigh and say, “I would’ve gotten away with it, too—

If it weren’t for you MEDDLING KIDS!”

(This poem first appeared in the Camel Saloon, July 2013.)