A pup named "Too Much"?!?

   A couple months ago LEGO released their Scooby-doo line of LEGO sets. I always enjoyed watching the re-runs of the TV show when I was a "little". (I was going to say "kid", but lets be serious... I still am a kid.) I have always know that Scooby is one of Victoria's favorites, so it was a no brainer to pick up the Mummy Museum Mystery set for her. Then of course because the Mystery Plane Adventures has the Headless Horseman, I knew I need to get her that set. What would Scooby-doo be without the inclusion of The Mystery Machine, so that set was next. Now we have Scooby, Shaggy and Fred. Can't leave the gang incomplete, so the Mystery Mansion was acquired to complete the gang with Daphne and Velma.

   With this trip started down memory lane to our childhood, the logical step would be for us to go back and watch the TV episodes. I *cough,cough* acquired copies of the original three seasons of "Scooby-doo, where are you?". The last week or so, every couple of nights, we have plopped down in front of the TV and watch a couple episodes... or five. The animation is of course dated, but we have learned long ago that it never looks as good, as it does in your head, remembering the first time you watched it. The plots can be silly and repetitive at times, but some of the jokes still work and dog-gone-it they are just fun to watch.

   Watching the episodes, we have noticed where LEGO took inspiration from the show to create the LEGO sets. At this point I have also picked up, and started playing, the LEGO Dimensions video game, which has a Scooby-doo level that you play through. Again you could see the inspiration from the show through the whole level and the the subsequent world level you unlock when you pick up the Team Pack: Scooby-doo. (Do I even need to explain? Who doesn't want to run around a haunted island as a LEGo Scooby-doo?)

   So here we are picking up LEGO sets, watching old episodes of the TV show, getting to play as Scooby in a video game and reliving the fun of Scooby and the gang. Then we notice the number of episodes in season one is only 17 episodes, the second season is only 8 and the third is 9. What?!? That seems odd. Why such short seasons? Time to hit google and find the Wiki about the show. Which turns into a rabbit hole of information that you never knew. The gang is basically the main characters from "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis"? (That makes "Shaggy" the Maynard Krebs character played by Bob Denver who also played Gilligan on Gilligan's Island, that the kids meet in an episode of "The New Scooby-Doo Movies"(circa 1972). Wrap your brain around that!)  The gang was supposed to be a band called "The Mysterious Five" that solved mysteries when they weren't playing gigs? Wait, five? There was supposed to be a fifth gang member named Mike? Scooby was supposed to be a sheep-dog named "Too Much"? Zoinks! And to think we owe it all to a CBS studio exec who was inspired by Frank Sinatra's scat "doo-be-doo-be-doo" at the end of his recording of "Strangers in the Night". Otherwise we would be singing "Too Much, where are you?". Doesn't have the same ring to it.

Oh, and one more thing... Shaggy's full name is Norville "Shaggy" Rogers.