Remember when I stumbled across the Psymonsters Wiki and had to think about nothing but that for the rest of my life? Well, here’s an update: as of right now, I only think about Psymonsters for 60% of my waking life. The other portion is devoted entirely to trying to wrap my brain around Goober and the Ghost Chasers.
You’ve probably never heard of Goober and the Ghost Chasers, which is understandable. I’m a huge vintage cartoon wonk and I’d never heard of it, either. A quick summary of its plot: a cowardly talking dog and his teen-aged human friends travel the country in a van investigating spooky mysteries, which always seem to involve someone being unmasked at the end. It’s the 1970s.
Let’s address the large, cowardly, doglike elephant in the room: Goober and the Ghost Chasers is a blatant rip-off of Hanna-Barbera’s wildly successful Scooby-Doo, Where are You? You might assume that Goober was a rival animation studio attempting to strike while HB’s iron was hot, and not without reason. The history of American animation is positively rife with almost-but-not-quite-illegal cash-ins of this stripe. You like The Transformers? Well, you’ll love Challenge of the Go-Bots! He-Man is cleaning up in your target demo? Spend five minutes adding some fringe to someone else’s character design and call it Galtar and the Golden Lance.
But this is more than that. This is like what would happen if some other show wanted to have a Scooby-Doo analogue within their own fictional universe. It’s like someone said, “Let’s make an ersatz Scooby Gang, but make it deliberately worse to make it clear it’s a joke.” Does that make sense? It’s like the Rugrats people liked the one-note joke of having a Godzilla expy named “Reptar” so much that they just made a Reptar show instead.
https://youtu.be/pl2OzTjSpeA
It’s even evident in the character design. Take a look at that video. Freddy and Daphne changed up their hair, Velma got Rule 63’d, and Shaggy and Scooby got melded into a single abominable creature by the Brundlefly machine. This is as good a place as any to mention my longstanding weird crush on Velma, a seminal attraction that, to this day, leaves me utterly defenseless against curvaceous women with excellent deductive reasoning and poor eyesight.
Now, here’s the part that makes my brain shut down: Goober and the Ghost Chasers wasn’t made by a rival studio, or as a tongue-in-cheek reference. It was made by Hanna-Barbera as a legitimate follow-up to Scooby-Doo. And here’s the part that makes my brain wake up and start making that Bugs Bunny lip-flicking sound: HB created the world’s most egregious Scooby-Doo clone less than two years after Scooby-Doo stopped airing new episodes, and while the existing episodes were doing brisk business in syndication.
Now, look, I understand that the folks at HB weren’t the most creative. They hit upon a winning formula and milked it for about a decade straight, only changing the cowardly title character. Jabber Jaw was Scooby-Doo with a shark that sounded like Curly Howard; The Funky Phantom was Scooby-Doo with a Revolutionary War ghost that sounded like Bert Lahr; Speed Buggy was Scooby-Doo with a talking car that sounded like it was having a stroke. And Goober and the Ghost Chasers was Scooby-Doo with a talking dog, better known as fucking Scooby-fucking-Doo.
That’s not to say that there weren’t differences. Here’s what the Wikipedia entry has to say about the unique elements of Goober:
Similar to Hanna-Barbera’s successful Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, Goober and the Ghost Chasers also features a group of teenagers solving spooky mysteries with their dog Goober. The Ghost Chasers use their equipment from the Apparition Kit (like the Specter Detector, the Poltergeist Powder, etc.) when it comes to determining whether the ghost is real or not. The major differences were that the ghosts they eventually find are real and would help in defeating the fake ghosts. Some of those people behind the mask of some fake ghosts are not criminals. Goober had the power to become invisible when he was scared by ghosts and his closest human companion is reckless instead of cowardly. Also unlike Scooby-Doo, Goober can talk more clearly.
And then, things take a turn for the goddamn ominous:
In eight of the first 11 episodes, the Partridge Kids were regular members of the cast, with their live-action counterparts voicing the parts. They disappear after the eleventh episode and did not appear when other guest stars appeared.
See? Goober is clearly different than Scooby-Doo. Not only does its title character enunciate more clearly and periodically turn invisible for reasons that I guaran-goddamn-tee were never clearly explained, but it also features the disappearance and probable murder of a clutch of era-specific child stars. Spooky.
I still have so many questions about Goober and the Ghost Chasers. Why would you make a bizarre ersatz Scooby-Doo when you own the rights to Scooby-Doo? Why would you choose to do so while your extremely lucrative three seasons of Scooby-Doo, Where are You? were still in syndication, and The New Scooby-Doo Movies were still in production? Under what possible mechanism could fear cause a dog to turn invisible? Did they really expect “ridic-a-lic-a-lic-a-licalous” to work as a catchphrase? And why did Danny Bonaduce have to be there?
To answer some of these questions, please enjoy this short play I’ve written about the creation of Goober:
William Hanna: fuck
Joseph Barbera: what
William Hanna: we were supposed to pitch a new cartoon to the network today
Joseph Barbera: really
William Hanna: yes
Joseph Barbera: we probably shouldn’t have stayed up all night taking quaaludes
William Hanna: probably not joe got any ideas
Joseph Barbera: how about a dog that solves mysteries
William Hanna: a dog that solves mysteries
Joseph Barbera: yes spooky mysteries with his teenage friends
William Hanna: joe
Joseph Barbera: what
William Hanna: are you pitching me scooby doo
Joseph Barbera: no
William Hanna: in what ways specifically is this different from scooby doo
Joseph Barbera: because this dog is fuckin’ … he’s invisible
William Hanna: the dog is invisible
Joseph Barbera: sometimes yes
William Hanna: this is not a good idea for a show
Joseph Barbera: you haven’t heard the best part yet
William Hanna: i bet i have
Joseph Barbera: the kids from the partridge family are in it
William Hanna: how and why
Joseph Barbera: they owe me a favor
William Hanna: why does an entire fictional family of child stars owe you a favor
Joseph Barbera: don’t worry about it
William Hanna: i am a little worried about it
Joseph Barbera: let’s do some more quaaludes
William Hanna: absolutely yes
