Moral Panics and Media Production: How Space-Age Cartoons Beget Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!

The creation of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! (1969-1971) was the result of efforts by production companies, network executives, and advertisers to replace the violent action-adventure space fantasies on Saturday morning with comedic and musical cartoons after the moral panic of 1968. Cultural discourses on media violence, industrial strategies on cross-media marketing, and musical trends like bubblegum pop all came together to inform the production of what became the most spun-off series in U. S. television history.

Kevin Sandler is an associate professor in the Film and Media Studies Program. He specializes in the contemporary U. S. media business, with a particular focus on censorship and animation. He is the coeditor of Hanna and Barbera: Conversations (University Press of Mississippi, 2024), author of The Naked Truth: Why Hollywood Doesn’t Make X-Rated Movies (Rutgers University Press, 2007), the co-editor of Titanic: Anatomy of a Blockbuster (Rutgers, 1999), and editor of Reading the Rabbit: Explorations in Warner Bros. Animation (Rutgers, 1998). He also has published in several anthologies, journals, and public facing outlets including Cinema Journal, Animation Journal, and Slate. His upcoming books are Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! (Duke University Press) and The Hanna-Barbera Anthology (University of Texas Press).