I don't care what anyone says. I liked Scooby Doo.

But then again, what do you expect from me? I'm the one who also raved over Josie and the Pussycats and both Flintstones movies. Heck, I even saw Inspector Gadget more than once. I like the abstract preposterousness of a cartoon turned live action.

Apparently I'm the only one.

I'm not going to say it wasn't terrible. I can definitely see the argument for that view. Sure. But who doesn't have a guilty pleasure indulging side that loves that certain terrible film?

Buckaroo Banzai has fan pages, for cryin' out loud. Dude, Where's My Car is getting a sequel. Then there's the fact that Troma Films even exists.

Just because a movie isn't good is no reason why you shouldn't enjoy it.

I enjoyed Scooby Doo.

It wasn't good.

I haven't actually read any reviews of this movie, out of an interest to keep my opinions asinine on my own terms, rather than repeat someone else's asinine opinions, but I'd place a wager that there may be one or two people out there who hated this movie. On top of that assumption, I'd bet that everyone who thought Scooby was doo (haha! Yeah! I'll bet I'm the first one to say that!) fell into one of two camps:

Camp 1: Just who exactly was it who thought a live action Scooby Doo movie was necessary in the first place?

Yes. A valid point. Who indeed thought that this would be a good idea? It can be assumed that this criminal mastermind was some moron studio higher-up—looking purely at numbers and marketing projections—who said, "Scooby Doo is a well known franchise that hasn't lost a great deal of popularity in the last thirty years, is remembered by adults, as well as recognized by children. They will all give us money. Glorious, glorious money! Bwahahahahaha!"

Stupid? You bet. But instead of losing his job over what should have been remembered as the worst idea since Jurassic Park III, the lucky bastard who flung this monkey poop of a film out of his cage—to the highest grossing June opening weekend in history—suddenly gets a corner office with a built in pool full of champagne, a rocket powered limousine with its own Pac-Man machine, and hand jobs from hookers made of solid platinum.

Suck it up, people. It could have been a Jabberjaw movie, you know.

Camp 2: This movie was nothing like the old Scooby Doo I remember! Why is Velma a hottie instead of a midget linebacker? Why is Daphne showing more cleavage than a zygote? WHERE'S THE FREAKIN' ASCOT?!?!

Are you people serious? Did you actually think that you would have sincerely enjoyed a movie where the Mysteries, Inc. kids pull a rubber mask off the owner of the haunted amusement park at the end? Did you think that would have been good? If so, just rent any of the recent direct to video animated Scooby Doo movies. Your wish has been granted. Smoke some more crack, Cracky McCracksmoker.

One thing Scooby Doo has going for it is self-awareness. Whoever wrote this movie—undoubtedly late at night, bombed on Schlitz—has obviously been watching the same eighth-rate stand up comedians on late-night television that the rest of us have. He's got the shtick down pat, and covers all the bases.

• Shaggy is on pot... check!
• Velma always loses her glasses, and is blinded... check!
• Daphne never adds anything of value to the investigation... check!
• When they split up, Daphne and Fred always end up together... check!

Sure it's all cliché, but given the task at hand, this is exactly where the poor guy had to go. What else was he supposed to do? Write a generic Scooby Doo episode and have people ridicule him for lack of originality? Or write a hardcore Bruce Willis style adventure/mystery story, and have people completely confused over why there's a cartoon dog in it? Or write a meaningful social commentary and have be completely pissed away and dismissed by critics simply because it was pinned to an old Hanna Barbera cartoon (see Josie and the Pussycats)? The poor guy was screwed any way you look at it.

Incidentally, when I was a kid, Velma had me scared to death of having to wear glasses. Because of her, I was of the understanding that if you wore glasses, anything outside the realm of the lenses was an inky black void of nothingness. Like there were two holes in a velvet bag tied over your head. And if you lost your glasses, you were powerless to do anything but half-heartedly feel around for them until a monster kicked them away.

I'm sure that there are other reviewers out there as we speak, taking potshots at the quality of the acting in this movie. Hahaha! Yeah, okay. That's like making jokes about how how much Bill Clinton enjoys oral sex. If you're just going to scrape at the paint with your thumbnail, don't even bother.

I thought the acting was top shelf in this movie. For example, Freddie Prinze Jr. was perfect as Fred. Do you even remember the cartoon? Fred was a lifeless, soulless, mindless drone of a blond beefcake, unblinkingly shuffling through mystery after mystery without showing the slightest hint of awareness, charisma, or sentience. Prinze completely captured all of these subtleties and nuances perfectly with his performance in Scooby Doo. He also captured them perfectly in Wing Commander, She's All That, and Summer Catch. The man is a theatrical genius.

And Sarah Michelle Gellar. With Scooby Doo, she showed the world that she's not just Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She's also so much less.

Then there's Matthew Lillard. You may remember him from such films as Wing Commander, She's All That, and Summer Catch. Finally Matthew gets his chance to shine without Freddie Prinze Jr. stealing all of his thunde... right. I'm sure I'm the first one to go there too.

Seriously though, Matthew does Shaggy more than justice. Then again, the requirements for a successful portrayal of Shaggy require a goatee, a green shirt, and a swift kick in the nads. Still, he does Casey Kasem proud.

Linda Cardellini... what is there to say about Linda Cardellini...

RUN! RUN, LINDA, RUN! RUN as FAST as you CAN! There's still hope for you! Put as much distance between yourself and Scooby Doo as you can, before it's too late!

When it all comes down to it though, honestly, what were you expecting from the Scooby Doo movie? You knew it was going to be retarded when you put down your money at the box office, so what made you do it? Only you know for sure.

Maybe you really enjoyed this movie, you always knew you would really enjoy this movie, and you're just too ashamed to admit it. Maybe you secretly hate yourself, you only delight in self-destruction, and you've already used up all the fuel in your Zippo burning out your nose hair.

Me? Just like 102 Dalmatians, I went to see Scooby Doo because my girlfriend worked on it. Yep. She had a hand in bringing digital Scooby to life. Name in the credits and everything.

So like 102, I don't see Scooby Doo as an unnecessarily recycled piece of marketing fluff that should never have been made, I see it as half the rent. To me, Scooby Doo is a hot shower, and the lights going on when I flick the switch. In my mind, Scooby Doo is a round of martinis, or an airplane ticket to Vegas. In short, unlike most of you, Scooby Doo has done more to enrich my life than it's done to destroy it.

I'm glad that there's already a sequel planned. I hope they do two. And three prequels. Bring it on, baby. That 61" HDTV flatscreen isn't going to buy itself, you know.

Perhaps the worst thing about seeing a movie that's terrible is when a movie that's terrible rips off something that you wrote nearly verbatim. But that's a rant for the Spoiler Lounge...

Months ago, after a production screening, my girlfriend came home from the studio with a look on her face like a kid in a black and white Polish art film who's about to show his alcoholic father his failing report card. When I asked her what was wrong, she meekly replied, "I just saw Scooby, and there's a scene in there that... you're not going to like."

I said, "Don't worry, I'm sure there's lots of scenes that I won't like!" and left it at that.

Today, I finally found out what she meant. As many of you know, back in 1996, I penned a little science fiction stage farce called Walkin' on Sunshine (US Copyright #TXu 899-748 - February 16th, 1999).

In this show, a fugitive brain transplanting droid causes comic mayhem on a small spacecraft by switching all of the characters' minds around willy nilly.

In Scooby Doo, the gang from Mysteries, Inc., due to some supernatural hijinks, also get their brains switched around willy nilly. The concept is nothing more than coincidence, sure. I'm not a tin-foil hat wearing conspiracy nut or anything, but a lot of the dialogue in the crazy multiple-switcheroo scene in Scooby was joke for joke the same as parts of the second act of Sunshine.

I swear, the part of Walkin' on Sunshine: The Movie, where Quatloo the frisky alien, finding himself in the sexy bombshell Admiral's body, realizes that he can look at her naked, is shot for shot, expression for expression exactly the same way it plays out for Fred-in-Daphne in Scooby Doo.

The same thing happened with my concept for a device called the "Neural Overload Wand" that was introduced in WOS. It's described as "an electric toothbrush with no bristles and a bright light in the end" that makes you forget everything that you've seen in the previous thirty seconds. Nine months after the last curtain of the first production, Men in Black comes along and kicks me in the nads with their freakishly similar "Neuralizer."

Don't even write to me about how the Men in Black comic books came several years earlier. I've heard it all before. It doesn't make me feel any better. At this point people who read the play assume it's a parody or an homage, rather than a simultaneously and independently reached idea. Bitch bitch, moan moan. But I'm not bitter...

I don't know what's worse: the fact that from now on, every theatre manager who reads Walkin' on Sunshine will think that I ripped off material from the freakin' Scooby Doo movie, or the fact that I write as well as the people who wrote the freakin' Scooby Doo movie.

Either way, it appears I shouldn't give up my day job.