September 13, 1969: "Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!" Premieres

September 13, 1969: Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! premieres on CBS. It becomes one of the most popular "Saturday morning cartoons" of all time.

The voices of the characters:

* Don Messick as Scooby-Doo, a talking Great Dane, which is known as a cowardly breed of dog, and Scooby was a coward. And always hungry.

* Frank Welker as Fred Jones, the preppy blond leader of the gang, known as Mystery, Inc., and driver of their van, the Mystery Machine. Welker voiced several cartoon dogs, including Astro Jetson, and would take over as the voice of Scooby after Messick's death.

* Casey Kasem as Shaggy Rogers, a hippie who was as cowardly and as hungry as Scooby. Scooby seemed to be closer to Shaggy than to any of the others, though he would often steal Shaggy's food. Kasem was a superstar disc jockey in Los Angeles, and gave Shaggy the frightened exclamation "Zoinks!"

As a boy, I would read anything. And I noticed that Shaggy had the same voice as the Super Friends' version of Batman's crimefighting partner Robin. So I read the closing credits of both cartoons, wrote the names of the voice actors down, and looked to see if any of them matched. Sure enough, Kasem was the voice of both. As Shaggy would say, "Like, wow!" Or, as Robin would say, "Holy coincidence!" (Kasem's version did pretty much copy Burt Ward's from the 1966-68 Batman show.)

* Indira Stefanianna (Season 1, credited as Stefanianna Christopherson) and Heather North (Season 2) as Daphne Blake, the redhead who seemed to be not very bright, and also seemed to be Fred's girlfriend. This would be played up in the 2002 live-action film, in which Fred and Daphne were played by real-life husband and wife Freddie Prinze Jr. and Sarah Michelle Gellar.

* Nicole Jaffe as Velma Dinkley, a bespectacled intellectual who was probably the best detective of the group. When surprised, she would say, "Jinkees!"

As time went by, Velma was rumored to be a lesbian. This was unconsciously deepened by the fact that the character was based on Zelda K. Gilroy of The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, played by Sheila Kuehl, who later became the 1st openly gay person elected to California's State Legislature.

As the cartoon debuted mere weeks after the Stonewall Riot, the idea that any of the characters could be gay couldn't have been said on the air. Even as late as the 2002 and 2004 live-action films, Velma was shown as being interested in male characters, including, on occasion, Shaggy. It was finally made canon that Velma was gay in a 2022 cartoon.

CBS aired 17 episodes from September 13, 1969 to January 17, 1970; then a 2nd season of 8 episodes from September 12 to October 31, 1970.

The theme song was written by David Mook and Ben Raleigh, performed by Larry Marks in Season 1 and George A. Robertson Jr. in Season 2.

What was in the Scooby Snacks? Many people have thought they were laced with marijuana. After all, Scooby and Shaggy always "had the munchies." But pot doesn't make you braver or more active. Quite the opposite: It makes you lazy.

There was an unmasking in every show, where the "ghost" or "monster" was shown to be all too human, usually trying to pull off some sort of fraud. In the public memory, their tagline is, "And I would have gotten away with it, too, if it wasn't for you meddling kids!"

But that wasn't used very often. The first variation was in Episode 11, "A Gaggle of Galloping Ghosts," when a master of disguise, who'd impersonated a vampire, a werewolf, a Frankenstein-style monster and a gypsy fortune-teller, called them "these blasted kids and their dog!"

It wasn't until Episode 20, "Scooby's Night with a Frozen Fright," in Season 2, before a professor studying ocean life, seeking to steal his partner's potentially lucrative invention, used the words "meddling kids," but he didn't use the words "And I would have gotten away with it, too." Nor did Mr. Carswell, the bank president who was embezzling from his own bank, and pretending to be the titular monstrous robber in Episode 21, "Jeepers It's the Creeper": He just yelled, "Meddling kids!"

In Episode 22, "Haunted House Hang-Up," the main "ghost" turned out to be the good guy, with an additional "ghost" admitting, "And I'd a-found it, if it wasn't for you snoopers!" Fred preceded this by saying, "Now, let's see who our phony phantom really is!" In the finale, Episode 25, "Don't Fool With a Phantom," Fred said, "Time to find out who you really are!" But Fred never, in the original run, ever said, "Now, let's see who you really are!"

Eventually, ABC bought the rights, and built a whole media franchise around Scooby and the gang, where the tropes became more common. But the 25 episodes of 1969 and '70 are generally considered to be not just the original, but the best episodes.

Don Messick died in 1997, Casey Kasem in 2014, Heather North in 2017. As of September 13, 2022, Nicole Jaffe is 82, Frank Welker is 76 and Indira Stefanianna is 75.

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September 13, 1969 was a Saturday. Actor, director and playwright Tyler Perry was born. This was also the day of the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival concert. I have a separate entry for that event.

These Major League Baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Boston Red Sox, 5-2 at Yankee Stadium. Zoinks! Like, Gary Wagner outpitched Fritz Peterson. Rico Petrocelli hit a home run, Reggie Smith went 3-for-4 with an RBI, Tony Conigliaro went 1-for-3 with an RBI, and Carl Yastrzemski went 0-for-2, but did draw 2 walks. And they got away with it, too, because the Yankees didn't have enough meddling kids. Bobby Murcer went 1-for-3 with a walk and an RBI, but rookie Thurman Munson went 0-for-4.

* The New York Mets beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 5-2 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. Tom Seaver went the distance for the win. Ron Swoboda hit a grand slam. Roberto Clemente went 1-for-4. Willie Stargell went 1-for-5 with an RBI.

* The Montreal Expos beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 7-5 at Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia.

* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Cleveland Indians, 10-5 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. Brooks Robinson went 1-for-1 with 2 walks and an RBI. Frank Robinson did not play.

* The Washington Senators beat the Detroit Tigers, 11-6 at Robert F. Kennedy Stadium in Washington. Al Kaline entered the game as a pinch-hitter, and went 0-for-2.

* The Atlanta Braves beat the Houston Astros, 3-2 at Atlanta Stadium (later Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium). Phil Niekro pitched 11 shutout innings for the Braves, allowing 6 hits. Larry Dierker pitched 12 shutout innings for the Astros, allowing 4 hits. Jimmy Wynn singled home 2 runs for the Astros in the top of the 13th.

But in the bottom of the 13th, Fred Gladding allowed single, double, walk, single. Jack Billingham got an out, but was immediately replaced by Wade Blasingame, who intentionally walked Hank Aaron, and then unintentionally walked Bob Aspromonte to give the Braves the win.

This game did not make a fellow proud to be an Astro. Maybe manager Harry Walker should have brought in Jim Bouton, whom the Astros had acquired from the Seattle Pilots on August 24. He was in the process of writing his diary of the season, which became the book Ball Four.

* The Oakland Athletics beat the Chicago White Sox, 4-0 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. John "Blue Moon" Odom pitched 8 shutout innings for the A's, before being relieved by Fred Talbot, who had been liberated from the expansion Seattle Pilots 16 days earlier. Paul Edmondson pitched 9 innings of 3-hit shutout ball for the ChiSox, but Wilbur Wood gave up 4 runs in the top of the 10th, including a 3-run home run to Dave Duncan. Reggie Jackson did not enter the game for the A's.

* The Kansas City Royals beat the Minnesota Twins, 1-0 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota. Dean Chance went the distance, allowing 4 hits -- and lost for the Twins. The expansion Royals started Roger Nelson, but he only pitched 1 inning before leaving the game with an injury. He didn't pitch again that season, and pitched only 9 major league innings in 1970, and battled injury thereafter, missing all of 1975, and last pitched in 1976, age 32.

Mike Hedlund pitched 6 innings, allowing just 2 hits. Ed Kirkpatrick singled home the only run of the game in the top of the 9th, making a winning pitcher out of Moe Drabowsky, who completed the 2-hit shutout. Shortstop Leo Cárdenas got both Twin hits. Harmon Killebrew went 0-for-3 with a walk, and Rod Carew went 0-for-2 with 2 walks.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat their arch-rivals, the Chicago Cubs, 7-4 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis. The Cubs led 4-3 going into the bottom of the 8th, but the Cards scored 4 runs off Fergie Jenkins, Ken Johnson and Phil Regan. Lou Brock went 2-for-4 with a walk. Joe Torre went 3-for-4 with 2 RBIs.

In this 1st season of Divisional play, the Cubs led the National League Eastern Division by as much as 9 games on August 16, but went 17-26 the rest of the way, falling behind the Mets on September 10, a collapse known as the September Swoon.

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the San Diego Padres, 7-2 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the San Francisco Giants, 6-4 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. Pete Rose went 1-for-5. Johnny Bench went 2-for-3 with a walk and an RBI. Willie Mays entered the game as a pinch-hitter, and went 0-for-2.

* And a doubleheader was split at Sick's Stadium in Seattle. The Seattle Pilots won the opener, 6-4. Steve Hovley, Danny Walton and Don Mincher each got 2 hits, to make a winning pitcher of Diego Seguí, in relief of Marty Pattin. The California Angels won the nightcap, 4-2. Eddie Fisher (not the singer) outpitched Miguel Fuentes, the Dooley Womack and John Gelnar.

This was also the opening weekend of the college football season. But only 1 team ranked in the Top 20 played that day: Number 17 UCLA beat Oregon State, 37-0 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

And in English soccer, North London team Arsenal traveled to Lancashire, and beat Burnley, 1-0 at Turf Moor. George Graham, later to manage them to success in the late 1980s and early 1990s, scored the game's only goal.