All Time Top 5 Part 3.

3. Velma Dinkley - "Scooby Doo"

Yes. Velma. Not Daphne. Velma. You've read it. You can't unread it.

I know most men would take Daphne over Velma. Hell, most men would probably take Shaggy over Velma. But not Fred. Did anyone actually like Fred? A man as smug as a dolphin.

Let's face it. She was the brains of the operation. Book-smarts are always attractive and I dig a girl in glasses. I reckon the roll-neck was there just to hide the love bites.

Why Scooby Doo Was Rubbish...

...Even before Scrappy Doo - the Yoko Ono of the cartoon world - sent it down the toilet. 

I've worked in finance for a fair few years now. The credit crunch is all my fault. I forgot to carry the two in a calculation, tried to cover it up and it's kind of snowballed. My bad, as our friends in the American colonies might say.

So, I know what I'm talking about when I say that the business model of the average Scooby Doo villain was fundamentally flawed.

I present, for your consideration, this example; The Scooby Gang were investigating a haunted hotel. It seems that the janitor had only been pretending it was haunted, using holographic and laser equipment, in order to drive down the price of the property and then buy it cheaply.

Assuming there had been no meddling kids interface, he would've got the property at a rock bottom price, but surely he would've owed a huge whack on the hideously expensive military hardware he used? It was a completely false economy and bad business practice. And if he was so adept at using this highly advanced technology, why was he settling for life as a hotelier?

So this is my advice to all evil janitors and theme park owners. Just wait for a downturn in the market. 

Does this count as satire?

Notes From The Prod Co.

It seems, currently, that there's a lot of writing activity going on in the Blogosphere. Novels or screenplays, laptops or crayons, people look like they're getting their heads down and scribbling. More power to your elbows, kids.

For my part, I got the notes on "Stuck Between Stations" from the prod co. I met on Monday. My limited experience of these things seem to go "I love the script. It's perfect. Now, here's everything that's wrong with it."

And you know what? They're completely right. I went through the list and agreed with everything they said. You learn early on in this game that you're not going to make the best script you can on your own. You need that outside input. You're making this for other people to watch, so you need to know what other people are thinking.

I've sketched out a rough treatment for the new draft. I'm sad that some of my favourite jokes are going to have to fall by the wayside, but you've got to be ruthless, no matter how good that Scooby Doo joke is. Luckily, most of it is going to just be moving furniture around to help the pace and set up future episode plotlines. I'm chomping at the bit to get started and really excited. I'm actually writing something I'm really proud of and, for once, don't think I'll be wincing when I read it back in a few years time.

I couldn't do anything last night because the printer died, but that's okay. I've made a pledge not to write on Tuesdays because that's Battlestar Galactica night and I just feel really bad comparing my writing to that show.

I don't know for sure, but this might be the meaningful thing that I've been trying to write. And I've managed to retain some knob gags.

Let's all keep it up!