The ageless, undaunted ‘Scooby-Doo’

Happy birthday, Scooby-Doo.

Forty falls ago, the cartoon canine and his human cohorts - fellow chicken-heart and chowhound Shaggy, brainy Velma, curvaceous Daphne, and Freddie, the unofficial leader of the gang - debuted on Saturday morning television. From the age of Nixon to the age of Obama, they’ve exposed seemingly supernatural monsters as human criminals in disguise, many of whom, upon being unmasked, curse those “meddling kids’’ and their dog.

“Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?’’ kicked off a multimillion-dollar franchise to rival James Bond and “Star Trek,’’ spinning off 10 follow-up series, numerous animated movies for TV and video, and two live-action feature films over four decades. Tomorrow, the 40th anniversary of the first broadcast, the Cartoon Network will air a new, live-action Scooby telefilm.

A monster-movie-crazed 10-year-old in 1969, I loved the show. Our 4-year-old has swooned, too. The comedic antics have taught him that monsters are make-believe fun, not real. He’s exercised his imagination and vocabulary, inventing creatures for his bedtime Scooby stories like the Lemonade Spilling on People Monster (after a day at the beach) and learning words like “villain’’ and, less usefully, “zoinks.’’ Our local librarian told me that every kid seems to go through a Scooby phase. (Yes, we do read to our son, including the occasional Scooby book.)

From the late Carl Sagan, the astronomer, to David Kleeman, the president of the American Center for Children and Media in Chicago, the original show has boasted some fancy-pants admirers. What did they see in the goofy Great Dane? As Freddie would say, it looks like we’ve got a mystery on our hands. . .

No mystery at all, Kleeman says by e-mail. “ ‘Scooby-Doo’ was pure fun, silly and kitschy enough for older kids (and some adults) to stick with it, and with simple enough stories that provided action but not violence for younger kids.’’

Sagan, who became a TV icon in his own right, saw the Scooby-Doo gang as role models for a credulous and scientifically illiterate country he spent a career trying to educate. In his book “The Demon-Haunted World,’’ he bemoaned the popularity of “The X-Files,’’ with its paranormal beings and aliens. “Much closer to reality, as well as a much greater public service, would be an adult series (‘Scooby-Doo’ does it for children) in which paranormal claims are systematically investigated and every case is found to be explicable in prosaic terms,’’ Sagan wrote. Scooby-Doo, public servant.

Honestly, I find Sagan a little grouchy. I’m also an “X-Files’’ fan, and anyone who thought that show was a science documentary needed No Child Left Behind, not “Scooby-Doo.’’ Still, there’s no denying that in a culture fecund with conspiracy theories - be it President Bush destroying the twin towers or President Obama plotting to ice your grandmother - the Scooby template of evidence-based skepticism is a welcome lesson in sanity.

None of this is to suggest that “Scooby-Doo’’ is Shakespeare. Kleeman worked on PBS’s children’s programming in the 1980s, did a study for that network seven years ago on digital-age public service programming for children, and sits on a network advisory board. “I’m a strong believer that kids want and deserve high-quality entertainment - that not everything on TV designed for kids needs to be educational,’’ he writes in his e-mail.

Indeed, in the overgrown garden that is the Scooby franchise, it would be miraculous if there weren’t some weeds amid the roses. The latter for me are the original series and its 2002-06 reboot, “What’s New Scooby-Doo?’’ (Hanna-Barbera created the original series for CBS and did successor shows until becoming part of Warner Bros. Animation, which has handled production in recent years, including “What’s New.’’)

Both shows featured catchy theme songs; amusing, Monkees-style chases with bouncy musical accompaniment; and a mix of classic monsters and original creatures. “What’s New’’ included a Christmas special that’s broadcast each Yuletide.

Among the weeds were efforts to boost ratings in the ’70s and ’80s by introducing celebrity guests and various canine relatives of Scooby’s. For me, these only diluted the brand. Did anyone really get up to watch Scooby-Doo meet Don Knotts?

Deficiencies aside, there’s no denying that the show tapped some kind of entertainment nerve. “It’s a basic buddy comedy,’’ writes Kleeman, “easy to watch and laugh with.’’ The show’s pop-culture DNA extends even to Scooby-Doo’s name, inspired by the “doo-be-doo-be-doo’’ riff at the end of Frank Sinatra’s “Strangers in the Night.’’

The only lingering puzzle (a small one, and one a writer would notice) involves a ghostly apparition sure to get a zoinks from Shaggy: How did Scooby-Doo, who began his career without a hyphen, mysteriously grow one over the years?

To quote the Great Dane himself: Ruh-roh.

Rich Barlow can be reached at barlow81@gmail.com.