Team-up of the century: Scooby-Doo
& Encyclopedia Brown
Flying Saucer Drops Nessie Into Bermuda
Triangle! Caught on Film by Bigfoot! “She Never Looked More Beautiful Than When
She Was in Freefall,” Says Sasquatch.
Jinkies! When faced with complete
absurdity, what is a parent to do, Velma? After all, your child talks
intimately to Elmo and only vaguely approves of gravity. You don’t want to
quash a normal fantasy life, but you want a responsible skeptic — not someone
who argues for the sake of argument, but someone who is comfortable evaluating
his world’s veracity. Sure, he’ll question your statements to bits as a
teenager, but you also want him to challenge everything from the National Enquirer to the Pope and the
Surgeon General. Sometimes the world throws parents a Scooby snack of support,
as in Fred, Shaggy, and Encyclopedia Brown (a.k.a. the Three Wise Guys).
Scooby-Doo is actually pretty
cool. The show debuted in 1969 as a mixture of The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis and I Love A Mystery.
The ensuing generations who looked forward to Saturday mornings as cartoon time
also learned that the world is not always as presented by those in authority.
And absurdity is revealed as absurdity when you strip away the glowing paint
and flippers.
For that matter, Leroy “Encyclopedia” Brown is also pretty
cool. (“You thieving, lying crook!
You should be elected president so you can grant yourself a pardon,” from The Case of Bug’s Zebra.) Created in
1963 by Donald J. Sobol, the boy detective always throws the case back out to
the reader for a solution. And the truth is out there.
Both Scooby and Encyclopedia Brown have gone through
numerous updates, but the essential message has gone unchanged. At least part
of the secret of their longevity is that pursuit of the truth is its own
reward.
— Craig Brownlie
Teenage Happy Meal at Nick Tahou’s
Ever since that reporter from Toronto
described Rochester as a cultural
wasteland populated by Garbage Plate-swilling thugs, my son has longed to join
the throngs at Nick Tahou’s.
So when he turned 13 last week, my husband and I grabbed a
couple relatives and headed to the original location at 320
West Main Street. We told the birthday boy to
enjoy it, because it’s as close to having a bar mitzvah as he’s gonna get.
After carefully weighing the Garbage Plate options with a
level of scrutiny typically reserved for video game selections, my son settled
on two cheeseburgers, home fries, mac salad, and
baked beans smothered in chopped onions, mustard, and hot sauce for $6. Dinner
for five, including sodas and a souvenir t-shirt, came to $39.50. At those
prices, we might even be able to afford to send him to college someday.
When he came up for air about a third of the way through his
Garbage Plate, my son was heard to exclaim, “It’s good! It’s really good. Oh,
man, I just can’t stop eating it!”
Apparently, plenty of kids agree with his assessment.
There’s a whole wall full of smiling little faces plastered up by the door.
Many of them are the children of longtime customers, according to Bobbie, the
assistant manager. Some have dined at Nick Tahou’s on
a regular basis practically since birth.
Once Bobbie found out it was my kid’s birthday, she pulled
out all the stops. On the way out the door, she let both my kids take an extra
piece of candy from the restaurant’s kiddie candy
box. Just because you’re 13 doesn’t mean you stop liking Dum-Dums.
— Linda Kostin
This article appears in May 10-16, 2006.
