Sing It, Scooby!

Hi! Another guest blogger here. I'm Phil, from A Family Runs Through It. First of all, a huge thanks to Clea for letting me share some of the songs that my kids and I enjoy. We love music in my family. My iPod's permanent place is in the kitchen, where it's constantly cranking out tunes from groups like The Beatles, XTC, Split Enz, Death Cab For Cutie, Iron & Wine, Ralph's World, and John Denver. Yes, we have eclectic taste in music.

My 8-year-old son has developed most of his musical tastes based on what I play for him. But there's one TV show that seems to have influenced him quite a bit... Scooby Doo. I never realized how much music was in those old Scooby Doo episodes until we started watching them together. He got hooked on the original series from 1969 when he was about 4 years old, and then recently fell in love with the new series, What's New Scooby Doo? which also features a surprising amount of cool music. There have also been new movies released every year for the past six or seven years, including a brand new one, Pirates Ahoy! In other words, you could spend a small fortune buying up all these Scooby Doo DVDs. I know, I've done it.

But on to the music from this classic cartoon... You all know the original theme:

"Scooby Doo, Where Are You?"

But do you remember Davy Jones singing "I Can Make You Happy" in the Mystery Mask Mix-Up episode?

Or Jerry Reed singing "Pretty Mary Sunlite" in the Don't Fool with a Phantom episode?

The music in those old episodes from the late 60's and early 70's were nothing compared to the tunes that have been accompanying the Mystery Gang lately. Here are songs from both the What's New Scooby Doo? TV show and the recent full-length movies. My son loves all of these and specifically asked me to buy them to make a mix CD for him.

Simple Plan - "What's New Scooby Doo? Theme Song"
Simple Plan - "I'd Do Anything"
The Young Dubliners - "Brown Dog"
Tegan and Sara - "Time Running"
Phish - "Back on the Train"
Less Than Jake - "The Ghosts of Me and You"
The Atomic Fireballs - "Man With the Hex"
The Ramones - "Rockaway Beach"
The Byrds - "Mr. Spaceman"

Someone does a great job of picking the songs for these cartoons, especially during the monster chase sequences. My son used to have me rewind those scenes just for the music, but now he has all of these tunes on one CD which I fully expect him to wear out.

The last song I'll leave you with is Matthew Sweet's cool version of the original theme from the Saturday Morning Cartoons' Greatest Hits CD.

Hope you enjoyed my first guest-post!