Evidence for Scooby Doo as post-modern epic.
It is only funny in self-reference, cf: ‘Scoob and Shaggy you go that way, me and the girls will go this way’ : *roll eyes* ‘Now why don’t I like the sound of that’. There was never an innocent moment in Scooby Doo, every phrase coming ready packaged and cultishly ready-to-go.
The whole background repeated indefinitely whilst the characters run on and on (how many vases can one hall have?) is a sign of this internalisation – the whole only makes sense in a referential arc, the one vase only understandable in the context of the others, which only makes any sense when the whole of Scooby Doo is considered.
Scooby Doo conforms to a very basic pattern. Scary monsters always turn out to be the first person met in the scary hotel; the strict system, as in structuralism, only making sense in the context of the same pattern read in previous episodes. However, as in post-structuralism, the people entangled in the system of signs and signifiers cannot read the pattern. Being so deeply embroiled in them, they always misread the signs until the last moment when the mask is removed and the bad-guy unmasked. We, of course, are outside the system of signs and so can objectively see the beauty and the flaws in the greatest post-modern saga of our times. Maybe.