This Day in Pop Culture for September 22

1979: TV’s Most Hated Cartoon Character

It might be a bit of an overreach to say that Scrappy-Doo is the most hated character from the hundreds of cartoon characters that Hanna-Barbera produced, but he’s pretty high up there.

American kids met Scooby and the gang for the first time when Scooby-Doo, Where are You! aired on CBS in 1969. The show ran for two seasons and was followed by The New Scooby-Doo Movies. After a few years on CBS, Scooby moved to ABC. The Great Dane and his friends have always been popular, but after a few years of re-packaged shows the ratings began to drop. ABC threatened to cut ties with Scooby, but on this day in 1979, Scrappy-Doo was added to the cast, and the show was hit…at first.

While Scrappy was proud of his “brave” uncle Scooby, he was feisty and always ready for a fight. He became less cute and more obnoxious. The show’s writers began to put more of a spotlight on Scrappy and eventually, Fred, Daphne and Velma were written out of the series entirely and new episodes were shortened to just seven minutes in length.

Long-time fans were not happy with these changes and by the end of 1985, Scooby-Doo went off the air for the first time.

In 1988, ABC began airing, A Pup Named Scooby-Doo where the gang were turned into elementary kids. Scrappy was nowhere to be found.

Years later, Scrappy’s name has only been mentioned a few times and usually with disdain. In 2002, the puppy turned out to be the villain in the live-action Scooby-Doo: The Movie.

Other Saturday Morning Shows That Debuted on This Day

1979: Spider-Woman

Jessica Drew, aka Spider-Woman, was the first female Marvel superhero to headline her own cartoon series which aired on ABC. Jessica’s “day job” is editor of Justice Magazine who must sneak away at times to become the heroine.

1979: Casper and the Angels

Based on Harvey Comics’ Casper the Friendly Ghost, Hanna-Barbera created an updated version where Casper serves as a “guardian ghost” for Mini and Maxi, female space police officers in the year 2179. 1000-year-old Hairy Scary ghost is onboard too.

1979: The Super Globetrotters

This CBS show is both a spin-off of an earlier Harlem Globetrotters cartoon and a remake of 1966’s The Impossibles. Here, the Globetrotters travel the world playing basketball, and serve as undercover superheroes.

1979: The New Shmoo

This NBC cartoon centers on a character from the Li’l Abner comic strip created by Hanna-Barbera which follows familiar territory with a small group of teens solving mysteries alongside the “Shmoo”, who can transform into a variety of shapes as needed.

1986: Dennis the Menace

1979: The Plastic Man Comedy/Adventure Show, Fred and Barney Meet the Thing, The New Adventures of Flash Gordon, Hot Hero Sandwich

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1985: The First Farm Aid Concert is Performed

Blame Bob Dylan for Farm Aid. During his appearance at the Live Aid event during the summer of 1985, He said, “I hope that some of the money…maybe they can just take a little bit of it, maybe…one or two million, maybe…and use it, say, to pay the mortgages on some of the farms and, the farmers here, owe to the banks.”

Many were upset by Dylan’s remarks as Live Aid was a fundraiser for African famine relief, but the sentiment seemed to resonate with others and so on this day in 1985, the first Farm Aid concert was held that featured Willie Nelson, Neil Young, John Mellencamp, Sammy Hagar, Lou Reed and others. Since that day, Farm Aid has raised over $33 million to support “good food from family farms.” (Image: Farm Aid)

1994: The One with the Six ‘Friends’

Created by David Crane and Marta Kauffman, the ensemble comedy, Friends featured a group of young, single adults living in Manhattan, New York City (although filmed in Los Angeles, California). Originally titled as Insomnia Café while it was being developed, the show also went by the names Six of One and Friends Like Us before landing on the simple title of just Friends.

This “must see TV” show for NBC featured a runaway bride, Rachel Green (Jennifer Aniston); her best friend, uptight chef and roommate, Monica Geller (Courtney Cox), the ditzy, vegetarian masseuse, Phoebe Buffay (Lisa Kudrow); Monica’s newly-divorced palaeontologist brother Ross (David Schwimmer); the wise-cracking Chandler Bing (Matthew Perry) and his roommate actor always looking for his next gig, Joey Tribbiani (Matt LdBlanc).

During the show’s ten-year run, it never fell out of the top ten TV shows at the time, jumping to #1 during season 8. Not surprisingly, every other network wanted to create their own Friends shows, but none were as successful.

When the show ended on May 6, 2004, 52.5 million people tuned in to see how it all ended, making it the most-watched entertainment telecast since Seinfeld’s finale in 1998 and the second most-watched show of the year. (Only the Super Bowl was more popular.)

The whole cast of Friends had been nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award at one time or another, except for Cox. Aniston and Kudrow are the only actors who won Emmy Awards and the show won one for Outstanding Comedy Series in 2002. Out of the 62 nominations over ten years, Friends only won six.

On February 21, 2020 HBO aired Friends: The Reunion special (aka “The One Where They Get Back Together”). Although fans of the show would have loved to see a revival of the show, the group lost a friend when Matthew Perry passed away on October 28, 2023.