Ruh roh!
In my latest Because Science, I’m trying to answer a question that has been on my mind since I was a kid: What the heck is up with the way Scooby Doo speaks? To find out, I worked with a professor of speech pathology and audiology to finally diagnose the dog.
As if a dog running around solving mysteries wasn’t unique enough, it turns out that Scooby has a plausible speech disorder that no one else on Earth has.
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cool
Kyle, could the reason that Scooby-Doo has this speech error is due to the fact that he only “speaks” in this manner when alone with Shaggy? My memory may not be all that great, but I don’t recall rarely, if ever, Scooby speaking words among the enitre group. When factoring in Scooby’s “speaking ability” being only with Shaggy, his appetite to eat any (and every) thing in sight along with him too, could we not simply deduce that the adjustment to his speech is a combination of the ruff barking sound combined with a hallucinatory buzz effect of Shaggy on pot and smoking it with Scooby affected secondhandedly? To me, it would be the most common outcome a person could think of.
I don’t know about the later incarnations but in the Scooby Doo, Where Are You? series and The New Scooby Doo Movies, from the 80s, he definitely spoke to all of them.