2002's 'Scooby-Doo' Was Originally an R-Rated, Drug-Riddled, Queer-Inclusive Rom-Com

Note: this article was written before James Gunn's offensive tweets resurfaced in 2018.

It's come to my attention that the live-action Scooby-Doo movies were originally intended to be far more salacious than than the cult-classic, family films which litter DVD shelves today. Really, it shouldn't be a surprise that the productions were initially aimed at an older audience when you realise that both Scooby-Doo 1 and 2 were written by James Gunn - the writer/producer/director behind Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy franchise. The Marvel series made waves for its shockingly adult humour when it began in 2014 - one line delivered by Chris Pratt about black-lights and Jackson Pollock paintings, for example, ruffled the feathers of many a conservative parent.

Alas, Scooby-Doo never managed to get the R-rated face lift that Gunn thought it deserved. While it may seem strange in the era of Deadpool, Guardians of the Galaxy and Kingsman: The Secret Service, studio heads simply didn't think mature genre films or re-imaginings would have a big enough audience to earn a respectable box office gross. It was decided that the film would be edited heavily into a more family friendly product, but if you look really hard it's easy to spot some of the more risque ideas left on the cutting room floor...

The most notable of these is the constant barrage of marijuana jokes. In the beginning of Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed the members of Mystery Inc. arrive at the premiere of a museum exhibit honoring their work. Each member has a group of fans waiting for them at the opening's red carpet - Fred has screaming girls and Velma has a girl-geek possy for example. Shaggy and Scooby, though, smell their fans before they find them, their noses following a white smoke trail obviously hinting at cannabis. 

The original cartoon's stoner-archetypes were also referenced in the first film. Shaggy's girlfriend was called Mary Jane - a slang name for weed that many may not have cottoned onto as Shaggy chuckled "like, that's my favourite name!" during their air-plane meet-cute. Multiple scenes, too, pan over mysterious white clouds with the voices of the duo rejoicing "Zoinks!" or "Talk about toasted!" in the background - the camera eventually reveals the duo to be tucking into a steaming buffet or a food platter. Still, the original hot-boxing jokes and cannabis-based comedy remains hard to miss for those looking to find it. 

As reported by Vanity Faire, producer James Gunn reminisced with his fans on Facebook last year about the now 16 year old movie:

"I had loved the character of Scooby-Doo since I was a kid and was excited at the prospect of making a live action film with 2002's cutting CGI technology(!!). Yes, it was not exactly what we planned going out - I had written an edgier film geared toward older kids and adults, and the studio ended up pushing it into an clean cut children's film. And, yes, the rumors are true - the first cut was rated R by the MPAA [the US equivalent of a '15' rating], and the female stars' cleavage was CGI'd away so as not to offend. But, you know, such is life. I had a lot of fun making this movie, regardless of all that."

Linda Cardellini's portrayal of Velma was beloved by fans and the character's relationship with Daphne has long since been heralded as a prime example of coded-queerness. Let's quickly define that term: if a character is 'coded queer' it means that, for all intents and purposes, a character on screen is LGBTQ+. In order to appeal to the widest markets possible though (or: in order to get ticket sales from homophobes), the character will never explicitly be outed. An example of this is Ryan in Disney's High School Musical franchise, or Scar and Hades in The Lion King and Hercules respectively. Each of those characters possess obviously homosexual traits, some explicitly flirt with other male characters, but the movies never delve in to the characters' true desires.

Velma, James Gunn explained to the Seattle Times in 2002, was written initially as a gay character. "[I'm] pretty sure she's gay", the producer said to the paper, " So we had a couple little nods to that in the movie and in the end, again, they were things that kind of (detracted from) the scenes." Linda Cardellini also spoke to the paper; "There were a few scenes where Velma comes out of her shell. I wouldn't say she comes out of the closet. I thought more along the lines that maybe her sexuality is a little ambiguous."

The Velma-Daphne alluded romance was set to conclude with the couple sharing a kiss at the end of the movie but, unfortunately for the orange-wearing scientist, Daphne's feelings weren't as 'ambiguous'. You see, one of the other cut aspects of the film was Fred and Daphne's overtly sexual subtext. The duo were played by Freddie Prinze Jr. and Sarah Michelle Gellar (who had been dating for two years prior to the movie's filming) and Daphne's traditional damsel-in-distress trope was dropped in favour of a fashion-loving, mystery solving martial arts trainee. Prinze Jr. and Gellar are now married, the couple's chemistry as heart-warming and dynamic in real life as it was on screen.

In the same Seattle Times article, Warner Bros. executive Charles Roven described one of his favourite moments in the R-rated cut of the film:

"The original script featured a scene in which Fred gazed lustfully at Daphne while she leaned over him to load luggage into an airplane's overhead bin. The camera then panned to Velma, who was ogling her, too. Another deleted scene featured Fred attempting to talk his way into Daphne's hotel room under the pretense of protecting her, Roven said. The ratings board took issue with the fact that he was bringing his toothbrush, which implied plans to spend the entire night. 

"The ratings board thought that it wasn't as subtle as we thought it was," Roven said."

It's a genuine shame that we will never see the film's original cut, but thanks to the cast and crew's genuine adoration for the R-rated first version many of the adult jokes have been left slightly intact in the theatrically released product - Pamela Anderson's bizarre and...ahem...revealing cameo as a 'Toy' Factory Owner existing among the remaining gags. 

In retrospect, Matthew Lillard (Shaggy) had this to say: "We played on all those things. Is Velma gay? Is Shaggy high? Are [Fred and Daphne] hooking up? All those jokes were in there, but we found at the end of the day it was more important to go the other way ... and that was to be more family-oriented. Some of that stuff is in there. If you look for it, you'll find it. If you don't, you won't."

You can read the full 2002 Seattle Times article here.

Written by James Green