I don't know what got me thinking about this. The part about Law & Order I had written once and posted on a message board, and I had just seen Blair Witch for the first time, so yah.

On the Scooby Doo cartoons, there are four homeless, unemployed teenagers living in a van who talk to their dog and chase ghosts every week. All of them have kinfolk who look just like them; like they'll get to an old hotel or an amusement park and Shaggy will say "Hey, gang, this is my grandma!" and it'll just be him with a dress on. There were even other dogs who looked just like Scooby. Who knows where their money came from? Or the van with its freaky paint job? Shaggy and Scooby always had the munchies. Velma was a lesbian. They were all misfits and freaks and outcasts.

Aside from that, they always encountered the exact same situation every week: Someone dressed up as a ghost or a monster to "scare people away" from wherever they happened to be. Coincidentally, there was always a local legend for someone to take advantage of. Shaggy and Scooby always believed that the monster was real. Always. What's worse, the people who made the cartoon always tried to keep us guessing as to whether or not the monster was real; I mean, it was never real but every week everyone took it so seriously, like the actually wanted the viewer to say to himself "I wonder if this time the monster might actually be real!"

At the end of the episode, of course, the bad guy is found out and he says "...and I would have gotten away with it, too, if it wasn't for you nosy kids!"

I wonder how often does this happen? If it happened in real life as often as it happened on that show, it would open up whole new areas for the legal profession. You would have lawyers who specialized in both prosecuting and defending people who pretended to be monsters. There would be special forensic and investigative units attached to every local and federal law enforcement agency. Congress would be debating "tougher fake ghost laws" and calling them things like The Bigfoot Bill". You would be able to turn on the TV during the day and see cheesy commercials that said like "Have you been scared away from your home or place of business by an associate or relative dressing as a monster? Then call me, Max Grullersteinem, and I'll get you the money you deserve." Civil liberties groups and conservative action committees would get in on the debate. Politicians would take stands on it.

And all this brings up another point, in the absence of such hysteria, what are the guys in these cartoons being charged with? At the end of every cartoon, the police come to take the guys away, well, why? How does the conversation go in the squad car on the way back to the station house? What laws were actually being broken?

The most surreal part of the show, though, was when the monster would chase Shaggy and Scooby and they would dress up as barbers giving him a shave or take out a stop sign and pretend to be traffic cops giving him a ticket. They do this when they are depicted as almost paralyzed multiphobic personalities. Perhaps this bizarre role playing is an anomolous defense mechanism that allows them to deal with their fear of the supernatural.

You never actually see them fight back. There are plenty of axes and things on the walls of those castles for Shaggy to take up. And Scooby was a big dog. They would have found out real quick how real that ghost was. Maybe Scooby's instincts were dulled by whatever hallucinogenic was in those Scooby Snacks.

I always thought it would have been interesting to see how Scooby and the gang would have dealt with an actual crime. I mean, what if the cops who came to take the bad guy were the two guys from Law & Order? So instead of just two parts, Cops & Lawyers, now we have three: Teenage investigators, Cops, and Lawyers.

Can't you see Jack McCoy trying to prosecute one of these cases?

ADAM: So he dressed up like a giant chicken to scare people away from the amusement park! It may be stupid but it's not a crime.
JACK: Adam, his actions furthered the continuance of the original intent to defraudulate Velma's grandmother in a criminal conspiracy. I can make the prima facia case.

And then the defense attorney, of course, gets all tricky.

DEFENSE: Don't throw your victory party yet, counselor (handing a piece of paper). Motion to supress the giant chicken costume.
JACK: What?
DEFENSE: The search took place while my client was disoriented after Shaggy and the dog pretended they were barbers giving him a shave. He wasn't able to formulate consent to the search.
JACK (shaking his head): Doesn't matter. Shaggy and Scooby acted as private citizens, and as such aren't required to...
DEFENSE: It won't work, Jack (handing another piece of paper).
JACK: Whats this?
DEFENSE: Four years ago while on a multijurisdictional task force with Jonathan Winters and Batman & Robin, they were given the titles honorary deputies in the Alameda County, Ohio Sheriff's Department after their actions directly led to the arrest and conviction of Mr. Parker from the Grain Store who dressed up as a Giant Blue Slug to scare people away from Daphne's uncle's hotel. Their actions in this case are a direct continuance of their status as officer's of the court.

And, finally, after some legal wrangling, comes the climactic courtroom scene:

DEFENSE (talking to a large great dane on the witness stand): Now, Mr. Doo, isn't it true that you never actually saw my client in the chicken costume?
SCOOBY: Rowr?
DEFENSE: Mr. Doo, would you repeat your answer so the jury can hear?
SCOOBY: Rowr?
DEFENSE: Your Honor, permission to treat as hostile?
SCOOBY: Ruh-Ro!

Or.......what if they had to deal with an actual monster, like on The Blair Witch Project? Like, if instead of taking Josh and Mike, Heather took Velma and Shaggy and Scooby into the woods?

HEATHER: Hello? Hello? (turns to the camera) What is that?
VELMA: Jinkys! Maybe its Mr. Parker from the grain store, trying to scare us away so he can build an amusement park!
SCOOBY: Ruh-Ro!
SHAGGY: *Zoinks!* Like, maybe it's the Buh-buh-buh-Blair Witch!
SCOOBY: Yikes!
HEATHER: Why don't you f---ing shut the f--- up you *&^%$%#@!!!

These could be like those cartoons where they had the guest stars. That would be cool.