Tuesday, January 09, 2007

Scooby-Doo, Instant Ramen Noodles Guy Die

The creator of Scooby-Doo is dead. I had no idea his name was inspired by Sinatra's scatting at the end of "Strangers In the Night" ("dooby-dooby-doo") but that makes me love Scooby all the more. All I know about Scooby is how phenomenally popular he has been. Many years ago, when I was factchecking some article for Premiere, I remember speaking with someone at Warner Bros. who was answering a few questions and then we got off topic talking about Q ratings (the ratings system that measures how well known and how popular people and characters are) and this person emphasized how off the charts Scooby's popularity was with EVERYONE -- bigger than Superman and Batman and Tom Cruise and Julia Roberts and you name it. Scooby was beloved by everyone with a pulse. They were making literally billions of Scooby merchandise and nothing Scooby-related had been created for movies or TV or books in years.

And the Japanese creator of instant Ramen noodles has also died. 46 BILLION packs and cups of the noodles his company made were sold last year. A key to their worldwide success? Chicken. “Hindus may not eat beef and Muslims may not eat pork, but there is not a single culture, religion or country that forbids the eating of chicken," he wrote, per the NYTimes. Poor chickens; no one loves them.

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