It almost seems as though every '90s baby childhood was not complete without having watched a few episodes of "Scooby-Doo!" Shaggy, Scooby, Velma, Daphne, and Fred all had the life every child dreamed of. I mean who wouldn't want to drive around in the Mystery Inc. van while catching bad guys and basically saving the world. Aside from all that who wouldn’t want to hang out with Scooby all day?

In the midst of fighting crime, working together and sending laughter and joy into homes everywhere since 1969, I think it’s pretty fair to say that there was an underlying message that was uniform throughout all of the episodes. Every episode was pretty similar: there would be a monster on the lose, The Mystery Gang would begin to work to catch said monster, they would run around in creepy houses, warehouses and/or abandoned amusement parks until they finally saved the day by trapping the monster and saving the entire town from the creature’s terror. After this The Mystery Gang would take off the monsters mask, to reveal no other than a human being, one that was typically known by crime fighters and who had appeared to be a kind-hearted individual.

I’m not sure about you but growing up I was pretty scared of anything that I considered a monster. Ghosts, ghouls, anything with fangs, anything with more than four legs (@spiders), mummies, under some circumstances the Easter bunny and we definitely can’t forget about the monster under my bed. These things were absolutely terrifying to me, I viewed them as strange entities which would at some point pop out of my closet and terrorize my life. Kids, we believe the darnedest things don't we.

The older I grew the more I began to appreciate the subtle message that was hidden within each episode of "Scooby-Doo!" Growing up I never noticed it, I was overwhelmed by the humor and storyline of this amazing cartoon as most kids are. The world of Shaggy and Scooby had me completely mesmerized, and I wanted nothing more than to be just like Daphne when I grew up. However, we cannot stay kids forever. Even though I still idolize Daphne (I mean who wouldn’t) and the rest of Mystery Incorporated, my journey into adulthood has definitely opened my eyes to the subliminal messages hidden in my favorite childhood shows. Recently, when watching a rerun of "Scooby-Doo!" with a four year old I was babysitting I realized what underlying message this cartoon was trying to get across. The monsters I once believed in, the kind that lived under my bed, did not actually exist. Instead, the real monsters were people.

Now don’t get me wrong, the majority of people are wonderful human beings. But, there are of course some people who aren’t. There are people in this world who want to make your life miserable. There are people who would give anything to see you struggle, to see you give up, and sometimes we don’t really look at the big picture enough to see who actually wants the best for us. In "Scooby-Doo!" the monsters wore masks to hide who they really were. Looking back on my own personal experiences, I can see where people hid not their identity, but their personalities by constructing a metaphorical mask out of manipulative actions.

Every episode of "Scooby-Doo!" tries to teach children this lesson as soon as they are able to keep their eyes open long enough for the thirty minutes it takes for The Mystery Gang to catch a villain. Who would have thought that a mystery show, centered around an amazing great dane named Scooby, would be able to get across the message that people may not always be what they seem.

P.S. Don’t worry I checked, "Scooby-Doo!" Mystery Incorporated is most definitely on Netflix. Let the binge watching commence!