This week marks the 15th anniversary of Scooby-Doo, a landmark of modern cinema that definitely earns the title, “A film that was made in 2002.” To commemorate the moment, Scooby-Doo screenwriter (and writer-director of noted indie films Guardians Of The Galaxy Vols. 1 and 2) James Gunn has posted a lengthy remembrance on Facebook, discussing the friends he made from the experience (Linda Cardellini, Matthew Lillard), late-night games of Celebrity with actual celebrities, and the joy of having a hit film that guaranteed him work for years to come. (And bought him a house. That’s probably a nice memory, too.)
But one of the first things he cops to is the admission that the children’s movie was originally rated R. Not only that, but the women in the starring roles had their cleavage CGI-ed away, “so as not to offend.” Fans immediately responded, wanting to know both the reasons for the R rating and expressing hope they could someday see the cleavage-heavy original cut, presumably thanks to a very particular fetish.
As to the former, Gunn explains: “It was simply some line of dialogue the MPAA thought referred to oral sex.” And as for the latter, people whose sexual proclivities are inextricably bound up with a Saturday morning cartoon about a semi-talking dog will just have to stick with the 2011 Scooby Doo: A XXX Parody, as Gunn says, “I don’t know where you’re getting the idea there was a ‘ton of cleavage.’ It was a handful of shots.” Thus, the words “ton of cleavage” and “Scooby-Doo” are typed together online for only the several hundredth time today.