This week’s Guildford Times is running a story about a notorious local businessman who runs several of the night spots in the town centre, and it made me chuckle. This guy often runs into planning permission problems and the like (such as his plan for a huge casino in the town centre), and he is very often in the paper. He wanted to open a snack bar called Scooby Snacks but had to change the name to Zoooby Snacks to avoid legal action from Warner Bros.
The paper helpfully gives us some background:
In the cartoon, the hero hound is rewarded with Scooby Snacks for his bravery.
Mr Harper explains the name change:
“I had to change the name because I was advised we were breaching the trademark of Scooby Doo, although the takeaway has nothing to do with the cartoon at all. It never got to the legal action stage but we were warned there could be a problem.
“We did not think they [Warner Bros] would take any notice of a small takeaway.”
Reading between the lines, it’s quite clear: he would have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn’t been for those pesky meddling kids!