The word ‘Scooby Snacks’, a small dog biscuit awarded to a sleuthing cartoon dachshund by his companions as a reward for following them into crime scenes orchestrated by weirdos in Halloween costumes, has been added to the Oxford English Dictionary. The phrase was also popularised by the band Fun Lovin’ Criminals, for their 1995 hit song of the same name.
The Scooby Snack first appeared in the classic Hanna-Barbera cartoon Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?!, which debuted in 1969. In the show, Scooby and his companion Shaggy Rogers, voiced for decades by the late Casey Kasem, awarded themselves the snack food in moments of courage.
A licensed merchandise tie-in cookie was later released in the US market, with the two-word phrase quickly neologised as a slang word for Valium – a play on how addictive the treats were in the show.
Scooby Snacks is just one of more than 1,000 new words added to the OED lexicon, including other late-to-the-game terms like listicle, bovvered, ROFL, TL;DR, power couple, and stupid o’clock.
Reacting to the news, the official Twitter account of the Fun Lovin’ Criminals tweeted the definition of Scooby Snack taken from the OED website, expressing their delight with a spirited “Ah, JEAH!”.
The @OED adds 'Scooby Snack' to the dictionary. Ah, JEAH! #LoveYaBack https://t.co/N0lqBu6E0h pic.twitter.com/E1HTS2TWaW
— FUN LOVIN' CRIMINALS (@funlovincrims) June 29, 2016
Other popular phrases from the show, Shaggy’s signature “zoinks” and Velma’s iconic “jinkies” has yet to make the cut.
