So I was on America’s Newsroom earlier in the hour, with the lovely and talented Martha MacCallum. We were talking about the media’s coverage of the Humanize Hillary Tour and I began with a bit of a rant about being a “strict constructionist” about Saturday morning cartoons. It drives me crazy that they keep calling Hillary’s spontano-mobile “Scooby” — in part because she “spontaneously” did the same thing 15 years ago in her senate run. But what really bothers me is that in the original cartoon the dog was named Scooby, not the van. It’s like naming your cool new car “Batman” because it looks like the Batmobile or your old jallopy ”Caractacus Potts“ because it looks like the car from Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang. The van in Scooby Doo was called “The Mystery Machine”! Dagnabit.
There’s only one problem: I said on air that it was called “The Dream Machine.”
I simply misspoke, I did in fact know the correct name. Still, it is a particular brand of asinine to make a big deal about getting trivial facts right and in the process getting the facts wrong.
I regret the error. Truly.
I just wish there were some meddling kids I could blame.