---
title: "Masks and Monsters"

description: "The 2020 pandemic record: cartoon mythology as survival language, eighteen North Park tracks, and the first Scoobert album where the bit collides with adult reality."

year: 2020
releaseDate: 2020-08-11
artworkBy: "Gentle Giant Illustrations"

artist: "Scoobert Doobert"
artistId: "#scoobert"

bandcamp: "https://scoobertdoobert.bandcamp.com/album/masks-monsters-lp"
spotify: "https://open.spotify.com/album/13zzM1QEnrvJ7kRwUGNIFw"
apple: "https://music.apple.com/us/album/masks-and-monsters/1526427944"
youtube: "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zcGome9-yI"

tracks:
  - { title: "It Can Get Worse", song: it-can-get-worse }
  - { title: "Snuggle With Shaggy", song: snuggle-with-shaggy }
  - { title: "Creature Comfort", song: creature-comfort }
  - { title: "When It's Over", song: when-its-over }
  - { title: "Pandemic Blues", song: pandemic-blues }
  - { title: "A Good Life", song: a-good-life }
  - { title: "Wash Your Fucking Hands", song: wash-your-fucking-hands }
  - { title: "Flip Flop Phil", song: flip-flop-phil }
  - { title: "Quarantine and Chill", feat: "Babidi", song: quarantine-and-chill }
  - { title: "My Mind Is Slowly Slipping", feat: "Babidi", song: my-mind-is-slowly-slipping }
  - { title: "Shaggy's Anthem", song: shaggys-anthem }
  - { title: "Happy Birthday", feat: "Gokudaxij", song: happy-birthday }
  - { title: "Coca Cola", song: coca-cola }
  - { title: "Corona", song: corona }
  - { title: "I Am a Slave to the Yeast", song: i-am-a-slave-to-the-yeast }
  - { title: "Why, How, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah", song: why-how-yeah-yeah-yeah }
  - { title: "Mystery Machine", song: mystery-machine }
  - { title: "Derrida Makes a Différance", song: derrida-makes-a-differance }

press:
  - outlet: "Masks, Monsters, and Memes: Max Horwich (Critical Meme Reader)"
    url: "https://lukefwalton.com/publications/masks-monsters-and-memes/"
    desc: "Book chapter on Scoobert Doobert as memetic production (INC Reader #15, 2021, pp. 78–88). Reference page with DOI + PDF."
  - outlet: "Computational Culture — Critical Meme Reader review (Neda Genova)"
    url: "http://computationalculture.net/review-of-critical-meme-reader-global-mutations-of-the-viral-image/"
    date: "2023-07"
    desc: "Only Scoobert-specific scholarly reception; names Horwich interview; notes cite pp. 79 & 88. MediaRep TOC + Neural Archive are publication record/cataloging, not citations."
  - outlet: "Neural Archive — volume TOC lists Horwich/Scoobert"
    url: "https://archive.neural.it/init/default/show/3200"
    desc: "Cataloging (not citation count): TOC includes Masks, Monsters, and Memes chapter."
  - outlet: "Last Day Deaf"
    url: "https://lastdaydeaf.com/91-qa-with-scoobert-doobert/"
    desc: "Q&A on the album’s name and its cartoon namesake, closing with “Mystery Machine.”"
  - outlet: "Neon Music"
    url: "https://neonmusic.co.uk/face-your-fears-with-scoobert-dooberts-shaggys-anthem"
    date: "2020"
    desc: "On “Shaggy’s Anthem” ahead of the LP: courage while your knees are shaking."
  - outlet: "Glasse Factory"
    url: "https://glassefactory.com/scoobert-dooberts-new-track-think-about-it-is-experimental-funk-at-its-finest/"
    desc: "Artist note: fourth record, recorded in North Park during lockdown."

draft: false
---

*Masks and Monsters* is the pandemic record. Fourth in the early Scoobert run, after [*Dragon Ball $d*](/albums/dragon-ball-d/), and the moment the project stops using cartoons only as escape mythology and starts using them as survival language for real-time collapse.

[*Finding $D*](/albums/finding-d-remastered/) is the one-day lab notebook. [*Swami's*](/albums/wami/) is the lore dump. [*Dragon Ball $d*](/albums/dragon-ball-d/) is the narrative hip-hopera. **Masks and Monsters** is the pandemic self-portrait. Luke Francis Walton wrote, played, mixed, and mastered the whole thing in North Park, San Diego, while the world was very small. Babidi (Taylor James / J MESA) cowrote and sings on *Quarantine and Chill* and *My Mind Is Slowly Slipping*. Gokudaxij (Eric Radloff) cowrote and sings on *Happy Birthday*. Everything else is Luke. Cover art by Gentle Giant Illustrations.

[Bandcamp *Masks & Monsters (LP)*](https://scoobertdoobert.bandcamp.com/album/masks-monsters-lp) dropped **August 11, 2020** ($8 or more, 24-bit/88.2kHz). [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/album/13zzM1QEnrvJ7kRwUGNIFw), [Apple Music](https://music.apple.com/us/album/masks-and-monsters/1526427944), and Deezer all list **18 tracks, about fifty minutes**, ℗ 2020 Beformer. The [visual album](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zcGome9-yI) calls it explicitly “my full pandemic record.” Not an album that happened to come out in 2020; the pandemic document.

The cartoon shell is still there: Shaggy, *Mystery Machine*, monster language, goofy title logic. The emotional center is much more direct: *It Can Get Worse*, *Creature Comfort*, *When It's Over*, *Pandemic Blues*, *A Good Life*, *My Mind Is Slowly Slipping*, *Corona*. Masks work literally (COVID) and mythologically (Scoobert's older costume-and-avatar world). The songs are still funny, but the joke no longer feels like decoration. It feels like a pressure valve. [Last Day Deaf](https://lastdaydeaf.com/91-qa-with-scoobert-doobert/) caught the naming story; the [Critical Meme Reader](/publications/masks-monsters-and-memes/) later treated the record as memetic production in practice.

The closer is [Derrida Makes a Différance](/songs/derrida-makes-a-differance/): cosmic nihilism, matter puns, family as grounding. That's the philosophical thread the rest of the catalog keeps pulling on. What comes next is [*Little Hug*](/albums/little-hug/): re-entry after the pandemic record.