Sequelitis has hit Devon, or at least its under-seven department, and next Tuesday me and mine are off to see the new live-action Scooby Doo film at the cinema. It's my daughter's first ever trip to the cinema, and she's somewhat excited - I feel slightly neglectful actually, since by the time I was her age I had seen for definite Disney's animated version of "Robin Hood" and "Star Wars", and unless my memory cheats "Jason and the Argonauts" as well, all on 'the big screen'. Mind you, in those days there were only the three channels on 'the small screen' whereas now there are not only about a hundred times more channels, we have also come through (and lived to tell the tale) the video age and into the shiny, shiny DVD age. For that matter, with our new 17" TV, even the small screen isn't all that small.

Additionally when I was younger we were living only a trip to the city centre away from two cinemas (might have been three actually, now I think about it); conversely, living out in the sticks as we now do (further still actually - we live in the back of beyond but you can just make out the sticks in the middle-distance) the nearest cinema is about 14 miles away, and it's a fairly basic affair at that. It only has the one screen, and was reportedly built by a man who had always wanted to run a cinema of his own. From the outside it resembles an oversized Anderson Shelter, and the inside resembles, well, an oversized Anderson Shelter with chairs and a screen. (Oh, and popcorn.)

So anyway, regardless of the less-than-Lucasfilm-standard quality of the picture-house itself, we are nevertheless off on Tuesday afternoon to watch what I have described to my daughter as "a big TV in the dark". She rather sweetly always refers to the film by its full title, "Scooby Doo 2 - Monsters Unleashed" as though to just call it, as I do, "Scooby Doo" might be in some way confusing. I can't think where on Earth she might have acquired, inherited if you like, this tendency to be long-winded, but if she ever becomes a Doctor Who fan you can be sure she will refer to Hartnell's finest historical by its full revisionist name of "The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve" as opposed to the rather snappier "The Massacre" which was perfectly adequate for us during the late 20th century.

As preparation for the cinematic experience ahead, and because she doesn't like a week to go by when we don't watch it at least once, we watched the DVD of the first live-action "Scooby Doo" (thankfully that is its full name, without numbering or subtitle) this morning. It's hard to gauge whether the majority of the people reading this, or indeed both of you, will have seen the film or not, but in case you haven't I will just explain that Rowan Atkinson appears in it, as a character rather bizarrely called Emile Mondavarious. In his first scene in the film (or 'movie' as I believe the experts call them) he does a very unscary, scary monster impression to demonstrate to the Scooby Gang just how frightening he can be. Yes, quite... Anyway, in the hands of Rowan Atkinson (I didn't like to type 'Mr Atkinson' because it seemed so clipped, and yet when I typed just 'Rowan' it looked oddly inappropriate) it is a very funny moment, and I certainly laughed the first half-dozen or so times I saw it. But by now, and with all due reference to Mr At-- to Rowa-- to the man himself, I have become immune to the hilarity of the moment - yet my daughter always points out that, "The bit you like is on next." What a memory! Although clearly a rather selective one since she has forgotten to tidy her toyroom three times already this week.

Rowan Atkinson is of course, to us adults at least, a fairly familiar face from, variously, "Not the Nine O'Clock News" (which my parents weren't keen on, but which we were once allowed to watch as a special treat), "Mr Bean" and variously titled sitcoms with the words Black and Adder in their titles. My daughter however has not entirely grasped the concept of actors - when she saw the rubber-faced Mr A. in something else (might have been a trailer for "Johnny English" or "Rat Race") she still thought of him as the man who owned Spooky Island. I told her, thinking it might help, that he was also the man who did the voice for Zazu the parrot in "The Lion King". I didn't get any response to that one so not only did it not help, I think her brain is still processing the information.

From the same film my daughter also has a sense that 'Daphne' was also in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (not that she watches the latter, but she has again seen enough trailers, or adverts for the DVD releases, to at least recognise the face). Whether she thinks Buffy is pretending to be Daphne, or vice versa I'm not sure. In case you think this is a curiously Doo-lead phenomenon, my littl'un once caught a bit of "Enlightenment" and was utterly baffled when I pointed out to her that the lady playing Wrack the pirate villainess was also Auntie Mabel on Children's BBC. I think that thought is still rattling around with Zazu somewhere...

I suppose the idea of people dressing up on screen can be confusing for kids, although in some ways it surprises me that this should be so. After all, once a year they themselves put on tea-towels or bits of tinsel and act out the Nativity story. Nevertheless it does seem that it takes some time for the divide between 'real' and 'pretend' to be defined - presumably the reason children so love to play imaginary things. My daughter likes to pretend her many (many, many, many) soft toys are alive and talking to her over cups of tea; other children have imaginary friends; and I used to pretend one of our kitchen chairs was a secret Imperial Base that Palitoy's rendition of Luke Skywalker & Co. had to infiltrate. Of course some people never do quite grasp the principal of actors being just actors, which is why soap opera stars are prone to being confused with the characters they play. That's fine, if at times annoying, if you're one of the good guys, but when you're a villain like Richard Hillman or, going back a few years, Alan Bradley you do run the risk of being accosted in, and by, the public.

I can't honestly say when or how I finally twigged that, for example, Tom Baker was an actor and not in fact a mysterious alien with two hearts. (Although many a recent interview with him has led me to reassess that statement.) Even when I did, I'm sure I still thought he just walked into the BBC in the morning, made it all up as he went along, and then came home - those countless names that obscured my view of that lovely time-tunnel week after week certainly didn't register as having a part to play in the programme I had just watched.

Of course there is another side to the business of actors cropping up in different shows. Although watching, for example, "Castrovalva" (the first story featuring the fifth Doctor) I could clearly recognise Peter Davison from "All Creatures Great and Small" (well, obviously) it did take a while for me to pinpoint the weaselly features of Ruther. They turned out to be those of the late Frank Wylie who played Fergus the Postie in "Take the High Road". (As an aside, that character was the hero of an old friend of mine, who at one time worked as a postman. I think the realisation that in fact the job involved a lot more delivering of post, and a lot less drinking cups of tea and nattering, was what put him off the job. More blurring of reality and fiction?)

Mind you, nowadays I suppose the age-old tradition of scratching your head and annoying your spouse by spending half of a TV show wondering "What's he/she been in?" (rather like Tony H-H-Hancock in the marvellous episode where he has an army reunion - "Oh you know him, what was his name now?" only even more annoying) has been rather phased-out thanks to The Internet Movie Database. It's no coincidence that there is a link to the guru-like IMDb on our Favourites list. In fact the first time we used it was not a question of identity, but of nationality. We were watching some film with Leslie Caron in it (a rather dire TV Movie of "The Murder on the Orient Express" I believe) and I made the mistake of mocking her unconvincing French accent. My wife insisted that she actually was French, and full of certainty that this was not the case I looked it up on the IMDb.

But drawing a veil over who was right and who was wrong in that particular situation (and really, at the end of the day, it's not a question of being right or being wrong, now is it) the IMDb is now a handy reference for any half-recognised actor in anything that comes up. Not, to give her her due, that my wife isn't pretty good on these things anyway - she can often reel off a list of films featuring actors that I haven't even heard of. But it's useful to be able to look up and find, for example, that as well as the various highlights listed above, Rowan and his friend Mr Atkinson can also be seen in "Love Actually", "Bernard and the Genie" and "Never Say Never Again". In fact it can even give such fascinating information as whether somebody is dead or not (we checked on Joan Hickson, and alas she is). It can even give you actors' birthdays, which makes it doubly ironic that some rambling fool who shall remain nameless claimed in respect of the year 1979, and in bold type no less, that Patrick Troughton was more than a year younger than his successor Jon Pertwee, whereas a quick check of the IMDb would have clearly established it as only between eight and nine months.

Of course, as readers of my original scribblings on Scooby Doo may recall, the Boomerang channel is a proud supporter, and this week has seen yet another barrage of Doo material. To confuse my daughter still further there have been short snippets of the actors from the new movie talking to camera. As well as being confused by the presence of Seth ("Buffy the Vampire Slayer", "Austin Powers", "The Italian Job", source: IMDb, where else?) Green, who she incorrectly assumed to be the Freddie who plays Freddie, she was also baffled by sight of the actress Linda Cardellini, out of her Velma costume and make-up. I was also interested by that sequence - as well as having those shoulders, I can now also tell you that Ms Cardellini is blonde, a fact I dare to suggest even the IMDb couldn't have told me. Oh, and it suits her...

So on Tuesday afternoon, while you're slaving away at work (or just, while you're at work) think of me. I shall be watching, say it with me (and out of respect for my daughter say all of it) "Scooby Doo 2 - Monsters Unleashed". And now, unbothered by the fact that I will be repeating a 'gag' I have used before, this column will have to come to an end, because my daughter wants to play on the computer.

Meddling Kid!