Scooby-Doo (animation)

From left to right: Fred, Velma, Scooby, Shaggy, Daphne.
The gang as they appear in What's New, Scooby-Doo?
"Scooby-Doo! Where are you?"
—Norville "Shaggy" Rogers

The original Breakfast Club, a popular Saturday Morning Cartoon from Hanna-Barbera that premiered in 1969 and lasted in various forms up to the early Eighties (and episodes are again being made today) featuring four teenagers (Fred Jones, Velma Dinkley, Daphne Blake and Norville "Shaggy" Rogers) and their talking dog Scooby-Doo (a classic Speech-Impaired Animal) in a van called the Mystery Machine. Each episode they'd encounter a mystery involving some form of spooky supernatural monster which would more often than not turn out to be a hoax meant to frighten the locals away from the villain's real operation, and which would be resolved at the end by unmasking the villain, who would inevitably utter "I would have gotten away with it if it hadn't been for You Meddling Kids, and that dog too." Reportedly also full of drug references (hey, it was The Seventies), depending on how you read it (what the hell do they put in those Scooby Snacks, anyways?).

Since the 1970s there have been many incarnations, including several direct-to-video movies, a series with real ghosts called The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo and a series with prepubescent versions of the cast. One such incarnation added Scooby's nephew Scrappy Doo (a classic Talking Animal) to the cast, which was when the franchise as a whole is considered by some to have Jumped the Shark. (Mark Evanier, who wrote the pilot episode of Scooby & Scrappy-Doo, told a crowd at San Diego's Comic-Con of how people thought Scrappy ruined Scooby-Doo, to which he would reply, "It's Scooby-Doo. How do you ruin Scooby-Doo?") After that point the show frequently operated with just Shaggy, Scooby and Scrappy. Daphne often came along for the ride due to Popularity Power at the time. The show has stayed on the air in all its various incarnations because it is consistently the most popular show of choice by focus groups of 6-11 year olds.

Scooby-Doo is so thoroughly embedded in American popular culture that the ad-hoc vampire-hunting team that formed around Buffy Summers in Buffy the Vampire Slayer called themselves "The Scooby Gang". (The Scooby-Doo kids never refer to themselves as such; their name in the pilot script is "Mystery, Inc." It has also become Cockney Rhyming Slang for "clue" (as in "Haven't a Scooby, mate").

Recently made into a trilogy of live-action movies (starring Sarah Michelle Gellar of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame as Daphne and her husband Freddy Prinze Jr. as Fred). The first two movie were theatrical films, the third (which was a prequel and featured a different cast) went straight to video. These were loaded with Continuity Nods, and lampshaded the show's own cliches.

In 2005, the show briefly beat The Simpsons for most episodes produced of an American cartoon.

The most recent incarnations are What's New, Scooby-Doo? (A modernized return to the mystery format) and Shaggy & Scooby-Doo Get a Clue! (which is much flatter animation-wise and rather weird, featuring nanotech Scooby snacks and a message from Fred [no relation] in the title). A new series called Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated premiered July 12, 2010 (containing possible character development, an overarching plot, and a Darker and Edgier feel).

Scooby-Doo Television Series

  • Scooby Doo Where Are You! (1969-1970, CBS; a batch of episodes made in 1978 for ABC have been tagged as an unofficial third season but was syndicated under the Scooby-Doo Show title)
  • The New Scooby-Doo Movies (1972-1974, CBS. This was the series with all those animated versions of real life celebrities and crossovers with other cartoons. Unlike the other series', the episodes of this series were an hour long.)
  • The Scooby Doo Show (1976-1979, ABC)
  • Scooby And Scrappy Doo (1979-1980, ABC)
  • Scooby-Doo/Richie Rich Show (1980-1982, ABC. A completely different series from the first one, with only Shaggy, Scooby and Scrappy, paired with animated episodes of comic book character Richie Rich)
  • Scooby-Doo Classics (1981, ABC. Where Are You! replays slotted in after the Laverne and Shirley cartoon was delayed)
  • Scooby Doo/Puppy's Adventures (1982-83, ABC. Co-produced by Ruby-Spears with adventures of Weekend Special character Petey the Puppy)
  • The All-New Scooby and Scrappy-Doo Show (1983-1984, ABC)
  • The Best Of Scooby-Doo (1983-84, ABC. repackaging of previous episodes)
  • The New Scooby-Doo Mysteries (1984-85, ABC)
  • Scary Scooby Funnies (1984-85, ABC. 1980-83 replays slotted in after Wolf Rock TV was canceled after only three telecasts)
  • The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo (1985-1986, ABC)
  • Scooby's Mystery Funhouse (1985-86, ABC. New name for Scary Scooby Funnies)
  • A Pup Named Scooby-Doo (1988-1991, ABC)
  • What's New, Scooby-Doo? (2002-2006, The WB)
  • Shaggy & Scooby-Doo Get a Clue! (2006-2008, The CW)
  • Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated (2010-2013, Cartoon Network)

Other Scooby Productions

And too many Direct to Video animated features to list, but we did so anyway.

  • Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island (1998)
  • Scooby-Doo! and the Witch's Ghost (1999)
  • Scooby-Doo and the Alien Invaders (2000)
  • Scooby-Doo and the Cyber Chase (2001)
  • Scooby-Doo! and the Legend of the Vampire (2002)
  • Scooby-Doo! and the Monster of Mexico (2003)
  • Scooby-Doo! and the Loch Ness Monster (2004)
  • Aloha, Scooby-Doo! (2005)
  • Scooby-Doo! in Where's My Mummy? (2005)
  • Scooby-Doo! Pirates Ahoy! (2006)
  • Chill Out, Scooby-Doo! (2007)
  • Scooby-Doo! and the Goblin King (2008)
  • Scooby-Doo! and the Samurai Sword (2009)
  • Scooby-Doo! Abracadabra-Doo (2010)
  • Scooby-Doo! Camp Scare (2010)
  • Scooby-Doo! Legend of the Phantosaur (2011)
  • Scooby-Doo! Music of the Vampire (2012)
The following tropes are common to many or all entries in the Scooby-Doo (animation) franchise.
For tropes specific to individual installments, visit their respective work pages.
  • A lot of running past a Wraparound Background.
  • Velma losing her glasses, in the CBS series. (She's Blind Without'Em.)
  • Catch Phrases: "Zoinks!" for Shaggy, "Jinkies!" for Velma, "Jeepers" for Daphne. Scrappy had two: "Let me at 'em, Let me at 'em!" and "Da-da-da-da-da-da, Puppy Power!". Not to forget the infamous "Let's Split Up, Gang!" for Freddy, and of course, Scooby's "Scooby Dooby Doo!" and "Rut Roh!" In some of the newer episodes/movies, Scooby responds to any mention of a dog with "Rog? Rwhere?"
A Pup Named Scooby-Doo mercilessly lampooned and lampshaded these. And invented several new ones. And then lampooned and lampshaded those.
The catchphrases are also lampshaded in one of the cartoon movies. After something bad happens they each say their catchphrases, except for Fred, whose catch phrase doesn't fit into that situation and instead laments his apparent lack of a Catch Phrase.
  • Shaggy and Scooby consuming very large sandwiches.
  • Scrappy's attempts to use physical violence against the "ghost", almost always stopped by Scooby grabbing him by the scruff of the neck.
    • It actually works a few times in Scooby-Doo meets the Boo Brothers.
  • Daphne getting abducted and tied up. Lampshaded in the original series; she's called "Danger-Prone Daphne" more than once.
  • A chase sequence through a room with a series of random doors with entryways that break the laws of physics.
  • Edible Smelling Salts: This technique/trope is used to wake up Scooby Doo, Shaggy, or both of them.
  • Scooby-Doo Hoax -- although a few later movie-length episodes (and Thirteen Ghosts) had the ghosts turning out to be real. As well as the first-season episode "Foul Play in Funland". Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island, the show likes playing with the trope as much as it likes playing it straight.
  • Scooby and Shaggy dressing up in costumes and making a short skit to confuse the chasing monster.
  • Despite the Plan - A convoluted plan to catch the villain that never goes as planned.
  • The Reveal in the form of a Dramatic Unmask at the climax of the episode. "Let's see who this monster really is!"
Hilariously subverted in the What's New episode "It's All Greek To Scooby" when Velma triumphantly announces the identity of the Centaur and pulls the mask off...to reveal a character she had never seen before. Velma calls a foul and declares it doesn't count.
A subversion played straight occurs in the classic series episode "A Clue For Scooby-Doo." Fred and the gang are about to unmask the Ghost of Captain Cutler to see if it was really Ebeneezer Shark (the beachcomber they interrogated earlier). It turned out to be--thanks to Shaggy's placement of some seaweed--Captain Cutler himself. (Scooby and Velma were the only others to have recognized this denoument, but Fred and Daphne announce it as well, and they weren't even at Widow Cutler's home to have seen the Cutler portrait.)
  • The Summation at the end of the episode, where the gang thoroughly debunks all of the supposed paranormal activity and explain its role in the criminal racket they have uncovered.
  • Another episode (at least I think it was an episode) had them meet up with an odd and suspicious fellow in the middle of the desert at the beginning, who would obviously turn out to be the monster. But when the monster is unmasked, it's revealed to be "No one we know!" (its a military guy, and the episode continues for several minutes where they try to stop the military from doing whatever it is they were doing that they needed to impersonate a monster for, and also rescue some people). It later turns out that the odd guy in was in the middle of the desert because he was collecting flowers, and was acting suspiciously because he was embarrassed to admit that he pressed flowers in his spare time. The episode broke formula completely, and it looks like the writers had a load of fun doing it.
    • I believe this was Scooby Doo and the Alien Invaders, but not entirely sure.
  • The ghosts being real, at least for two series, and The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo.
  • Scooby getting scared and jumping into Shaggy's arms.
Scooby-Doo (animation) is the Trope Namer for:
Tropes used in Scooby-Doo (animation) include:
  • Abandoned Mine: The Scooby-Doo Where Are You! episode "Mine Your Own Business". While trying to determine the identity of the scary Miner 49er, the gang explores a spooky old mine.
  • Absurdly Ineffective Barricade: Many episodes involve the gang building a barricade, only to discover the door opens OUTWARDS as opposed to inwards.
    • Or that the monster was helping them build the barricade...
  • Actor Allusion: In an episode of What's New Scooby Doo, when Daphne meets someone hired to impersonate her, she complains she is being played by an extra and asks if Sarah Michelle Gellar was busy.
    • One moment in the live movie might count, if Daphne's line "This must be the secret relic thingy they worship," could be considered a Buffyism.
  • Adaptational Villainy: Scrappy-Doo in the live-action movie.
  • Affectionate Parody: Night of the Living Doo, which aired on Halloween in 2001.
Also Bravo Dooby Doo, an extremely on-target spoof where Johnny Bravo crossed paths with Mystery Inc.
As well, The Scooby Doo Project, a series of interstitials from 1999 spoofing "The Blair Witch Project." Plus Daphne appeared as a member of the Hanna-Barbera tribe in Cartoon Network's "Staylongers" (spoof of "Survivor") interstitials.
A not-so-affectionate parody: "Ring-a-Ding, Where Are You?," one of the shows to which Mighty Mouse gets juxtaposed in the 1988 episode Don't Touch That Dial from his Bakshi-produced TV show.

Mighty Mouse: Gosh...I feel my I.Q. dropping by the minute!

  • Aliens Steal Cable: Crystal does this in the Alien Invaders movie.
  • Alternative Foreign Theme Song: The Japanese version has this as its theme song.
  • Amusement Park of Doom: Every incarnation has at least one of these. One of the earlier examples had a runaway robot mess with the controls. The Thirteen Ghosts of Scooby Doo, had one of the titular villains run one of these.
  • Animals Lack Attributes: Scooby is a boy. Really.
  • Animated Actors: In the 1979 prime-time special Scooby Goes Hollywood, Scooby and Shaggy get sick of their secondary roles in a formula-driven Saturday morning show, and attempt to sell a network executive on giving them a prime-time series of their own. (They pitch a number of pilot shows, all parodies of then-popular series, such as Charlie's Angels, Happy Days and The Love Boat.)
  • Anthropomorphic Shift: Scooby himself was suffering this by the mid-80s. He was seen walking on two legs all the time (it didn't help that his four legged design was not changed) and he was becoming somewhat less of a Speech-Impaired Animal. It seems to have been reversed beginning with A Pup Named Scooby-Doo where he became more of a quadruped again.
When Scooby runs in the early series, his legs don't follow a normal dog's running pattern. Each pair of legs go alternately in a circular motion. The only episode showing him running like a normal dog was "Decoy For A Dognapper," as he and the freed kidnapped dogs run after their captor.
  • Anti-Sneeze Finger: The gang do this to Scooby-Doo in almost every incarnation.
  • Artistic License Chemistry: In the second live-action movie, Scooby freezes the Tar Monster with a fire extinguisher.
  • Ascots Are Cool
  • Balloon Belly: Shaggy and Scooby occasionally.
  • Be as Unhelpful as Possible: Inverted - the most helpful character usually turns out to be the culprit. He is often the first character you see apart from the gang.
  • Beam Me Up, Scotty: Velma is notorious for always losing her glasses. In the original episodes she only dropped them twice. The same goes for Daphne getting kidnapped, it really didn't occur that often enough to be her recurring character trait in the original series.
    • Actually, Velma had her glasses knocked off her face, once by Scooby, the other after bumping her head. A third time, a bat plucked her glasses off and dropped them on Scooby's head,and a fourth instance had her glasses swept off her face from an errant bumper cart. And later, in "That's Snow Ghost," Scooby uses Velma's glasses to see the bundle of dynamite pursuing them on the log behind.
    • Velma losing her glasses became a running joke based on her voice artist, Nicole Jaffe, whose glasses fell during a script reading, and she was quoted as saying "I can't see without them."
    • Lampshaded in the Johnny Bravo ep "Bravo Dooby Doo" after Velma and Johnny both grope for their displaced eyewear:

Velma: My glasses! I can't see without my glasses!
Johnny: My glasses! I can't be seen without my glasses!

    • "Old Man Jenkins" has become the term for the everyman Scooby Doo villain. While there was an suspicious old man named Mr. Jenkins in one episode of the original series, but he turned out to be innocent.
  • The Beatles: Referenced by Shaggy in "The Phantom Of The Country Music Hall" (1972 ep with Jerry Reed):

Hotel clerk: Are you, Fred, Daphne, Velma, Shaggy and Scooby?
Shaggy: Like, we're sure not the Beatles!

  • Berserk Button: Scooby is quite possibly the most cowardly animal in existence, but if Shaggy is in danger, he'll find the courage -- and become a badass to boot.
    • If Scooby Doo in Where's My Mummy is any indication, Scooby is also pretty fond of Velma.
  • Big Damn Movie: The supernatural will inevitably turn out to be real in a Scooby-Doo movie, but the basic formula is usually the same.
    • Not necessarily. Where's My Mummy? had a Scooby-Doo Hoax, albeit a very elaborate one put on by Velma, an archaeologist, and an Ardeth Bey expy. Which none of them ever think to tell the rest of the Scoobies is a Scooby Doo Hoax.
      • Velma would explain that she didn't let the others in on the hoax because it was dangerous and she didn't want anybody to get hurt.
    • Monsters Unleashed, Legend of the Vampire and Monster of Mexico also all ended with a more conventional Scooby-Doo Hoax.
    • Halfway through, Curse of the Lake Monster looks like a Scooby-Doo Hoax, until the actual ghost of a witch takes Velma's body as a host and creates her minions of lake monsters. This is the second feature-length movie, animated or live centering around Velma.
  • Big Eater: Shaggy, Scooby and occasionally Scrappy.
  • Big Friendly Dog: Scooby is a full-grown Great Dane and has never been vicious to anything, ever. Unless you count sandwiches.
    • In some of the early stuff, he gets to do some things that the latter episodes would never let him do, due to flanderization. There was the one where Scooby kept bouncing up toward an ape monster and ended up kicking it in the gut and such, just to save an actress. And then there's the infamous "John Wayne" impression in the episode "Hassle in the Castle". Let's not forget the time they were chased by a "haunted coat" (actually a goose under a coat) flying by itself, in which Scooby ended up snarling and making faces at, to scare it away.
    • He still no problem getting riled up and volatile around cats, as well. Scooby has fallen into Took a Level in Jerkass territory in recent episodes of Mystery Inc., having had a falling out with Shaggy and nearly one with Velma. He redeems himself with a moment of awesome in "Camp Scare" and having since made up with Shaggy on Mystery Inc. and is trying to get Velma to like him again.
  • Black Belt in Origami: In one episode, Shaggy tries to bluff a Chinese ghost by saying "I know Judo, Chop Suey and Chinese Checkers!"
  • The Blank: "The No-Face Zombie Chase Case"
  • Blind Without'Em: Velma
  • Blondes Are Evil: Charlene in Scooby Doo and the Monster of Mexico, and Velma's cousin Marcy in A Scooby Doo Halloween.
  • Bookcase Passage: Plenty of these.
  • Broad Strokes: The Shared Universe they exist in is notably very vague with The Original Series, Thirteen Ghosts and The New Adventures, taking place firmly within each other, the nineties movies taking place after their retirement from the former adventures, A Pup Named Scooby doo as a Spinoff Babies prequel and What's New Scooby Doo and its movies as taking place (ostensibly) with in the same universe. The Live Action Film series and Shaggy and Scooby Doo Get A Clue are in question however and both The Mystery Revealed and Mystery Incorporated take place in Ultimate Universes.
  • Brother Chuck: Fred and Velma inexplicably vanish in The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo. Fred, Velma and Daphne were absent in the shows made from 1980 through 1982. And then Daphne vanished too, leaving just Shaggy, Scrappy, and Scooby in the various TV Movies.
  • Burn the Witch
  • Burping Contest: Between Shaggy and Scooby in the first movie.
  • Butt Monkey: Shaggy and Scooby, usually.
  • By the Lights of Their Eyes
  • Captain Color Beard: Redbeard in "Go Away, Ghost Ship." He makes a second appearance in 1972's "The Ghostly Creep From The Deep," but in that story, he and his pirate crew are all ghost white and the voice is different (John Stephenson in "Ghost Ship," Lennie Weinrib in "Ghostly Creep").
    • One of the TV movies has a variant with a white stripe in his beard: Captain Skunkbeard.
  • Captain Obvious: Mystery Inc. will often point out things that are happening or just happened that should already be obvious to the viewer.
  • The Cast Showoff: The gang themselves but most notably Velma in the movie Scooby Doo and the Legend Of The Vampire where they pose as contestants in the rock show contest (as The Meddling Kids) and eventually win by default. Velma sings the "Scooby Doo, Where Are You!" theme. Poor child was petrified at first, but as she started singing, she put on quite a show.
    • All five members of the gang and some of the other characters sing throughout the 2012 made-for-video feature Scooby Doo: Music Of The Vampire.
  • Catch Phrase: Lampshaded in Scooby-Doo and the Samurai Sword, when the team finds out that the normal episode formula had turned into an Evil Plan, all of the characters say their catchphrases, ending with Fred:

Fred: "Um, uh...aw, darn it, I still don't have a catchphrase!"[1]

  • The Cavalry Arrives Late
  • Channel Hop: From CBS to ABC in 1976. NBC may even count as Dynomutt was paired up with Godzilla for an hour-long show in 1981 on that network and the Scooby gang's appearances in Dynomutt were subsequently aired.
  • Character Name and the Noun Phrase: Most of the Direct to Video movies are Scooby-Doo and the ____________.
  • Chinese Vampire: Two jiangshi pursue Daphne in "Mystery Mask Mix-Up."
  • Cluster F-Bomb: This charming bumper for Cartoon Network.
  • Cobweb of Disuse: In "What the Hex is Going On?", the old Kingston Mansion has these in the background (corners, connecting furniture to walls). Also present in the Vasquez Castle (notably on the portrait) in "Hassle in the Castle".
  • Comic Book Adaptation: Scooby has been in comic books since December 1969, published by Gold Key/Western Publishing, Charlton, Marvel, Harvey (reprints from Charlton), Archie Comics and the current publisher DC Comics. The first ten issues of the Gold Key run of Scooby Doo comics featured either truncated or very loose adaptations of TV episodes. Two episodes were made into comic stories twice: "A Clue For Scooby Doo" (Gold Key, DC) and "Spooky Space Kook" (Gold Key, Archie Comics). The first Marvel Comics issue featured a truncated adaptation of the 1976 episode "The Ghost Of The Bad Humor Man."
Zig-zagged: The pilot episode of Scooby & Scrappy-Doo ("The Scarab Lives!") was loosely based on the first story of Scooby-Doo Mystery Comics #24 (Gold Key/April 1974, "Mark Of The Blue Scarab").
Starting in October 2010, the DC comic began billing itself as Scooby Doo, Where Are You!, the first time the comic has been billed as such since October 1976.
Gold Key, known for taking continuity liberties, started making the gang ghost breakers for hire starting with issue #14. If this continuity is to be followed as any sort of canon, then issue #21 has the gang with the following Zodiac signs: Scooby--Aries, Fred--Pisces, Shaggy--Leo, Velma--Virgo, Daphne--Gemini. Charlton's stories are best left undiscussed.
  • Conspicuously Light Patch: When the spot on the floor that the gang is standing on suddenly turns a lighter color, you know that they're about to fall down a trapdoor.
When anything is colored differently than the other things in the scene (and isn't supposed to be), be it lighter or darker, someone will inevitably grab it or use it in some other way.
It may also follow that if doesn't have an ink (or xerox) line, it's the background. If it has the ink/xerox line, it's a waiting trapdoor.
  • Continuity Nod: What's New Scooby Doo? featured a batch of these during its run. One even to A Pup Named Scooby-Doo.
    • The monster in the first movie is The Scrappy himself, wanting revenge for the team dumping him at the start of the movie. In the second film, most of the monsters are classic 'Doo bad guys, as is the real villain.
    • The Mysteries Incorporated series starts off with museum exhibits of several of the same villains the second film mentioned. Which can be somewhat confusing to people who watched the premiere, which was preceded by the second film.
  • Continuity Reboot: Scooby-Doo!: The Mystery Begins deletes everything A Pup Named set in the continuity other than it taking place in Coolsville.
    • Not necessarily, this was just the live-action version after all. More likely could be considered an Alternate Universe.
  • Convection, Schmonvection: In Aloha, Scooby-Doo, and probably others.
  • Conveyor Belt O' Doom: A memorable one (That's Snow Ghost) had Velma tied to a log heading for a large circular saw.
    • Lampshaded by Shaggy in "Don't Fool With a Phantom" as he and Scooby are placed on one by the Wax Phantom:

Shaggy: "Not the old ride-on-the-conveyor-belt-into-the-wax routine. Oh, no. Like, that went out with the silent movies, Phantom, old pal."

  • Conviction by Contradiction: One What's New episode has the culprits turn out to be a man and woman pretending to be Sickeningly Sweethearts to secretly pass information to each other. After the unmasking, Velma says that the first thing that tipped her off was they were too lovey-dovey to be newlyweds as they claimed.
  • Cool Uncle: Scrappy thinks of Scooby this way, despite Scooby's cowardice.
  • Cousin Oliver: Scrappy-Doo, Scooby-Dum, Flim Flam
  • Crazy Prepared: In What's New, Scooby-Doo?, Fred has made enough "special modifications" to the Mystery Machine to put Han Solo to shame, including modifying it to transform into a submarine and fitting it with a roof airbag which conveniently enables Shaggy to save Velma when she falls off a highrise movie set in "Lights, Camera, Mayhem". The submarine turned out to be a clue that The Game Never Stopped.
  • Crossover: There were two episodes which they crossed over with Batman, and another with Josie and the Pussy Cats. Also, the characters have appeared on Johnny Bravo and Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law.

Johnny Bravo: "Jinkies? Jinkies....isn't that some kind of breakfast food?"

    • They also met The Addams Family once, and the Blue Falcon twice.
    • There was a whole season (called, confusingly enough, The New Scooby-Doo Movies) where the whole point was crossovers.
      • On of which was with the Harlem Globetrotters.
      • And the Speed Buggy gang, as well as The Three Stooges.
      • And even the characters from the now-forgotten Animated Adaptation of I Dream of Jeannie.
      • You could probably count the would-be Scooby Gang from The Venture Brothers as well. But that was more a parody.
      • The Addams Family, Batman and Robin (the Adam West version), Don Knotts and the Globetrotters all actually appeared in the opening sequence for that season. Reruns often have people wondering who the heck Don Knotts is.
        • Don Knotts was in an episode parodying The Andy Griffith Show and an episode where he was a goofy Barney Fife like detective.
        • Not to mention Don Adams of Get Smart playing an exterminator in the house of Lon Chaney.
      • There was at least one Laurel and Hardy episode, and two with The Three Stooges.
    • An episode of Batman the Brave And The Bold, "Bat-Mite Presents: Batman's Strangest Cases!" features a segment, drawn and animated in the same style as the New Scooby Doo Movies episodes, with the gang meeting up with Batman and Robin, as well as "Weird Al" Yankovic. It aired in America on April Fools' Day 2011.
  • Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: In one episode with a clown that hypnotizes people (Bedlam In The Big Top), Shaggy and Scooby remember what the clown did, so when he tries it on them again, they use mirrors to deflect the spell back at him, thus incapacitating him. That and when they pilot a bulldozer to tackle Steve in Alien Invaders. In addition, there's the mini-golf episode from "What's New, Scooby-Doo?" where Shaggy took the reins to try to solve the mystery for the majority of the episode. In that same episode (A Terrifying Round With A Menacing Metallic Clown), Velma goes off cowering with Scooby as her secret fear comes to the surface--she's frightened of clowns.
The comic book adaptation of "Bedlam In The Big Top" (Gold Key #9, Dec. 1971, retitled "The Phantom Clown") retroactively subverts this--Velma is the hero of the story as she hypnotizes the clown with his own gold coin.
Shaggy and Scooby-Doo are secretly ninjas. In situations where they can't be the whimpering cowards, they pull amazing feats. In Scooby-Doo in Where's My Mummy?, they leapt from falling platform to falling platform to keep from plummeting to their dooms. Scooby-Doo and the Samurai Sword also counts towards this.
  • Cute Is Evil: In the movie, Scrappy.
  • Cute Monster Girl: In Ghoul School, Shaggy, Scooby and Scrappy become gym teachers for a bunch of them.
  • The Danza: Vincent van Ghoul was voiced by Vincent Price.
  • Darker and Edgier: Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island and Scooby Doo and the Witch's Ghost are the darkest of the animated films. Cartoon Network made an awesome promo for Scooby-Doo On Zombie Island when they aired it on their animated movie spot. It only used the most thrilling scenes and was set to climactic Ominous Latin Chanting (possibly O Fortuna). Never before did Scooby-Doo seem so intense.
The new series, Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, although not much. It's definitely not cynical, but the universe as a whole is a little less idealistic, and the jokes, characters and events are more mature.
  • Dark Is Not Evil: The Hex Girls, a spooky-themed rock band that shows up occasionally in 90's-and-later versions (the direct-to-video movies, What's New, and Mystery Inc).
    • The Goblin King (Voiced by Tim Curry) may be the ruler of all things Halloween, but he's also a fair (though strict) ruler and he cares deeply for his fairy daughter.
    • This is the twist of Scooby Doo on Zombie Island the creepy rotting zombies aren't evil, they are trying to warn the visitors of the island so they won't end up like them.
  • Dead Line News: In the second live-action movie.
  • Deadpan Snarker:
    • Velma. Especially in later incarnations. She had a choice line in "The San Franpsycho" after the gang is in a motorboat escaping from sharks:

Velma: We're gonna make it! (a shark takes a giant bite of the boat's aft) Ah, irony...we meet yet again.

Velma, of all people in the episode Scooby Doo Meets Dick Van Dyke as she, Fred and Dick see Daphne having fun on a bump-'em cart:

Velma: Hmph, Women. (realizes what she said) What am I saying?! I'm one of them!

  • Damsel in Distress: In the two shows with the Three Stooges, scripter Norman Maurer seemed to like getting Velma in a nice mess. In Ghastly Ghost Town, a mysterious figure sends her down into the mine shaft, while in The Ghost Of The Red Baron, she is sent airborne in a bi-plane she doesn't know how to operate. Oh, and Danger-Prone Daphne.
  • Dude in Distress: Shaggy and Scooby have ended up Bound and Gagged on a few occasions.
  • Does This Remind You of Anything?: Shaggy and Scooby seem to constantly have the "munchies".
  • The Drag Along: Scooby and Shaggy, sometimes literally kicking and screaming.
  • Drive-In Theater: One appears in Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf.
  • Eagle-Eye Detection: Usually done by Velma.
  • Easily Forgiven: "What's New Scooby Doo" occasionally had the culprit be let off the hook if they had arguably sympathetic reasons or if nobody got hurt, even if by their actions the monster would have very nearly killed someone. "Roller Ghoaster Ride" is a good example of this, involving among other things Fred, Daphne and Velma almost getting diced up by a giant fan thanks to the monster's sabotage, along with tons of dangerous situations coming from sabotaging amusement park rides which would've ended up fatal if not for dumb luck or quick thinking, with no real consequences for the culprit.
  • Edited for Syndication: Footage from act two of the very first episode, "What A Night For A Knight" is missing. It's where the gang is outside the museum as Fred is unable to open the rear door. He gets a ladder out of the Mystery Machine (which must be dimensionally transcendental to hold a ladder) and volunteers Shaggy to climb up and go in through a window high above.

Shaggy: Why me?
Fred: Because that's a small window and you're the thinnest.

    • In the first season of The New Scooby Doo Movies, scenes running roughly a minute and a half were made but not used until season two. The scenes never showed up in syndication, CN/Boomerang airings or DVD releases. Among the scenes were Jonathan Winters flipping a coin with Shaggy to see who would go up to the grist mill window ("The Frickert Fracas"), and Scooby trying to get the kids' attention to tell them he found a secret passage out of Moody Manor ("Guess Who's Knott Coming To Dinner").
    • In the 1970-71 season, a minute of footage from season 1 episodes of Scooby Doo, Where Are You! were cut to make room for CBS's "In The Know" interstitials. ("In The Know" were 2-and-a-half minute educational capsules hosted by Josie and the Pussy Cats. It would be replaced the next season with CBS's long-running interstitial series In The News.)
  • Efficient Displacement: Scooby and Shaggy in Where Are You! episode "Spooky Space Kook".
  • Embarrassing First Name: Is anyone surprised that Shaggy never references his given name, Norville?
  • "Everybody Laughs" Ending: "Scooby-Dooby-Doo!" (cue group laughter)
  • Hair Decorations: Velma has a flower in her hair at the end of "A Tiki Scare Is No Fair" as she does the hula in her Hawaiian grass skirt. For all her bookworm "plain Jane" descriptions, she was really quite adorable.
  • Exactly What It Says on the Tin: The wax phantom from "Don't Fool With A Phantom" has captured Shaggy and Scooby and plans to turn them into wax dummies:

Shaggy: But, like, we're already dummies! Right, Scoob?
Scooby: Du-u-uh, right!

    • Also in "Hassle In The Castle": Velma sees and verbally acknowledges that the Shaggy head protruding from half of a magician's saw-in-two box was a dummy head. Shaggy pops up from the other half and says "Somebody mention me?"
  • Expy: It's mostly forgotten now, but the characters of Fred, Velma, Daphne and Shaggy were originally thinly disguised knockoffs of Dobie, Zelda, Thalia and Maynard from The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis.
  • Face Heel Turn: Scrappy in the live-action movie
  • Family-Unfriendly Death: The death of the cat people in Scooby Doo on Zombie Island goes straight into Nightmare Fuel. Also the death of the former inhabitants. Being forced to go into a sea where alligators (or crocodiles?) just wait for their meal? Charming.
  • The entire gang suffer one at the end of the Scooby Doo project. The last we see of them is the monster coming towards them then the camera cutting out and the annoucert elling us no trace of them was ever found.
  • Family-Unfriendly Violence: In Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island, there are a few examples of this. One zombie has his head ripped off and two get cut in half.
  • Faux Paw: Used in the first movie.
  • Fine, You Can Just Wait Here Alone: How Shaggy and Scooby end up going along 90% of the time.
  • Five-Man Band
  • Flanderization:
    • Daphne's klutziness is turned up to eleven in Abracadabra-Doo.
    • Mystery Incorporated Fred becomes completely obsessed with making traps.
    • Scooby's cowardliness, during the first season.
    • Velma is normally a bright girl, but she becomes a bit inept (not of her own doing) when she loses her glasses. However, a particular bit of brain fart is puzzling. In "The Ghost Of The Red Baron," she is sent airborne in a bi-plane she has no control of, and she forgets the international distress radio call (followed by an atypical Daphne response):

Velma: Let's see, what was it? January? February?...March? April? Mayday!! That's it!!
Daphne: That's Velma. What's she calling "mayday" for? Today's June 5th!

    • In What's New, Scooby Doo?, Velma became a bit more as snarky as she was smart, albeit her fear of clowns came suddenly to the surface. And in Scooby Doo Mystery Inc, she tacks on cynicism, her obsessiveness to Shaggy and her contempt (as of episode 10) of Scooby.
  • Follow the Leader: Quite a few shows ripped this off. Heck, Hanna-Barbera Studios itself Self-Plagiarized this formula many times.
  • Food as Bribe: Shaggy and Scooby can be coaxed into doing anything for food, namely Scooby Snacks.
  • Foreshadowing: Zombie Island has several signs linking to the end of the mystery, including one in one of the chase sequences, where a Zombie gives Shaggy a vine to pull Scooby out, at first, it looks like just a gag involving the whole "Monster helps them to save themselves", but it foreshadows that the Zombies are not as evil as they're made out to be.
  • Fortune Teller: In the Where Are You episode "A Gaggle of Galloping Ghosts", the gang meets a Gypsy fortune teller who gives them dire warnings. She turns out to be the episode's Villain in disguise.
  • Frank Welker: Fred is his first role and one of his best known roles, and Frank still voices the character today many years since he had started. With the passing of Don Messick, Welker voices Scooby, too.
  • Free-Range Children: The gang probably isn't that old, yet they run all about creation solving mysteries. This wasn't changed at all in A Pup Named Scooby-Doo. Well, in Pup they mostly stayed in one town, at least.
  • Functional Magic: The conclusion of Scooby Doo and the Goblin King. The Goblin King permits Shaggy and Scooby (the main heroes) to retain their memories of the events that transpired but he erases the memory of Fred, Velma and Daphne. Shag and Scoob pull up in the van as their buddies' heads clear, not knowing what happened last:

Daphne: Shaggy! Scooby! Where were you two?
Shaggy: (He and Scooby exchange knowing glances) Like, you wouldn't believe it if we told you!

  • G-Rated Drug: Scooby Snacks. Either that, or they're just a very convenient, cheap, salted-chip style appetizers whose demand is fueled by an unspoken drug, ie, marijuana.
This played with in the parody show Harvey Birdman. In the episode "Shaggy Busted." The Mystery Machine is seen smoking up (from an overheated engine, based on the original episode), and we hear Shaggy exclaim "Scooby... doobie!"
  • Gadgeteer Genius: Velma arguably qualifies, at least in What's New, Scooby-Doo?. where she's capable of building (among other things) a robot dog with a remarkable number of functions and an MP3 player the size of a sugar cube (though the latter lacked earphones). In the same series Fred also at least comes close with his improbably sophisticated modifications to the Mystery Machine.
  • Genre Blindness: Particularly in the original series. No, the gang will never figure out or even guess that the monster is just a guy in a costume right away, no matter that the last few dozen monsters were all guys in costumes. They have to wait until the end of the episode.
    • Debatable. Their scared reactions might just be because despite someone being an obvious Scooby-Doo Hoax, he's still a crook and might want to harm them for getting in his way, and a number of times Fred and Velma express a degree of skepticism on principle.
  • Genre Savvy: In the first episode of What's New, Scooby-Doo?, the second they notice the monster, Fred assumes from the start that it's just a costume with a guy inside. Unfortunately, Shaggy shows him that the monster's body is transparent and the Fred's genre blindness returns.
    • They latch on to this trope much more firmly in the movies (particularly the live-action ones). Unfortunately, that's about when the monsters actually do start turning out to be demons and zombies and whatnot.
    • In one episode of What's New, Scooby-Doo?, Shaggy and Scooby have the foresight to bring along their own box of Scooby-Snacks. Pity they forgot the milk, though.
    • In Mysteries Incorporated, their town has a museum of monsters(all of whom, according to Velma, were guys in masks).
  • Genre Shift: Zombie Island transitioned from a straight Scooby-Doo story, to a supernatural horror mystery film.
  • Getting Crap Past the Radar:
    • In A Scooby-Doo Halloween, Velma's cousin says "I'm 18, able to legally..." [looks at Fred] "...vote."
    • Arguably every drug reference in the show. Use of the word "munchies" is not uncommon.
    • In Curse of the Lake Monster, Daphne's Uncle says "Well, it looks like I'll have to go back to my old life as a international playboy." Then again, that may have been an element that garnered the movie a TV-PG rating.
    • In Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island Shaggy and Scooby get jobs as customs officers. They were apparently supposed to be searching for contraband foods, and were subsequently fired for eating the contraband. There's no way in hell that the writers didn't know what they were doing there.
      • This troper's interpretation was that they were supposed to be searching for contraband, but instead just searched for food to eat, and were fired for simultaneously abusing their power to get free stacks and failing to actually do their job
  • Gone Behind the Bend
  • "Growing Muscles" Sequence: one in each of the first two live action movies. The first happens to a villain and could be viewed as Nightmare Fuel, while the second happens to Shaggy and is played for laughs.
  • Hartman Hips: All over the place in Abracadabra-Doo. Made a bit more obvious due to the movie having lots of Male Gaze moments, and including three of the girls showing up in skintight outfits at least once.
  • He Went That Way!
  • Headless Horseman
  • Heavy Mithril: The Hex Girls, the witch-themed rock band in Scooby-Doo and the Witch's Ghost. In Scooby-Doo and the Legend of the Vampire, they were confused as vampires.
  • Heel Face Turn: Miyumi in Scooby-Doo and the Samurai Sword.
  • Heroic BSOD: Velma in Scooby Doo And The Goblin King. Her brain synapses short-circuit, causing her to collapse and faint after seeing the supernatural maelstrom the Amazing Krudsky had conjured.
  • Heroism Incentive: Nearly Once an Episode to get the Genre Savvy Shaggy and Scooby to split up. What won't they do for a Scooby snack?
    • Shaggy's first taste for a Scooby Snack comes in Decoy For A Dognapper. As Fred lays out his plan with Scooby as a decoy, Shaggy intercepts the Snack Daphne intended for Scooby:

Velma: What did you do that for, Shaggy?
Shaggy: Because I know who's stuck with the job of taking the decoy on a leash! (savoring the snack) Not bad. Not bad at all.

  • Hey, It's That Sound: "Where Are You" episode "Spooky Space Kook". The flying UFO used the "electronic rattlesnake" noise from the Heat Ray warming up from the 1953 The War of the Worlds film..
  • Hippie Speak: Shaggy
  • Hollywood Torches: Shaggy finds and uses one in Where Are You episode "Spooky Space Kook".
  • Honor Before Reason: Miyumi in Scooby-Doo and the Samurai Sword.
  • Hurricane of Puns: The made-for-TV movies had more than enough of monster puns.
  • Hypno Fool: Shaggy is made fearless/normal with the trigger "bad" in Scooby-Doo! Legend of the Phantosaur.
  • Idiot Ball: Every time you see a door that needs to be pushed to be opened, everyone's going to think it's locked.
  • Ink Suit Actor: Many of the Special Guest stars on The New Scooby-Doo Movies: Don Knotts, Jonathan Winters, Sonny & Cher, etc.
    • Joe Barbera appeared in the Johnny Bravo episode, and in caricature under psuedonyms in a couple of episodes of What's New, Scooby Doo?

Everyone: JOE BARBERA???
Johnny Bravo: ...Who's that?

    • In A Scooby Doo Valentine (episode of What's New, Scooby Doo?) the imposters of the gang are unmasked and revealed to be caricatures of their voice actors (Frank Welker, Casey Kasem, Grey Delisle, Mindy Cohn). In fact, the valentine they find as a clue has the gang's names written in the handwriting of the voice talents.
  • Instrument of Murder
  • Invincible Incompetent: Two flavors:
    • Shaggy and Scooby always seem to end up finding the weekly monster despite their cowardice, laziness, and complete lack of investigative skills.
    • Despite the inevitable failure of Fred's convoluted traps to catch the monster, the monster usually ends up trapped by the end of the episode anyway.
  • Is It Always Like This?: The Scooby comic book has an issue where a character asks, "And this happens everywhere you go?" Shaggy responds with, "Well, there was this one time where Fred took us to a flower shop..."
  • Jumped the Shark: Invoked Taken literally in the What's New episode "Lights, Camera, Mayhem" as Scooby and Shaggy sail over a tank of sharks on a motorcycle, with Velma cracking the obvious punch line:

Velma: Who would ever think that Scooby would jump the shark?

  • Just Ignore It
  • Kavorka Man: It's not so much that Shaggy is a pimp, but many episodes and movies have shown that many an attractive female seems to think Shaggy is hot. Most recent example is the made-for-video movie Scooby Doo! Abracadabra Doo, which has Velma's kid sister Madelyn with the hots for Shaggy. And now, with Scooby Doo Mystery Inc., Velma does as well. One wonders how the next family get-together might go. ("I guess we Dinkley sisters have something in common after all.")
  • Kissing Cousins: One episode of The Scooby-Doo Show featured Scooby-Doo and Scooby-Dum's cousin Scooby-Dee. Both Doo and Dum found her very attractive. Whether or not the fact that they're all dogs eases the weirdness is up to you.
  • Lampshade Hanging: What's New occasionally mixed up the standard formula, while also making fun of it, including a few situations where the culprit turns out to be no one the gang (or the audience) had met before.
    • Occasionally? It revels in hanging lampshades on the tropes of the old cartoon, especially in the movies. Common targets include The Reveal dialogue, quirks of the characters, plot tropes, and potential fakeness of the monster. Mystery Inc. looks to be headed in the same direction; for instance, it's changing "You Meddling Kids" into a Mad Libs Catchphrase.
    • And we won't even start on A Pup Named Scooby-Doo.
  • Land Down Under: Scooby Doo and the Legend of the Vampire
  • Legion of Doom: second live-action movie Monsters Unleashed.
  • Let's Get Dangerous: Shaggy and Scooby when anyone they really care about is in trouble. There was even one moment when Velma was captured and Scooby turned down a Scooby Snack saying he didn't need it to be persuaded to help rescue her.
  • Lighthouse Point
  • Limited Animation: Scooby-Doo was infamous for it.
Oddly enough, it doesn't apply to the first few DTV movies (Zombie Island, Witch's Ghost, Alien Invaders, Cyber Chase) since the animation is quite lively and fluid. Nowadays it's back to looking pretty cheap. But a lot better than before.
Limited Animation is lampshaded in the 13 Ghosts episode "That's Monstertainment." Scooby appears in a mock-up of the MGM opening title sequence where it reads "Ranna-Rarrera" below it and "Limitus Animatus" around Scooby's face.
  • Limited Wardrobe
  • Live Action Adaptation
  • Long Runner: Still making new episodes/movies, 40+ years later. In those years of the franchise, there have been 420 series episodes (these include eleven-minute and seven-minute installments), 10 guest appearances on other shows, two parody spots, 6 specials, 5 made-for-TV movies, two theatrical movies, two commercial shills (2005 spot for Dove shampoo with Velma, Wilma Flintstone and Jane Jetson; 2006 spot for DirecTV with the whole gang), A movie theater spot (the gang busts Daffy Duck for jabbering on a cell phone in a theater), and (so far) 17 direct-to-DVD movies.
  • MacGyvering: Daphne frequently picks locks or otherwise saves the day with everyday items from her purse in What's New, Scooby-Doo?
In the second live-action movie, she uses some tape and blush to trip a fingerprint-activated lock so they could escape from a cell that they're being held in. "I enjoy being a girl!"
In the direct-to-video movies Pirates Ahoy and The Goblin King, Shaggy is seen dressed up as Daphne and Scooby is dressed up as Velma.
    • Also briefly in the second live-action movie, Shaggy drinks a potion that gives him a female body, and checks himself, or rather, herself out in a mirror.
  • Meganekko: Velma is a classic example
    • Also Madelyne and the birdwatcher's wife/girlfriend in Abracadabra Doo.
    • And Velma's aunt in A Scooby Doo Halloween.
  • Mobile Shrubbery
  • Monster Clown: Quite a lot of these.
  • Monster Mash: In a few of the movies.
  • Monster of the Week
  • My God, What Have We Done?: Velma's uncle Evan and aunt Meg, when their daughter Marcy turned out to be the Villain of the Week in A Scooby-Doo Halloween. They felt guilty for putting Halloween before their own daughter's birthday.
  • Mythology Gag: The end of The Mystery Begins features live reenactments of parts of several Scooby-Doo opening themes, including Scooby Doo, Where Are You!, The New Scooby Doo Movies, and What's New, Scooby Doo?.
    • The entire movie is one big Mythology Gag, when you come to think of it.
    • A flashback to Velma's childhood in What's New, Scooby Doo? uses the art style of A Pup Named Scooby-Doo. It depicts why she's afraid of clowns.
      • In addition, one of the episodes features Fred and Velma indisposed, leaving only Daphne, Shaggy and Scooby to solve the mystery by themselves, a la all the later shows before A Pup Named Scooby-Doo.
    • In the first episode of Mystery Inc., Shaggy mentions that he fell asleep watching "a Vincent van Ghoul movie". Vincent van Ghoul was the group's mentor in The Thirteen Ghosts of Scooby Doo.
      • In the same episode, several previous mysteries are seen in a museum, with Velma mentioning a few mysteries, and giving out the motives and identities of the "monsters".
    • In A Scooby Doo Halloween, Shaggy is dressed as a werewolf like in Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf.
    • In "Curse Of The Lake Monster", the gang receives a check for $10,000 from The Bank of Hanna-Barbera.
      • Also in that movie, Fred and Daphne pretend to be manniquens, dressed in their classic clothing from the cartoons. Fred sees his reflection and contemplate this before saying "nah".
    • The 1972 episode with the Three Stooges "The Ghost Of The Red Baron" uses the background music from Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines extensively and almost exclusively.
    • The Scooby segment of the April 1st Batman: The Brave And The Bold episode is not only designed and animated in the same way as the Scooby Doo Movies episodes with Batman and Robin, but it also has the same animation glitches--Batman's neck is exposed (which Bat-Mite points out to his digust) and another scene shows Batman with a gloveless hand with a ring on his finger.
    • In the episode Scooby Doo And A Mummy, Too, Velma is disguised as Cleopatra (to Shaggy's Marc Antony) in an attempt to hide from the mummy. She actually dresses up as Cleopatra in Scooby Doo In Where's My Mummy? as part of the Scooby-Doo Hoax she helps stage.
    • In "Guess Who's Knott Coming To Dinner," Don Knotts (in the guise of Captain Moody's first mate) identifies Fred as Captain Moody's nephew Ronald. This is probably a nod to Ronnie, which was Fred's original name until he was renamed after CBS programming head Fred Silverman.
  • Nerds Are Sexy: Velma has a pretty notable fanbase in certain circles. Being a Meganekko hardly hurts.
  • No Celebrities Were Harmed: What's New fairly frequently dropped in thinly-veiled expies of well-known real-life celebrities and fictional characters, including a professional golfer named Cougar Forest and an Australian archaeologist named Melbourne O'Reilly.
    • Don't forget the anthropologist studying gorillas named Joan Goodfew.
  • Name Drop: In "The Frickert Fracas" (Scooby-Doo Movies ep with Jonathan Winters), Maude Frickert tells Fred he looks like Glen Campbell.
  • No Fourth Wall: In A Pup Named Scooby-Doo.
  • Occult Detective: Though the occult almost always turns out to be someone in a Halloween costume.
  • On One Condition
  • Only Sane Man: or girl, in this case--Velma in Music Of The Vampire. Although she does get a strange snark in when Daphne disappears and it is learned that the vampire seeks a bride with "beauty and is pure of heart."

Velma: Hmph. I'm pure of heart. Why doesn't anyone think of kidnapping me?

  • The Other Darrin: The show went through many voice actors. The only cast member to stay consistent throughout the whole series (save for A Pup Named Scooby Doo) is Fred.
  • Outdated Outfit: The gang's original 1969 outfits usually get copied, but a few adaptations give them fashion makeovers.
This is lampshaded in one of the made-for-TV movies. Fred is seen getting dressed, and he puts on the orange tie he wore in his original outfit. He thinks about it for a few seconds, then says "Naaah," and takes it off.
Lampshaded in Scooby Doo and the Cyber Chase where the gang meet digital models of themselves from years earlier, who are still wearing the original outfits. For most of the segment, it's the only way to visually tell the two groups apart. Fred also gives himself a comment on the ascot.
The two made-for-TV live-action obviously deviates a a little from the gang's appearances -- Fred has dark hair. This is subverted and lampshaded in Curse Of The Lake Monster: Fred and Daphne pose as mannequins to lose the trail of the creature, and they are both done up as the original cartoon Fred and Daphne.
  • Pair the Spares: Shaggy and Velma in Mystery Inc.
  • Panty Shot: Daphne and Velma, in quite a few instances. Among these are the following (Or So I Heard):
    • In "Decoy for a Dognapper", while warding off a flock of bats, Velma kicks her knees up high enough to show her panties, but they are colored the same as her skirt.
    • In "Scooby's Night With A Frozen Fright", she, Shaggy and Scooby get startled at the door slamming behind them and you can see her panties which are the same color as her dress.
    • In The Spooky Fog, a scene where Velma jumps back after being scared by a small animal, causing her skirt to flip up briefly, was unused during the first season of The New Scooby Doo Movies. It was added in season 2; it has not resurfaced since going into syndication and subsequent Cartoon Network and Boomerang airings.
    • In "A Good Medium Is Rare", Velma's skirt rides up as she, Daphne and Fred react at a mysterious figure behind them.
    • In the "Mystery of Haunted Island," one occurs when the gang meets the Harlem Globetrotters. A mishap with the door leads to the gang being pulled into a pile with the Globetrotters, where Daphne ends up face-down with her skirt flipped up, exposing her panties underneath her trademark pink tights. And here's the shot. She's on the left.
    • In the episode "The Babysitter from Beyond" (A Pup Named Scooby Doo), the kids are wedged in a doorway and from behind we can see Velma's and Daphne's white panties. Curiously, Daphne is wearing her panties on the outside of her tights. Wearing a second pair of panties over one's tights is an old trick to help stop them falling down.
    • In "A Bicycle Built For Boo," Velma's skirt flips up after Scooby drops her from the reach of the episode's monster. Given Daphne and Velma's ages in the show, this would fall under innocent panties territory.
    • In "Wanted Cheddar Alive," the gang is chasing the guy in the blue suit until Daphne's skirt flips up to show her panties. Meanwhile Daphne and Fred jump up higher then fall down to show Daphne's pink panties.
    • In "Mayhem Of The Moving Mollusk," the gang has been thrown into dumpster causing Daphne's dress to get dirty. She calls her butler Jenkins; as Daphne climbs out of the dumpster to show her pink panties.
    • In "It's Mean, It's Green, It's the Mystery Machine" from What's New, Scooby-Doo when the Mystery Machine is chasing the gang and Velma falls over, flipping up her skirt in the process to show her white panties.
    • In The 1976 episode "Mamba Wamba And The Voodoo Hoodoo Fred and Velma set the trap On Mamba Wamba causing Velma's Skirt to get flipped up and exposing her red solid panties.
    • In the 1976 episode "Scooby Doo, Where's The Crew?", on Prof. Poisson's ship, Velma stands on tiptoe to look into the radio room porthole. Her skirt rides up high enough to show her red lace-trimmed panties.
    • In The 1976 episode "There's A Demon Shark In The Foggy Dark", The Gang headed toward Aqualand when they see the demon shark chasing them. They headed to the pool riding on a dolphins' tail and landed in the trampoline to show Velma's red panties and Daphne's black panties.
    • In 1978 episode "Creepy Creature Of Vulture's Claw the gang heads to the old aaretaker's cabin to open the door to save Daphne; in the process it showed her black panties.
    • In 1984 episode "Scooby's Peephole Pandemonium" after the gang heads to Norman Deathman's bedroom Daphne and Scrappy hide under the bed to show her upskirt of her panties.
    • Monsters Unleashed has Velma jumping into a ship vent funnel, back to the camera. Her orange panties can be seen for a couple of frames.
    • Daphne gets one in Curse of the Lake Monster. Wearing a pleated-skirt tennis outfit, she (as well as Fred and Shaggy) gets knocked backwards by the lake monster.
  • Paranormal Investigation
  • Parental Abandonment: They either have no parents or just very hands-off parents who don't seem to care that their teenagers go all around the world, hunting down villains in Halloween costumes.
    • It's possible that they might actually be late teens. Late enough to be considered legal adults and allowed to go off on their own or they're really college age/
  • Parental Bonus: Cher was a gold mine for these in her guest appearance on "The Scooby Doo Movies."

Sonny: But this is our delayed honeymoon. You should be enjoying it.
Cher: I am enjoying it or my name isn't Barbra Streisand.
Sonny: But your name isn't Barbra Streisand.
Cher: You catch on quick, big boy!

  • The Pete Best: Everyone knows Scrappy-Doo. Who remembers Scooby-Dum(b)?
  • Phrase Catcher: "And I would have gotten away with it too..."
  • A Pirate 400 Years Too Late: Scooby Doo! Pirates Ahoy!
  • Popularity Polynomial
  • Pragmatic Adaptation:
    • Number one is now contested between Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island and Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated. Either or both can be considered canon to the original, or to each other (Zombie Island takes place years after either, with Mystery Inc. in their mid-to-late twenties, so it's possible), both are Darker and Edgier than the original. Of all the movies of Scooby-Doo, it's pretty darn unanimous that Zombie Island is number 1.
      • Zombie Island is definitely canon since it shows the gang having gone separate paths at the start (Daphne a reporter with Fred her cameraman, Velma owning a bookstore, Scooby and Shaggy as airport security) before reuniting. It had been 14 years since they all last appeared together (Bravo Dooby Doo was a spoof and really didn't count). Mystery Incorporated is a cross between Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! and Melrose Place.
    • A Pup Named Scooby-Doo, to many, comes in at a very close second. Again, it played with a lot of the conventions of the original, and lampshaded quite a bit of them as well. Again, can be considered canon to the original series.
      • Debatable. The 1979 special Scooby Goes Hollywood has a flashback scene with the gang (as the teens we know them) discovering Scooby as a puppy at a pet shop. Then again, a 1972 episode of Movies has Shaggy and Scooby perusing their baby pictures in a photo album.
    • The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo is another of the much better, and more iconic, series. It still has some of the melodrama of the original series, but at least took a divergence in that it had an overarching plot and didn't have the "guy in a costume" approach to the spooks the original did.
      • Both the above ignore that "Scooby goes Hollywood" and "13 ghosts" admit this is just a cartoon and they are actors. "13 Ghosts" also mentioned in the same episode that this time they really were chasing real ghosts and it became too much for Scooby who has a nervous breakdown and quits the show to go back home to his parents.
    • A nod should certainly go to Scooby Doo in Where's My Mummy? for its surprise ending alone. Plus, it was the only feature of the made-for-video Scooby animated films to have gotten a theatrical release.
    • The New Scooby Doo Movies - the first, and direct sequel to the show.
    • The only real downside of this series is... well... Scrappy Doo. A consideration for downside should go to season two of The New Scooby Doo Movies. All eight shows were animated in Australia, and they looked horrible compared to the first season.
  • Real After All: Something of a tradition in the movies.
    • Also, the coral monster in one episode of What's New turned out to be...a monster made of coral.
  • Real Estate Scam: The air base in Where Are You episode "Spooky Space Kook".
  • Real Life Writes The Plot: While Shaggy has always been a Big Eater, he became vegetarian in season two of the original show, coinciding with his voice actor - Casey Kasem - doing the same. Kasem insisted Shaggy stay on such a diet whenever he voiced the character, although other VAs since had no such qualms.
  • Reckless Sidekick: Scrappy-Doo
  • Red Eyes, Take Warning: The Gypsy Fortune Teller in the Where Are You episode "A Gaggle of Galloping Ghosts".
  • Red Herring: "I didn't do it!" Lampshaded in A Pup Named Scooby-Doo, with a character named Red Herring, who is accused by Fred of every single crime in every episode, save the one time where Red was actually the monster and Fred couldn't accuse him because of a prior agreement made with the rest of the gang.
  • Relationship Upgrade: Shaggy and Velma from the looks of it in the new series. Since scuttled as of episode 10, and as a result, Velma is mad at both Shaggy and Scooby.
  • Replaced the Theme Tune: The later seasons did away with its iconic "Where Are You?" theme song in its entirety. Many fans assert that this change coincided with an overall drop in the show's quality as it preceeded the introduction of The Original Scrappy by one season.
  • Reverse Psychology
  • Road Sign Reversal
  • Robot Maid: Or Robot Butler, in this case: Robi in Shaggy & Scooby-Doo Get a Clue!.
  • Romani: See Fortune Teller.
  • Romantic False Lead: In the first few direct to tv movies, such as Zombie Island and The Witches Ghost, there would always be at least one character that Fred or Daphne would have a crush on, solely so that the other wound up being jealous and inducing Ship Tease.
  • Rube Goldberg Device: In Mystery Incorporated, Fred's skill/obsession is in rigging up traps, which are this type of device. The one we see him try in the first episode works perfectly. Except it falls a few feet to the side, landing squarely on the Scooby Gang.
  • Scarecrow Solution: Mystery, Inc. sometimes turns the tables on the hoaxers by doing a little supernatural faking of their own.
  • Screwed by the Network: When CBS brought Where Are You! back in 1974 after a two-year hiatus, Hanna-Barbera wanted to make new episodes. But CBS felt they could get just as much mileage, if not more, from repeats. CBS would cancel Scooby on August 7, 1976, a full month before the new season began. A week later, Scooby (which moved to ABC a month later) was replaced on CBS with Scooby clone Clue Club.
  • Self-Offense
  • Ship Tease: Between Fred and Daphne, so, so, so, so much.
    • It seems to be heading this way too for Velma and Shaggy in Mysteries Inc.
      • Heading this way, from the way I saw it, they're already a couple. Actually, they're farther along than Fred and Daphne right now, since so far Fred seems to have no idea Daphne likes him that way.
      • That's within the continuity of the new series. In the latest DVD movie, Camp Scare, Fred and Daphne are seen walking hand in hand into the woods at the start of the first musical number while Velma and Shaggy still have a working and platonic relationship.
  • Shout-Out: Several examples
  • The Show Goes Hollywood: Scooby-Doo Goes Hollywood.
  • Signature Laugh: Scooby's "heHeHEHeHehe" chortle, often followed by, "Rooby Roo!"
  • Skeleton Key: In the book, Scooby Doo! and the Skeleton Key, Scooby and the gang find an old-fashioned skeleton key - which the ghost of a pirate wants.
  • Skintone Sclerae
  • Soundtrack Dissonance
  • Spanner in the Works: Shaggy and Scooby act as this in Zombie Island; Samone and Lena dismiss them, and they end up disrupting the ritual long enough for the others to turn the tables.
  • Special Guest: Luminaries that appeared in cartoon form on the show: Jonathan Winters, Phyllis Diller, Sandy Duncan, Sonny and Cher, Jerry Reed, Davy Jones, Tim Conway, Cass Elliot, and Dick Van Dyke. The Addams Family appearances re-recruited John Astin and Carolyn Jones as the voices of Gomez and Morticia. And Pugsley Addams was voiced by a young lady by the name of -- you may have heard of her -- Jodie Foster.
What's New, Scooby Doo? had guest appearances by hockey's Brett Hull, baseball's Mike Piazza, and music group Simple Plan. Episode 11 of Scooby Doo Mystery Inc featured author Harlan Ellison.
  • Speech-Impaired Animal: Lampshaded in Scooby Doo and the Alien Invaders; Crystal and Amber [Shaggy and Scooby's love interests in that film] are revealed to be aliens at the end, and Amber, the dog, can talk.

Shaggy: Like, dig that, Scoob! A talking dog!
Scooby: Ryeah!
Fred: (dryly, to Velma and Daphne) Yeah, imagine that.

    • The speech-impaired part is a Running Gag in Shaggy and Scooby Get A Clue, where Robi the robot continually referred to Scooby as "Rooby-Roo" and Scooby would try to correct him.

Scooby: Rat's Rooby! Roo!

    • This brief but funny exchange from Decoy For A Dognapper:

Scooby: Ri, Raggy.
Shaggy: Ri, Rooby.

  • Spinoff Babies: A Pup Named Scooby-Doo, although technically they're 10-year-olds rather than actual infants.
    • According to studio bios from the cast we know, Fred and Shaggy are 17, Daphne is 16 and Velma is 15. A Pup Named Scooby-Doo would chronologically have Fred and Shaggy at age 10, Daphne at 9, and Velma (who in this series sleeps in a jumper) at 8.
  • Stalker with a Crush: In What's New, Scooby Doo?, Velma has one in the form of an inventor nerd named Gibby Norton.
    • In "Bravo Dooby Doo," Velma flirts with Johnny Bravo.

Velma: (winks to Johnny) I don't bite!
Johnny: (points to Daphne) Yeah...but does she?

    • In Scooby-Doo: Camp Scare, a ranger investigating the destruction of Camp Little Moose flirts with Velma, who is squicked.
  • Stand in Portrait: Frequently.
  • Standardized Leader: Fred
  • The Stoner: Shaggy. Okay, so the show never actively says he's The Stoner but he's stick thin, scruffy, always hungry, will eat dog snacks, thinks his dog can talk (the others could be humoring him or are probably as wasted as he is), and he's always freaking out. Who cares if the show never dared to canonise it?
    • Only creators Joe Ruby and Ken Spears could vouch for it. The show was created for the 2-11 age bracket on Saturday mornings after all.
  • Stoners Are Funny: Shaggy again.
    • According to the show's creators, the idea that Shaggy did pot never even entered their heads in the creation of the character. But since it was brought up, a lot of the movies have a tendency to joke about it. And fans believe it.
  • Story Arc: "Scooby Doo: Mystery Incorporated" has one of these, with the mysterious Mister E sending them clues about their latest mystery and challenging them to solve the disapperance of a previous band of mystery-solving teens years ago.
  • Story-Breaker Team-Up: The various team ups with characters from other shows.
  • Strictly Formula: There are very, very few cases where it is not a guy in a mask. Pointed out in Zombie Island.
  • The Summation
  • Surprise Slide Staircase: Appears in the Scooby Doo Where Are You? episode "Never Ape An Ape Man".
  • Syndication Title
  • Take That:
    • In the movie Looney Tunes: Back in Action, Shaggy is seen in a studio cafeteria threatening Matthew Lillard, who played Shaggy in the 2002 and 2004 live-action Scooby theatrical feature films (averted seven years later, when Lillard would assume Shaggy's voice on the cartoon).

Shaggy: (to Lillard) Like, you made me sound like a total space cadet, man! If you goof on me in the sequel, I'm comin' after you!

    • In "Curse of the Lake Monster" the jab about relationships in the end seems to be one directed towards Mystery Inc.
  • Take the Wheel: In Monsters Unleashed, when the gang is being chased by the pterodactyl monster, Freddy asks Shaggy to take the wheel of the Mystery Machine while he tries to shoot the monster down. A little while later, Shaggy gets called to the back of the van so he can help Velma, and he leaves the driving to Scooby. To Scooby. Granted, he's pretty intelligent as far as animals go, but he's still not that far up the scale...
  • Talking Animal
  • Tangled Family Tree: Each series/spinoff seems to insist on introducing (and, with few exceptions, never showing again) more and more relatives of the gang... cousins, uncles, aunts, grandparents, parents (Fred's and Shaggy's parents in Mystery Inc. are different than was previously presented), and in some spinoffs, even siblings. At this point, the Rogers, Dinkley, Blake, Jones and Doo family trees' must rival the (Mc)Duck family tree in complexity...
  • Tasty Gold
  • There Are No Adults - They either don't have parents or their parents just don't care that their teens travel around the world solving mysteries with a talking dog.
Mystery Incorporated subverts this, with their parents appearing frequently to try to get them to stop solving mysteries, because in this world that's what rebellious teens do apparently.

Shaggy: And there goes the bladder!

  • Took a Level in Badass: Daphne in the current run of feature-length cartoons, What's New and the live-action films. While sometimes still filling her classic damsel role, she now has martial arts skills, frequently gets the gang out of trouble by MacGyvering their way out of a trap with items in her purse and generally seems no more helpless than Fred or Velma.
It happened even earlier than that. In The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, she turned in her purple dress for a jumpsuit and went off with Shaggy and Scooby to hunt down actual ghosts.
    • Shaggy turns it up to eleven in Legend Of The Phantosaur, provided the key word is given to him at the right time.
  • Totally Radical: Found in the Live Action movie. It's also sadly found in the made-for-TV movies.
  • Tunnel King: Scooby in some episodes
  • Twist Ending
  • Unintentional Backup Plan: Common. Often the original trap that is set will not work, but Shaggy and Scooby's incompetence causes it to fail, but yields similar results.
  • Unspoken Plan Guarantee
  • Vague Age: The Mystery Gang. They're only described as "Meddling Kids," but considering how much time they spend on the road, they almost certainly have to be in their 20s, or late teens at the youngest.
  • Verbal Tic: Like, Shaggy, obviously. Also of note, Professor Flakey in 1972's "The Caped Crusader Caper", one of two crossovers with Batman and Robin. Flakey's dialogue consists almost exclusively of spoonerisms and this memorable malapropism:

Flakey: I always liked Shaggy because he's dumb to kind animals!

  • Video Wills: The phonograph record in "A Night of Fright Is No Delight".
  • Walking the Earth: Or driving it, anyway.
  • The Walls Are Closing In: In "A Night of Fright Is No Delight", the gang discovered a locked trap door and a nearby organ that appears to control it. Scooby offers to play the organ to see whether they can open the trap door, but when that happens, the gang realizes the walls are closing in on them. As the gang tries to hold the walls back, Scooby desperately plays the instrument more, and then frantically dances on the keys to try to get it to stop the walls, and succeeds by sheer luck.
The message on the sheet music read, "Feed the organ and watch the floor," and Velma deduced that it meant the musical notes F-E-E-D, which she plays and a panel in the floor opens. As to which keys Scooby pushed to stop the walls, that is anybody's guess.
  • The Wiki Rule: Scoobypedia
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: Miss Mirimoto at the end of Scooby-Doo and the Samurai Sword.
    • In the 2002 live-action movie, the heroes discover that the creatures were given lessons in how to act human. The lessons included some bizarre slang which no normal person would ever speak in. The reason for the slang is never explained, and the slang itself never appears again.
    • Scooby Doo: Music Of The Vampire: Shaggy and Scooby are told by swamp hermit Tulie that his prototype for hovering shoes was stolen by the vampire. When the gang catches the vampire, this is never brought back up. Likewise, we never see Jasper Poubelle and his vampire-hunting posse at the conclusion.
  • Who Is Driving?: Zig-zagged twice in the episode "Foul Play In Funland." First, Velma and Scooby are in a runaway bumper car which Velma can't control after losing her glasses (and she even taps her foot on the floorboard searching for a brake, which bumper cars don't have). Then, the gang is helping Mr. Jenkins find his recalcitrant robot in a jeep, which Velma's driving. She's only fifteen! Does she have a permit?
And after the ride in the bumper car, where is Scooby sitting in the jeep Velma is driving? Shotgun!
    • Velma does show some mad skills with the Mystery Machine in Scooby Doo: Music Of The Vampire.
  • Who's Laughing Now?: In the 2002 movie:

Daphne: (having just overpowered Zarkos) Now who's the damsel in distress?
Zarkos: Me?
Daphne: Straight up!

  • Who Would Want to Watch Us?: In Scooby-Doo and the Cyber Chase, the newly redrawn cast mock their original appearances in a video game based on them. (Cyber!Shaggy, however, is wearing his red shirt from a couple of the movies.)
  • Witch Species
  • Wild Wilderness: Well there are several locations from swamps to forests to islands to...well you get the point. They have to many adventures to really point this out to often but this trope swings in and out often.
  • With Friends Like These...: Fred and Velma could be so cruel to Shaggy and Scooby sometimes...
  • Wonderful Life
  • Wraparound Background
  • You Fail History Forever & You Fail Religious Studies Forever: Witch's Ghost treats witches and Wicca as two separate Witch Species, meaning a) one character claims his ancestor was a Wiccan who was burned at the stake 300 years before the religion was founded (granted, said character was lying and she really was a witch), and b) one of the Hex Girls is "one-sixteenth Wiccan".
    • Not to mention that there were never any witches burnt at the stake in America. They were either hanged, crushed with stones, or sentenced to imprisonment.
  • Younger Than They Look: They look like teenagers to you? Possibly lampshaded in the Valentine's Day special of What's New, Scooby Doo? where a flashback shows a much more teenage-looking Shaggy breaking up with his then-girlfriend. (It's a little subjective, but the beginning of Zombie Island heavily implies the characters are now college-age and subsequent animated versions of the franchise usually seem to tacitly follow suit even if the continuity is often vague...)
  • Zettai Ryouiki: Velma.
  1. ↑ He technically does, but "Let's split up, gang!" doesn't exactly work as an expression of shock.
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