Fred Silverman, the head of daytime programming at CBS, asked Hanna-Barbera for a series that combined the gang-playing-in-a-band element of The Archie Show with a mystery-solving element.
Silverman was a fan of the seminal old Universal monster and horror films and wanted his new cartoon show to have some of those spooky elements.
Hanna-Barbera asked writers Joe Ruby and Ken Spears to produce the show alongside artist Iwao Takamoto.
The first incarnation of the idea, dubbed Mysteries Five, featured five teenage members of a band called (you guessed) The Mysteries Five, who solved mysteries with their bongo-playing dog, Too Much.
The idea was rejected by Silverman, but after several reworkings – including ditching the band idea – making it less scary and more funny, plus a couple of title changes (although a remnant of the original concept did survive in the name of the gang’s van, The Mystery Machine), the show was pitched to the executives upstairs at CBS and given the green light.
Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? first aired in September 1969 and ran for 25 episodes over two seasons.
A light psych theme tune was composed by David Mook (who also wrote the music for The Banana Splits) and Ben Raleigh (a notable lyricist whose songs were recorded by Nat King Cole, Aretha Franklin, The Monkees and many more) and performed by Larry Marks.
After the first season, the Marks version was replaced by a more punchy recording of the song by Arkade frontman Austin Roberts.
Despite the apparent supernatural pretext of the show, rationalism and deductive reasoning always win the day and prove there are no such things as monsters – although this is always augmented by a large dollop of chance, dumb luck and accident.
Every week the same thing happened: Scooby and the gang would rock up in The Mystery Machine to visit some relative who lived in an old house near a swamp or disused mine. Upon arriving at the house, said relative would be acting odd, evil and/or absent, and the house would be haunted.
The ghosts would chase a terrified Scooby (voiced by Don Messick) and Shaggy (voiced by radio DJ Casey Kasem) all over the house – and through secret tunnels and passageways – usually to the accompaniment of a groovy 70s bubblegum pop song.
The pair often saw edible doughnut-shaped fog, fish in empty buckets, levitating ham sandwiches, eyes peering from behind portraits in empty mansions etc. In the meantime, Fred (the hunky one, voiced by Frank Welker), Daphne (the babelicious one, voiced by Indira Stefanianna) and Velma (the brainy one, voiced by Nicole Jaffe) would’ve found a box of balloons and a canister of helium.
This would lead them to deduce that the ghost is nothing but a helium-inflated puppet operated by the evil local sheriff/real estate agent, who would then reveal a scheme to dig for gold in the disused mine or dredge for diamonds in the lake at the back of the house, which he would’ve gotten away with if it wasn’t for “You meddling kids”.
The show was extremely popular when it first aired in 1969 and was renewed for a second season in 1970.
Since Indira Stefanianna had married and retired from voice acting, Heather North provided the voice of Daphne in the second season.
24 new 60-minute episodes were produced in 1972 and 1973, which aired as The New Scooby-Doo Movies. In this format, the kids met up with guest stars such as Mama Cass, the Harlem Globetrotters, Sonny and Cher, and Don Knotts (all playing themselves) to solve more mysteries.
Moving from CBS to ABC, the gang became half of The Scooby-Doo/Dynomutt Hour in 1976, sharing the bill with the “robonic” Dynomutt and his human superhero partner, The Blue Falcon.
From 1977 to 1979, Scooby appeared under the title Scooby’s All-Star Laff-A-Lympics (later renamed Scooby’s All-Stars). This show featured a plethora of Hanna-Barbera characters – dating as far back as the 1950’s – engaged in a variety of competitions.
Scrappy-Doo was introduced in 1979 and managed to annoy Iranian students so much that they took hostages to get him removed from the show, thereby leading to higher gas prices, the defeat of Jimmy Carter, and all sorts of other stuff. (It’s all true – just hasn’t been declassified yet.)
The entire show was overhauled in 1980 to focus more on Scrappy-Doo, with Scooby-Doo beginning to walk and run anthropomorphically on two feet more often, rather than on four like a normal dog. Fred, Daphne, and Velma were dropped from the series, and the new Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo format now consisted of three seven-minute comedic adventures starring Scooby, Scrappy, and Shaggy – first appearing between 1980 and 1982 as part of The Richie Rich/Scooby-Doo Show.
From 1982 to 1983, Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo were part of The Scooby-Doo/Scrappy-Doo/Puppy Hour, before being restored to a standalone half-hour in 1983 with The New Scooby and Scrappy-Doo Show.
This version of the show lasted for two seasons, with the second season airing under the title The New Scooby-Doo Mysteries. The 1984–85 season episodes featured semi-regular appearances from Fred and Velma, with Frank Welker and Marla Frumkin resuming their respective roles for these episodes.
Interestingly, while the show underwent many changes, the characters did not. Aside from a modified Daphne appearing in The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo (1985), the gang retained their late-sixties garb well into the eighties and nineties.
This included knee-highs, a mini-skirt and lumpy turtleneck sweater for Velma, a rockin’ minidress and headscarf for Daphne, and groovy bell bottoms for the guys.
In The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, Scooby, Scrappy, Shaggy and Daphne were joined by nine-year-old Flim Flam. The group, helped by warlock Vincent Van Ghoul (Vincent Price), fought off wicked sorcery.
That season, the Great Dane could also be seen in another rerun collection, Scooby’s Mystery FunHouse. In 1986, Scooby could only be seen in reruns of Laff-a-Lympics.
The airwaves were deprived of Scooby for two years. Then, in 1988, a new show called A Pup Named Scooby-Doo was produced. Like many cartoons of the time, this show took familiar characters back to their early years.
Thus, Shaggy, Freddy, Velma, and Daphne were now preteens. Scooby, of course, was but a pup. This version had the kids constantly running into the character Red Herring (wink, wink), whom the gang always suspected of committing crimes.
This show ran in reruns until 1993, when it finally left network television. The character of Scooby-Doo continues to appear semi-regularly in direct-to-video cartoon features, reboots and even live-action movies (2002 and 2004).
Don Messick died on 24 October 1997, in Salinas, California. He was 71 years old.
Scooby-Doo
Don Messick
Norville ‘Shaggy’ Rogers
Casey Kasem
Velma Dinkley
Nicole Jaffe
Daphne Blake
Indira Stefanianna (1)
Heather North (2) Fred Jones
Frank Welker
Hanna-Barbera asked writers Joe Ruby and Ken Spears to produce the show alongside artist Iwao Takamoto.
After the first season, the Marks version was replaced by a more punchy recording of the song by Arkade frontman Austin Roberts.
This would lead them to deduce that the ghost is nothing but a helium-inflated puppet operated by the evil local sheriff/real estate agent, who would then reveal a scheme to dig for gold in the disused mine or dredge for diamonds in the lake at the back of the house, which he would’ve gotten away with if it wasn’t for “You meddling kids”.
From 1977 to 1979, Scooby appeared under the title Scooby’s All-Star Laff-A-Lympics (later renamed Scooby’s All-Stars). This show featured a plethora of Hanna-Barbera characters – dating as far back as the 1950’s – engaged in a variety of competitions.
