A SCARY NIGHT WITH A SNOW BEAST FRIGHT
1976 (Originally part of "The Scooby Doo Dynomutt Hour")
Modified syndicated opening and original "Scooby Doo- Dynomutt Hour" openings
On a highrise building skeleton, workers are scared away by a spectre. The gang is at nearby Sam's Pizza, with Scooby trying to catch the tossed raw dough, and then eating it off the chef's finger. They read in the paper about another hit in a string of safe burglaries, where the safes weren't even broken into, and then realize they need jobs (“we need to earn some dough, before we can buy more bread”). The job they pick out of the want ad just happens to be at the haunted construction site, and on the night shift that can't keep its workers!
The owner, Mr. Dougherty, tells them about the spectre (“That's a new one. A building being haunted before it's even built!”) and that it replaced a haunted house that had been moved away from the site (“I guess someone forgot to tell the spectre!”) While the boys work, the girls are sent to the library to try to find any clues as to why the site was being haunted.
The one of the few night workers left, Jim Rivets takes takes the boys to their respective work sites. At the call of the foreman, Red Sparks, Shaggy and Scooby have to climb across a narrow beam on the 20th floor ("The things we have to do to solve a mystery!") to rivet beams. When more rivets are needed, Scooby pulls up a pail, but the spectre is riding it. (It takes the second time of this before Shaggy sees him). He then gives chase, causing Scooby to land on Fred, who doesn't see him.
The girls, meanwhile discover where the house has been moved to and that the spectre is Ebenezer Crab, who was suspected of practicing witchcraft, and he never seemed to grow older. He regularly returns to the house to make himself young again, and by now is 180 years old. When they return and tell the boys, Shaggy says "He sure moves fast for someone that old".
Velma, Shaggy and Scooby go to the house; Shaggy and Scooby strangely thinking "nothing could be scarier than this place" (are they forgetting this was a haunted house?) until they arrive and see it. ("It's worse!") They speak to his great, great, great grand daughter, Nettie Crab. Shaggy and Scooby find a black magic book and read a spell from it, momentarily turning into monsters, but not even noticing each other! Velma finds a clue, but Nettie enters the room and they leave.
Back at the work site, Doughtry says Nettie has been dead for 50 years (and thus must be a ghost —"Wow; what a family!"). Velma's clue is a receipt for a very expensive telescopic lens, made out to Ebenezer Crab recently.
This leads them to the Optical Lens Company. ("That geezer Ebenezer" is following them in the street). The shop owner has the item, and it's a special light gathering lens that makes night look like day. He lets them sign for it to take it to the police. The spectre is watching all of this. As they drive away, they hear the spectre growl, and he is on top of the Mystery Machine! Everyone evacuates, and he chases Shaggy and Scooby (with the lens) into a dead end alley. Trapped, they vibrate a door open, and it's a bakery. They bake him a birthday cake, but when he blows the candles out, he takes the lens.
Back at Sam's Pizza, Shaggy tells the others what has happened. According to the paper, there has been another safe robbery, and the girls notice that the construction site is at the center of all of the robbery locations.
Back at the site, Fred devises a trap to have the spectre chase Shaggy to a trip wire and have a bucket of cement fall on him. As they are planning this, the spectre is already there listening, and then persists after Fred and the girls instead of Shaggy and Scooby. He corners them on a beam suspended by a rope ("So! You nosy kids set a trap for me; eh? And now I have YOU trapped"!) Scooby takes the bucket of cement, but trips, and he and Shaggy land in a wheelbarrow which rolls (all of this is occurring on foot-wide I-beams, mind you!) They soon land on the beam with the others, which then swings, dumping them all into a penthouse, and the cement bounces in and traps both Ebenezer, and Nettie, who was already inside.
Ebenezer is Red Sparks (Shaggy: "Hi boss!") and Nettie is Jim Rivets. They are safe burglars, using the powerful lens from the penthouse that faces all of the places that were robbed, to copy the combinations when the owners opened their safes. They haunted Dougherty's building to slow down construction, since it would obstruct their view. Scooby leans, knocking over a potted plant, revealing the stolen money.
Back at Sam's pizza, Scooby receives his reward, a pizza shaped like a plaque reading "Honorary Police Dog". It looks "too pretty to eat", but not for Scooby! All he leaves Shaggy is an olive!
•Patricia Stevens (née Szczepaniak. 1945-2010; d. of breast cancer) now takes over as Velma. (She had also played a nurse of MASH during this same period). She was a pretty logical choice, as the voice at first glance sounds like the original Nicole Jaffe, through a "forced inflection" that gives it what you could call its "twang". The difference is very subtle, and it may take time to really notice, but Stevens' voice is deeper, and lacks the "girlish charm" of Jaffe. This affects the character's personality, though again, it's very subtle. (She does sound like Jaffe is some higher pitched expressions, such as "He's got Ellwoods' Head!" (Headless Horseman), "He's gaining on us!" (Ghost that Sacked the Quarterback). Many of these episodes have now been sped up, making Stevens sound a little more like Jaffe than at normal speed.
This new Velma is a bit more "dry", and less sweet and more serious sounding, and at the same time, not as much into big words and intelligent presentation. This also helps meld Fred and the girls together into a common role, as we shall also see more as we go along.
The "modern" Velmas, Mindy Cohn and the nearly identical Kate Micucci, sound somewhat like a cross between Jaffe and Stevens.
•The background score also changes in this series. These first five episodes consist entirely of new score (with the one exception in this episode, mentioned next), much of which does not give the feel of the classic series. The sixth, almost all new score, and the remainder use a mix of mostly older score, ranging from 1968-74, with a few of the new clips added as well. In these, you still have the standard 1969 Scooby stock, on rare occasions the similar 1970 Josie score (like in "Mamba Wamba" when Shaggy and Scooby run dragging the sound equipment), but a lot more of the 1968 ["Gulliver/Huck Finn" etc.] stock is used, which was also used in the first two seasons (especially early episodes like "A Clue For Scooby Doo"), but was used less in the Comedy Movie seasons. Also added were several pieces from "Valley of the Dinosaurs" (1974) and one from Goober and the Ghost Chasers (1973; the one used in "Bum Steer for Scooby" when they arrive in the Hidden Valley), which are used seemingly more than anything else.
With all of these changes, the episodes using older score at first glance might seem like the first four seasons, but as soon as the '73-6 stock begins playing, and Velma begins talking, it obviously sticks out as the "Scooby Doo Show".
•When Scooby walks past the pizza dazed in the beginning, a common horn and organ-laden Scooby cue created for the Comedy Movies plays. This is the only time it would be used after that series.
•These next two seasons do not use title card screens, at least not originally. The average viewer had no way to know the episodes' names until publications such as Lenburg's Cartoon Encyclopedia. (Several of the next season episodes have had title cards added to them, which look just like the ones that will be used in the 1978 season, and with a clip of the "Scooby Doo Show" opening music as the background).
•Copies from older episodes: "Ebenezer Crab" instead of "Ebenezer Shark" (A Clue For Scooby Doo), and the same premise of going to his house to speak to an equally elderly female relative.
From "Nowhere to Hyde", the ghost hiding in or on the Mystery Machine, and the gang slowly finding out after driving for awhile
THE FIESTA HOST IS AN AZTEC GHOST
The gang is on vacation, to a Mexican fiesta. (Scooby the "Canine caballero" does the Mexican hat dance). The gang hits what they think is a chuckhole, but is really a large footprint ("Do chuckholes have toes?") Fred and Velma don't think so, but as they drive off, the 50 foot tall Mexican ghost appears.
They arive a the town of Cinco, but the fiesta site is deserted. ("A fiesta siesta"). All that's out front of the hotel is a stone statue of an Aztec god —which begins walking after them as soon as their backs are turned! Scooby begins unloading the luggage, into the statue's arms. He gets wise to it and grabs the luggage and runs, crashing in the lobby of the hotel, but the only one who follows him inside is Juan Martinez, the owner, who tells them there will be no fiesta because of the giant ghost, the great King Contezuma of the ancient Aztecs, and his phantom barge.
The statue enters the hotel, and now knocks on Shaggy and Scooby's door and chases them downstairs. They escape by sliding into ceramic pots, but then see two figures wearing Aztec masks, but it's an archaeologist couple, Professor Stonehack and his wife, who had been collecting the masks, and they believe they are the ones who angered Contezuma by entering his tomb. (Fred and the girls have by now entered for this discussion, and the professor suggests they leave with them).
Back upstairs, looking out the window, they see the professor, and Contezuma appears standing over him, and both disappear, leaving another giant footprint. They decide to go to the pyramid to try to find answers, and ask an old hermit about loaning a boat. (Shaggy claims he gets seasick, but "only when going upriver to haunted pyramids"). The hermit knows everything about their reason for seeing him before they ask. ("I have ways of knowing these things". Shaggy: "I wonder if he knows if we're ever coming back!")
On the river, they see the phantom barge, heading right for them, but it disappears as they cross under a bridge. They find the pyramid, and Contezuma appears right in front of it, and warns them off. They get trapped between him and the stone statue. They escape into the jungle and come back around to the pyramid (Shaggy thinks finding the secret passage will take all night, but simply happening to lean on it and falling through, "Short night, wasn't it!" He then suggests finding a light switch, and as Velma is pointing out the pyramid was built centuries before electricity, Scooby flips it).
They split up, and Fred and the girls find a movie projector, and Contezuma appears but now shrunk to normal size. Fred shines the projector in his face. As Shaggy and Scooby walk, Scooby's tail hooks onto a vacuum cleaner, which makes fog instead of picking up dirt. When it clears, the statue is there. Scooby digs a way out, that leads to the others. They see Contezuma and run into a room of treasures (mostly missing now), which he then seals them in.
An inscription on the wall shows that a moonbeam hitting the right spot will open a secret passage. They have to use a series of brass pieces to reflect the moonbeam from the opening in the ceiling to the spot.
Outside, they see the phantom barge, and Contezuma and "stone face" unloading treasure from the pyramid. They next get onto the barge, where they hide. It disappears when he uses a pole to trigger an underwater lever that opens a passage in the side of the underpass (similarly to the way it worked on the Josie episode). As they unload the barge, the gang decides to scare them by disguising as another giant ghost, but the robe gets pulled off exposing them. They run, still on each other's shoulders, and then hide, to devise a plan. Scooby is chosen to lure them, and dons a big chicken costume, but is sent out anyway.
Fred's trap ends up trapping the kids instead, and Scooby ends up on a barrel as the ghosts pursue. The kids place springs out, which cause them to hop into the water, where they are revealed as the professor and his wife. At the fiesta, they explain that the professor projected the huge images onto the fog he created to scare people away so they could steal the treasure.
Shaggy and Scooby create the world's largest burrito (using a table cloth as the tortilla).
•Entirely all new score
•This series slightly alters the names of real life things: "Contezuma", "Splitsonian", "Hokeyfenokee", etc. Not Sleepy Hollow, though.
THE GRUESOME GAME OF THE GATOR GHOUL
We've seen gang members' relatives before, but now, we get a semi-regular character (well, at least four out of the 24 episodes of this and the next season).
The gang is driving through "Hokeyfenokee" swamp to Ma and Pa Skillet's showboat restaurant, where they will get to enjoy "Funky Fritters" and "Fenokee Fizz" and see Scooby's cousin, the "Mortimer Snerd"-like Scooby Dum (who haven't seen each other since they were puppies). The Skillets' telegram also said they were having big problems with the ghost of the Gator Ghoul. As they read, the half-man, half alligator creature is watching them, and shines its yellow eye beams on them, which Velma thinks is just the moon. Just like in the Phyllis Diller episode, they inadvertently drive on a raft and begin floating across. The Gator Ghoul shines his beams at them again, and this time, they see him.
They arrive at the Skillet showboat, and Scooby Dum introduces himself (leading to the hand slapping sequence seen in the opening, and a bunch of other dances), and then the Skillets describe how the Gator (who's then seen looking in through a window) is ruining them, and they face foreclosure. They also explain how Scooby Dum is studying to be a detective ("in six easy lessons"), as he gets out his magnifying glass and starts looking for "clues". (He "runs into his first big case"—of Fenokee Fizz!)
The gang (with the addition of Scooby Dum) is walking through the place, and the Gator Ghoul roars at them from a balcony. Dum chases after the Ghoul ("Scooby Doo; you sure you're related to Scooby Dum?") He lifts up the gator's leg and sees his footprint as "a clue". The others come look and are then chased by the ghoul, but Dum turns on the Fenokee Fizz machine, and it explodes, sending the ghoul running from a cascade of the drink.
They see a light from around the corner and think the Gator Ghoul is coming back, and now Scooby Doo wants to be a hero like his cousin, and runs, but then chickens out and hides in a barrel. It's really Simon Stingy the handy man who dumps a bucket of water in the barrel (on Scooby), which then knocks him over. The enraged man threatens to throw Scooby to the gators.
The only other employee left is the sweet and kindly receptionist and bookkeeper Miss Dovely who now enters, and is praised for saving the company by staying and working for free. The gang checks out Stingy's cabinet. He has a magazine called "Legend of the Swamp" with the Gator Ghoul on the cover. Back on the boat, Shaggy opens a door and almost has his finger bitten off by the gator. Everybody runs, the ghoul chases Shaggy and Scooby onto the paddle wheel, and Dum lands on springs and a gator costume, which he then appears to defeat. It's motorized and has the name of a film company that shot a movie in a shack. They go to check it out.
Scooby is scared by another costume and finds a letter on Kookie Cola (Fenokee Fizz's competitor) stationery, signed from the president. After splitting up, Fred and the girls find another letter torn up, and when put back together, pieces are still missing, that they later find.
Shaggy and the dogs make their own batch of Funky Fritters, and their moaning brings Fred and the girls back to them. Shaggy gets his feet stuck in a pot of batter. Fred gets his feet out of his shoes, freeing him, but then covers him (and himself and the dogs) in flour so he can go back into the batter in a trap Fred has devised to use the sticky stuff to catch the gator.
Shaggy and the dogs taunt the Gator Ghoul from the deck of the boat, and he's soon after them and gets caught in the batter placed on the floor. The scraps of paper was a termination notice for Alice Dovely from Kookie Cola, revealing her as the Gator, as is proven to Shaggy when she is unmasked. Kookie Cola was going to buy Finokee Fizz, and by ruining the Skillets, she could sell the formula to them for a fortune, gaining revenge on her previous company.
The remaining batter is used to produce more fritters, and Scooby ends up eating the sneakers still in it. ("He probably thought it was sneaker flavored bubble gum"!) The two cousins close, swapping their lines: "Scooby Dooby Doo!" "Scooby Dooby Dum!"
•All new background score.
•Scooby Dum provides contrast by being brave, which of course will be the role the next recurring relative, Scrappy, will fill
On a snowy mountainside, at an electric plant, what looks like an "electric monster" (as Shaggy calls it once) melts his way through an iron gate.
The gang is heading to the Winterhaven ski area ("It's 20 below outside!" "and 30 below inside!") and the whole town is dark and deserted. Worse yet, they run out of gas and the gas station is closed. They see a light in the ski lodge and decide to stay the night there.
Mayor Dudley answers the door and tells them the area is deserted because of the "10,000 volt ghost". This was the ghost of Voltner, the chief electrician at the power plant who was presumably electrocuted trying to restore power after a storm. He began appearing "in the flesh, or you could say, in the flash", to gain revenge on the town, turning it into a ghost town. (Shaggy: "Out of gas, out of lights, out of heat, out of food, and we've got to be out of our minds to stick around here!")
Outside, they see where the ghost melted the gate and the ice. "Surefoot" Shaggy, and Scooby slip on the ice, crashing through the door to the power plant. Inside, the ghost watches them from behind generators, and they think a shadow they see might be him, and for a whole box of Scooby Snacks, Scooby leaps into action, bouncing off of several objects, and making the pounce. But it's only Mr. Collins, the plant owner. (Asked what he's doing there, he begins explaining, but mid sentence catches himself; "Never mind what I'm doing here; what are you kids doing here?")
They split up, and the ghost follows Shaggy and Scooby, who find the cafeteria. The burger patties are frozen solid enough to crack the floor. Shaggy unwittingly uses the ghost's hand as a hotplate, then finally sees him and they run (Scooby comes back to gulp the burgers). They enter the room the others are in and show them their "clue". He melts through the door and they hide on a tight rope, until Scooby realizes he's afraid of heights, and causes everyone to fall.
On the floor is the next clue, bird seed. Scooby pushes Shaggy and Velma in a snowmobile that has no gas, and loses control going down a hill, crashing into the pet shop they were sent to check out. They hear a sound resembling the ghost, but it's really a parrot. (The hamsters push Shaggy and Scooby out of their cage!) Asked to "throw some clues at us", he says "rubber suit, tunnel, closet". In the closet, a rubber suit is in fact found, and Scooby tugging on it is slung inside the closet and finds a secret passage to a tunnel. (Shaggy's afraid it might lead to "the underside of a graveyard". His echo answers "no" when he asks if anybody's there). It leads to the power plant.
Meanwhile, Fred and Daphne find a piece of paper about something running across several parcels.
Back at the lodge, they tell Dudley and Collins about the clues. In the court house, they find the real estate record book that will explain the torn paper, but the ghost is there, after the book. Velma tosses it to Shaggy, leading to the file cabinet sequence seen in the show's opening.
Fred now plans the trap, using a coil of wire to turn the ghost into an electromagnet. For a change, Velma and Daphne are the bait to lure him in. This works, and Shaggy and Scooby then pull an anvil on a sled to guide the magnetized ghost to the jailhouse. The ghost begins rolling into a huge snowball that catches them, after going off the ski jump, and lands at the jailhouse, and melts, shorting out the ghost's battery powered rubber suit. ("How about 10 volts, now!")
It's Voltner, and Velma identifies Dudley as in on it too, as the book shows he bought up the parcels cheap, when he found that a freeway was being planned for them. So they both created the ghost story and used the tunnel to hide out at the pet shop, and get to the power plant to sabotage the generators, blacking out the town, to scare everyone into selling to him cheap. (Dudley tries to run, but Scooby has him by the coat tail).
Scooby skis one last time, and ends up in a tree, annoying the squirrels.
•When told the hamburger stand is a mile away, Shaggy translates that to "5280 feet".
•Velma and Daphne are chosen as the initial bait, but Shaggy and Scooby still get the slapstick comedic part of the trap sequence
•Entirely all new score
THE HEADLESS HORSEMEN OF HALLOWEEN
Scooby now covers the Legend of Sleepy Hollow (previously covered by Scooby knockoff Funky Phantom)
A Halloween party at the Crane manor is taking place, and the Headless Horseman (complete with the pumpkin already in place) is riding outside. Shaggy is dressed as a vampire, and raiding the food table, and Scooby, as a horse gulps it. The rear of the horse is Scooby Dum, identified to the party's host Mrs. Gertrude Crane as Scooby's brother.
Shaggy's fangs come in handy for bobbing for apples, but come loose, and the apple rolls outside. Shaggy hears a horse, and thinks it's Scooby, who in turn thinks it's Dum, but then they see the Headless Horseman. Meanwhile, the gang's friend Beth, is showing Fred and the girls her ancestor, "THE" Ichabod Crane, and right as she tells them who he was being chased by, Shaggy completes the sentence for her. She then reads them the rest of the legend. Freddy still thinks Shaggy and the dogs just saw a costumed guest.
Just as Daphne says he wouldn't dare show his face in the party, the lights go out, and he enters through the French door, saying "I WANT -- A HEAD!" Everyone leaves the party. Shaggy, Velma and the dogs search upstairs. A bowling ball at first looks like "Pumpkin puss", then begins rolling, fooling them again. Scooby Dum bowls it, but gets carried off with it, and Shaggy and Scooby have to look for him. (When Scooby mistakes his reflection in a mirror for him, Shaggy then says it's "not your cousin"). They then see a headless figure coming up behind them, which gets wrapped up in an iron cord, but it's only Scooby Dum. However, the real Headless Horseman enters the room, tosses his pumpkin head, and then demands a head from the three. (Scooby tucks his head in his body, Dum tries to take his head off; "Sorry", and Shaggy shows that his is too loose and doesn't work). His cape gets caught with a sewing machine and they run.
They get the others, but he's gotten away, yet left a clue of wood chips. Aunt Gertrude is asleep in a chair, and a wall panel opens and a ghostly white hand reaches for her. They hear her scream, and come to her assistance, and cousin Ellwood points out it was after her necklace, which has a cursed diamond that is causing the problem.
Scooby Dum presses a button that repeatedly calls the butler Tarloff. Velma notices his hands are ghostly white, and he says it's from the powdered sugar he was baking with. (Scooby licks it off him). Ellwood says he's taking the diamond to the bank vault, the manager being a friend of his ("We both fly airplanes"), who'll open it for him when it's closed. He drives off, but then as soon as the car is out of view, the Headless Horseman rides up, now with Ellwoods's head in place!
This is the call for the gang to do "the best detective work we've ever done--and the fastest". Dum springs into action, and comes up with a tiny picture of Ellwood stuck to his nose, and the keys are gone from the crashed car. Dum digs and finds another clue, a newspaper clipping about a flying saucer ("Zoinks! Pumpkin Puss is from Mars!" "A Headless Martian?")
They then decide to go to the cemetery to see the grave of the Headless Horseman. (Shaggy and Scooby faint, and then Dum voluntarily faints with them). Velma identifies the point at which the horseman confronted Ichabod, and now someone is coming up behind them. It's only Tarloff, who tells them the power outage was caused by a tree that was chopped down. Fred connects this to the wood chips. They don't find any clues at the crypt, but Fred realizing "not finding anything here IS a clue!" Velma then even recognizes Shaggy's newspaper clip as a clue after all as well.
They now head to the airport "Because that's where the headless horseman's going". They see the WWI style getaway plane and set up the trap. He arrives and takes to the cockpit, but Scooby falls in with him and they take off flying around the hangar. Shaggy lands in the plane too, and it heads vertically into the air and does various somersaults as the horseman chases them. The plane breaks apart, and Dum catches all four in a net.
In the presence of the sheriff, Shaggy tries to "get this phony Ellwood mask off and see who this Headless Horseman really is", but it really is him! He was after Aunt Gertrude's diamond all along. The biggest clue turned out to be Shaggy's newspaper, but not the story about the flying saucer, but the story on the other side, "Apex International Shoe Manufacturers [i.e. Ellwoods' company] Files for Bankruptcy". He was going to leave the country with the diamond (the little photo Dum found was from his passport) and everyone would blame the Headless Horseman.
Scooby Dum goes outside with his detective getup, still looking for "clues" (when Shaggy uses the word). He falls into the pool, and comes out with his "clue": a fish.
•Scooby Dum was identified as Scooby's cousin in "Gruesome Game of the Gator Ghoul", but now identified as his brother in the beginning, and his cousin again, later on, but then as "brother" again in next season's "Vampire, Bats and Scaredy Cats".
•Sleepy Hollow is a real NYC suburb, located in Westchester county, near the Tappan Zee Bridge that crosses the Hudson. Its main street {US9} is actually the very same “Broadway” that hold's NYC's famous theater district; just 20 miles down the road! Neighboring Tarrytown is a single, albeit long, local bus ride from the #1 subway line terminal in the Bronx! The connecting route that serves Sleepy Hollow is ironically the #13!
•The last episode to use all new score
In Shagworthy Castle, Shaggy's uncle Shagworthy reads Knights of the Round Table, and is approached by a shadow. The gang is watching Zarko the Magician, and when he offers two full course dinners for volunteers, Shaggy and Scooby oblige. They find themselves in the sawing in half trick, and end up ruining the whole magic show. ("Do we still get our dinners?")
The gang arrives at the castle ("This looks like old England, not New England!" Shaggy explains his "kooky zillionaire" jewel dealer uncle had it transported from England).
As soon as they cross the moat, Clarence the caretaker is telling them to leave, due to the curse of Camelot (this being Camelot Castle!) including the ghost of Merlin the sorcerer and his servant the Black Knight, and that Shaggy's uncle has disappeared. As they speak, Merlin appears, and has the black knight carry off Clarence (right through the stone wall) for allowing the intruders to be there. He warns the gang and disappears.
They search the castle anyway and find a secret panel in the wall, and inside is the Knights of the Round Table, which Velma assures are wax figures and not ghosts, but then ghosts are seen rising out of the suits of armor.
Fred and the girls run, while Shaggy and Scooby are hiding under a table, and then confronted by Merlin, who puts a spell on them to become his evil servants. He sends them to "dispose" of the others by giving a poetic set of instructions (which they mix up, but he accepts Scooby's mumbling of it). They find the others in the library, and enter in a daze, bungle the first instruction and then stalk behind Velma with evil grins on their faces trying to grab her. They then try to drop a candelabra on them, but get pulled with it. Velma realizes they've been mesmerized, and wakes them with a Scooby Snack. ("Just a matter of stomach over mind").
They then hear moaning in a dungeon. Scooby uses a claw shaped like a key to open the door. It's Uncle Shagworthy, who's moaning from being famished ("Like uncle, like nephew". Also, in being "allergic to ghosts"). Eating Scooby snacks, he explains that at 12:15 every night, Merlin and the black knight started prowling around the castle, searching for something. (The 15 minute delay seemed strange and a clue, to which Shaggy surmises "Maybe his hourglass was slow")
They enter the treasury room which has been ransacked, and the Round Table ghosts enter, chasing off Fred and the girls. The Knight (apparently thinking Shaggy and Scooby are still under Merlin's power) send them via trap door to "the master". He's about to punish them somehow, and they run and disguise as salesmen and then hide in suits of armor. Fooling them (barely), the knight begins heading toward Fred and the girls, who enter a music room, and trap him in a harp, only to find, that knight was really Shaggy and Scooby.
They next search the tower and see an organ, and figure (but not say) what it really is. Shaggy and Scooby are sent to lure Merlin and the knight into the ballroom, where they take his wand. Watching on a monitor in the console, the others have Daphne work the keyboard, which makes it appear Shaggy (or Scooby) is controlling the ghosts with the wand. However, her finger gets stuck, leaving Shaggy and Scooby to have to run, and climb atop a tapestry. When the knight tries to pull them down, it traps him and Merlin.
The knight is a henchman for Merlin, the real thief, who is Clarence, who, via a second mask, is really Zarko. The clues included the magician tricks, such as the disappearance through the wall, and the electric console, and the most important clue being the 12:15 appearance, which is from the time it took for them to get there after his show ended. So now, the gang's own magic act, to "make you and your pal disappear from here, and reappear in prison!"
Shagworthy brings out "a few snacks" (a table full of food which Scooby swipes from Shaggy as soon as he takes it, leaving him eventually with an "air sandwich"). The crooks couldn't find his jewels, because he keeps them all in the refrigerator. ("That figures in this family") He takes out a pail containing a "cool million in jewels".
•A magic show worker needing 15 minutes to get from the show to the scene of the crime was the exact same premise used in "A Good Medium Is Rare" (with Phyllis Diller).
•A switcheroo is pulled on us, when the real knight is the one that begins walking toward the others, while Shaggy and Scooby disguised as a knight stay put; however, when the others trap the walking knight, it's Shaggy and Scooby
•Mostly new score, but some '68-9 pieces are used (starting with the intro), and one '73 Superfriends piece (When the wand no longer works for Scooby)
•Along with other changes this season is the group dynamic. Notice, in large chunks of the episode, Fred and the girls are separate from Shaggy and Scooby. While this had picked up in several "Comedy Movie" episodes, those being an hour long and including special guests still had a lot of time and characters for different interactions, while now we've returned to a half hour and the core group. So this unbalanced splitup pairing will actually increase these seasons (Velma will accompany Shaggy and Scooby much less), and Shaggy and Scooby will become less involved in the actual mystery solving (and Shaggy explaining it with the others in the end), and they will become more "comedy relief" than anything else (as we see to some extent in this story).
In fact, Fred and the girls could have for all purposes been played by a single character. This is what leads to the much scorned drastic changes of the following era after this, and should be kept in mind when judging that period.
On a stormy night, a ghostly "mad doctor" stands right in the middle of Niagara Falls. The gang is driving looking for the border. They come upon a roadblock and are approached by Officer Oldfield of the border patrol. He warns them to take the left fork ahead (Foster Rd.) to get to the main road, and that the right fork leads to an area haunted by the ghost of Doctor Coffin.
Rather than follow the "left" direction, they look for the road sign, which a lightning bolt hits making it point the wrong way, down the right fork. They are soon passed by an ambulance and decide to follow it. They arrive at the Shady Sanitarium and decide to spend the night there. (Scooby sees the ghost in an upstairs window). They then hear a creepy organ ("Well he sure ain't Stevie Wonder!") and then are attacked by vicious guard dogs. They chase Shaggy and Scooby up a tree, and then suddenly "wandered off like friendly little puppies".
They are greeted at the front door by Dr. Tewksberry. Inside, are the dogs, "Cuddles" and "Snookums" inside a cage. They were the pets of the late Dr. Coffin, original owner of the sanitarium, who used them for brain wave experiments, by playing music on the organ, and what they heard was his ghost.
Shaggy and Scooby begin running away, but are lured back by dinner. Tewksberry explains that even though patients continue to be brought (as the gang also saw), they keep disappearing. The ghost is continuing his experiments, and needs people to experiment on. ("Jeepers! Maybe he'll want us!") The doctor insists they stay.
Upstairs in their room, the ghost appears in the boys' window ("I just wish that doctor wouldn't make house calls"). Scooby hangs from a moose head that opens a secret passage. (Shaggy wants to stay and "guard the girls", but Fred orders them inside). What they think is a light switch opens the roof, and a huge magnifying mirror concentrates a moonbeam to singe Scooby's fur. It's really for sunbeams, and is a solar furnace. Suddenly, the ghost appears in the mirror.
The girls are asleep in their bed, and are awaken by the sound of patients being loaded into the ambulance, and they don't look like they're alive anymore! They boys enter, and they all decide to follow the ambulance ("from the looks of those patients, to the cemetery"!) They are near Niagara Falls, and encounter a bridge out sign ("If the ambulance can make it, we can make it!") They almost go over the severed bridge, and wonder where the ambulance went. They then see the mad doctor standing on the rock, as in the beginning, and then he disappears.
Back at the sanitarium and everyone asleep, the ghost plays the organ, stirring both the dogs, and Scooby, who now sleepwalks downstairs and dances with them to the music! The others arrive and Shaggy yells to him, waking him up. He runs and the dogs give chase. Scooby hides in a pile of wigs. ("Maybe they belong to the mad doctor's ghost. Like he sure has flipped his wig!")
They split up and Shaggy and Scooby find the mad doctor's lab. They sit in the seats of the brain wave experiment, and the doctor enters and begins the experiment on them. They run and hide behind an X-ray screen (we see what both have eaten), and then disguise as doctors themselves and check his tonsils ("You ought to see a doctor!").
Fred and the girls enter a morgue, and see what looks like dead patients, but are really stacks of gold bouillions with wigs to make them look like people. The gold ties in with the solar furnace. They hide, and Shaggy and Scooby enter and hide on stretchers, and are taken away into the ambulance with the other fake patients. Fred and the girls follow closely behind (with the headlights out) as the ambulance approaches the falls. It activates a panel in the cliff (As in "the Haunted Showboat" and "the Fiesta Host") via remote control. It's a tunnel that passes behind the falls from the Canadian side to the US. The ambulance stops at a huge stack of gold bouillions an a bread wrapper machine disguisng them. Scooby is discovered, and then rides off on Shaggy's stretcher. They end up in mine cars with the ghost and the ambulance men following, but the latter soon crash and end up going through the bread wrapper.
The mad doctor is actually Officer Oldfield (and not Dr. Tewksberry, as suspected). A Canadian officer explains that the officer impersonator was really the ringleader of a multimillion dollar gold robbery in Montreal. They disguised the gold as patients so they could pass the authorities, and then wrapped it in bread wrappers to take them across into the USA.
As for "Dr. Gooseberry" (As Shaggy keeps calling Tewkesberry), he had nothing to do with it, and yells "Quiet"! at them from an upstairs window, having slept through the whole thing!
As they pack to leave, Scooby, a "real Fred Astaire" dances with Daphne, but then Snooks and Cuddles cut in, and Scooby, "a great runner too" runs off into the distance.
•This is one of the few episodes this season that really captures the feel and goodness of the previous seasons as far as the spookiness. Even radical for Scooby is them twice thinking they were seeing dead patients.
•Episodes now revert to mostly older score. In this one, the mostly 1969 (original Scooby, and not even as much the '74 stock score, or overdoing the 1968 score as episodes to follow will) also helped create the feel of the original series. (Now if only Nicole Jaffe were still there!)
It seemed after producing the first few episodes, they realized the new score just didn't work as well (though they will return to that and even more ill fitting score in the 1978 seasons). The 1973-4 score blends in with the '68 score more, and both will be used heavily now.
•A common 1973 Superfriends action clip (also used heavily in that show's later seasons) is used when they are following the ambulance near the border.
•The fork in the road bit is reminiscent of second season's "Haunted House Hangup"
A zombie with a completely blank face (no features at all) is wandering through an alleyway and breaks into the Main St. Coin shop and steals the Golden Galleon coin. Right next door, at the hero shop, Shaggy and Scooby eat a six foot hero sandwich. Shaggy takes one end, and has Scooby go outside to eat the other end. He sees the zombie break out of the coin shop's back door, and jumps back in, trying to hide in the sandwich, as he describes him to the others. They hear that "something big" is happening outside. The owner of the shop tells the police lieutenant about the curse placed on the coin, and the zombie. The sole witness Scooby, comes and describes the zombie to the unbelieving detective ("First a curse, then a zombie, and now, a canine comic!")
The gang drives away, and the zombie drives up beside them in a hearse at a stoplight. They chase him into the Dilly Dally Dolly Co. ("We just tell the watchman there's a zombie in there dilly-dallying with the dollies...!") An aggressive watchman slams the door on them, and they see the zombie on the upper floor, and then looking in from a tree, Daphne falls, catapulting Scooby inside, landing in a room of stuffed toys. The zombie enters the room, Scooby shushes his teeth, and the girls use a forklift to raise Shaggy and Freddy to the window to enter. Someone's driving up, and the girls hide in the crate they lifted the boys up on. It's the owners, who take the crate to the garage, and the boys come and free them (after they get tumbled in the box as it rolls).
They tell Dilly and Dally what's going on, but they don't believe it, and go to look themselves. (Shaggy: "This suits me just fine. Let someone else creep around this creepy factory looking for that creepy zombie"). Mr. Dally is grabbed by the zombie.
Velma sees three pages torn out of a magazine, and the zombie is returning. Scooby uses a magic kit to take the coin and disappear. They try to take an elevator but encounter a gorilla inside. Shaggy and Scooby are sent to buy another copy of the magazine, while Fred calls the lieutenant to update him, including now, Dilly, Dally and the watchman being missing, and the gorilla. The zombie swipes the coin from Daphne. Scooby and Shaggy are unable to get outside due to the two pursuants, and Scooby runs into the toy duplicating room and falls into a duplicating machine, and is copied into a room full of Scoobies. Shaggy finds the others, and then they all hear Scooby's yelping, and lure the real one out with a Scooby Snack.
Shaggy and Scooby now are able to get outside, and the gorilla follows, and is at the magazine stand when they pick up the magazine. They run and hitch a ride, and the gorilla is driving. They run again, and another car catches up to them, and it's the lieutenant. ("We thought you were a gorilla, sir!")
Meanwhile, the zombie is inside looking for something. Daphne and Velma pretend to be windup dolls and swipe the coin from him.
The two groups collide at the front door, as the zombie watches in dismay. He takes the coin out of the lieutenant's hand, and they all chase him (doors in hallway scene), and they crush him with a forklift, revealing he was a robot. Now, the gorilla swings in on a rope and takes the coin and tries to drive away in the hearse, but the forklift (driven by Shaggy, who can't control it) lifts the rear, trapping him.
It's really Mr. Dilly, and the magazine showed that the "Sultan of Swahili" has offered $1 million for the coin, which is why Dilly wanted it. He built the zombie to deliver it to him, but the kids kept getting in the way, so he tried to scare them off as the gorilla. Mr. Dally and the watchmen had been locked up in the storeroom.
Mr. Dally rewards Shaggy and Scooby by opening the employee cafeteria to them, and himself serves the food. But the cafeteria is now filled with all the duplicate Scoobies who have eaten all of it!
•We are now getting into more cartoon wackiness ("suspension of disbelief") with the duplicate Scoobies. The realistic Scooby format usually avoided such natural impossibilities, at least on that large a scale.
•Great plot twist, with the zombie turning out to be a robot, and the gorilla that enters later being the true culprit.
•We also get the lesson for the kiddies, of never to hitchhike, which Shaggy acknowledges “knowing”, but does anyway in the emergency of the situation. The lesson is taught when the driver turns out to be the bad guy. They were lucky to be able to jump right out.
•Faint echoes of "Mystery Mask Mixup": a spook with no face, and the car chase through the city.
MAMBA WAMBA AND THE VOODOO HOODOO
The gang is at a rock concert (Scooby ties Shaggy's hot dog to his, so that he can gulp both, with Shaggy none the wiser). They had been invited as guests by their old pal Alex Super who made it as a rock star. They go into their next number, based on an ancient voodoo chant "Mamba Wamba". Suddenly a witch doctor appears on the stage, saying because they dared violate the sacred chant, they are now under the curse of Mamba Wamba, and he magically makes the female singer, Lila, vanish.
The gang goes backstage with Alex, and the manager, Roger says he had warned them not to play that number. Lila had received a notice saying they would be turned to "the living dead". A voodoo doll of Lila has been left, which means the voodoo priest will make her a zombie.
They go to the Maison Dupree plantation, where Alex first heard the voodoo chant he decided to make into a song. ("I hope they raise something here beside the dead". "They do! Goosebumps!") They decide to set up the instruments to play the song to bring out Mamba Wamba and make a deal with him never to play the song again, in exchange for Lila's freedom. Plugging in the amplifiers, Shaggy blows the fuse in one room, and he goes into the next, where a zombie comes up behind him. They run back into the other room dragging the equipment (ruining it).
They split up, and Mamba appears before Shaggy and Scooby and throws down a voodoo doll of Roger. Back with the others, they hear voodoo drums, and Roger runs outside and is gone, his hat being found in a pond. They then hear Lila scream from inside the house, but don't find her. They split up, and Daphne eagerly goes with Alex into a wine cellar. Mamba and the zombie appear and as Daphne tries to fend them off, Alex is taken and a voodoo doll of him left.
The zombie begins following Shaggy and Scooby in a hallway. They run and every door is locked, except for one, and they find a southern belle dress ("Shaggy's Tailor Shop") to dress the zombie in. (He actually goes along with it for a bit). Shaggy knocks "old gourd-head's gourd" down the stairs, making Velma and Freddy think it's Mamba, and they end up trapping each other as Shaggy and Scooby run past, but they get rolled up in a carpet, making the others think they've captured Mamba after all. (Upon unwrapping them, "Like who'd you expect, Mamba Wamba?" "Uh, never mind!")
Daphne joins them, voodoo drums begin playing, and voodoo dolls of the other musicians Ray and Deet[?] are there. Fred and the girls head for the cellar where Daphne saw him, and Shaggy and Scooby decide to "guard the outside, in case he gets away". (Scoob asks "have you flipped", and Shaggy responds "Flipped like a fox, for if El Creepo is inside, the best place to be is outside").
Fred and the girls see Mamba's footprints disappear through a wall, and listening through it, can hear voodoo drums. A stone is loose, and Fred pushes through. Shaggy and Scooby walk away from the sound of the drums, and encounter a log making a noise (and think Mamba is actually in the log!) It's really a frog, who now becomes their little companion (including eating their Scooby Snacks). They roll on a log in the water, and are propelled to the top of a grass hut right smack in the middle of Mamba Wamba's zombie rituals for the musicians (Lila already changed, and playing the drums for him). Mamba is getting Alex to sign a parchment promising never to play the song again.
Shaggy and Scooby want to go tell the others what's happening, but fall through the hut making a loud noise. They disguise as witch doctors, and Mamba makes them perform the coal-walking ceremony. They grab their "coal-walking shoes" (stilts), and walk through (barely), but he knows they are impostors. The frog grabs the parchment with his tongue and Mamba, Lila and the zombie go after him, and Shaggy and Scooby follow. They all end up hopping through tall grass and tussle in a hut. Shaggy gets the frog, and they free the others. Fred and the girls come up from under a moving idol, allowing everyone else to escape through the passage.
Back at the plantation, they plan to rescue Lila, and Velma realizes the paper the others had was the key to the mystery. They set a trap and Shaggy and Scooby are to lure him with the parchment ("Next time, I'm going to set the trap, and you can be the bait!")
It works as planned, and the sheriff arrives ("What is this, a masquerade party?" "Something like that"). Mamba Wamba is Roger, the zombie is an unnamed henchman, and Lila was in on the whole scheme, to scare the group into signing away all the rights to the money from what they knew would become a hit song selling millions. They signed a legal release form with the fake parchment glued above their signatures. ("Too bad they didn't play it straight. They could have made a bundle manufacturing dolls!")
They now have dinner, which is crawdad gumbo. The frog gulps every drop of it. Shaggy jokes about having frog gumbo instead, causing him to flee back to the outside, but then they say they preferred pizza instead. The frog hops back to the table, ready with his bib on!
•Another masked "witch doctor" (whose name is almost the same as the chant of the one in "Bum Steer For Scooby"), but this time, as the main ghost rather than the accomplice, as they had always been so far. The zombie who's now the accomplice is the same as the one on the first season "Which Witch is Which", except that he howls more aggressively
•Daphne's interest in Alex should make it clear that there is no such interest inbetween her and Fred
•Lila will reapear in 2014’s “Frankencreepy” along with several other captured villains, to get revenge on the gang, as she will explain.
•The frog becomes a little accomplice to Shaggy and Scooby, just like the little chick in second season's "Jeepers, It's The "Creeper", and similar to the special guests of the Comedy Movies, Scooby Dum in a few other episodes these seasons, and of course, the semi-permanent addition who will arrive three seasons from now. It seems things were really pointing toward a sixth member of the gang, to accompany Shaggy and Scooby in splitups! Modern day critics of that last addition, (as well as advocates of romance between Fred and Daphne) really need to watch these seasons some more!
A FRIGHTENED HOUND MEETS DEMONS UNDERGROUND
At a construction site, a red demon appears, and leaves a molten handprint in a beam a frightened worker was escaping on. (Shaggy, reading the story from the Seattle Space Needle restaurant with the others: "I wonder if his fingerprints are on file with the fire department!") It was the fifth sighting that week. The demons hide in the underground city, that had burned down in 1890, and the new Seattle built on top of it. (As they dine, Scooby fights with a lobster). They decide to investigate when they finish lunch (Shaggy: "Like everybody eat slow, please!")
At the construction company, they speak to the owner Mr. Crenshaw who was the first to sight the creatures. They have ransacked his office and taken the company funds. He shows them a talisman that the demons are likely after, and then tells the story of how in the 1860's, there was a quake that opened the ground, allowing the demons to escape and plague Seattle, until a man drove them back using the talisman. The crack was sealed with the heavy iron lid shown at the beginning. (Shaggy chides Scooby for his chattering teeth, only to find that his own knees are knocking as well. “That was sort of scary, wasn't it?”) Crenshaw's company was developing a shopping center on the site and discovered and opened the lid, allowing the demons to escape again.
Daphne finds a hotel matchbook for the waterfront dive “The Crow's Nest”, and they go check it out. The owner, Captain Sally tells them about the demons (Shaggy, colliding with Scooby who ran in, from being scared by a rat's shadow outside: “The next time you check in, while I'm checking out, check with me first”) Sally introduces them to her “star boarder” Albert Tross. He too has seen the demons, on the docks. As they head out, the two seafarers make evil grins to each other.
They split up, and Shaggy and Scooby quickly encounter a demon. They escape by rolling into a ship hold of fish, and then tell the others. They then hear Sally yelling, and she says the “scurvy monsters” have “taken" Albert. The gang knows to search the underground city, which can be accessed through her basement.
Shaggy and Scooby walk backwards so the demons can't come up behind them, but this causes them to get separated from the others, and back themselves right into a demon! Both “motorize” by Scooby cranking his tail, and Shaggy using his belt buckle as a pull cord. They hide in an old shop, and Scooby has to both catch a bunch of glasses and stay suspended in the air (defying gravity), as to not be heard.
They run and tell the others, who've found the lid that keeps the demons underground. Fred is unable to open it, but when the gang leaves to look for another exit for them, it opens itself, releasing a demon! One shop is a museum of monstrous figures, including a demon exhibit, with one of them missing. As Shaggy describes it probably lurking in the shadows waiting to grab them, it grabs Daphne, detected only by its footprints.
They split up to look for her, and entering a music shop, Scooby unknowingly gets his collar hooked to the roll of a player piano, and ends up pulled into the roll. He and Shaggy hear mumbling, and jump inside the piano, where they find themselves with a ghost, but it's really Daphne, who had been bound and covered (“It could have been worse; he could have stuffed ya in a harmonica!”).
Fred and Velma have found newly used bottles of something in a drug store. When Shaggy enters and touches Velma's shoulder, she drops a bottle, and red gas is released, like the demon's smoke. Shaggy chuckles “The smoke's not so scary when the demon's not around”, but when the air clears, he finds he's leaning against one! (Too scared to look himself, he's told by the others).
They run to Crenshaw's office to get the talisman and find the demons have taken it and him. They run back into the underground city and encounter a whole gang of demons. Scooby, running in a garbage can, ends up rolling down into the cablecar roundhouse. They see the controls for the cable cars, but some of the levers are new. Fred activates a cable car, which Shaggy and Scooby take for a ride. However a demon is riding with them, and chases them inside and outside the car. They lasso a fire hydrant to stop, and disguise as directors inside a photo studio (this scene was cut on the syndicated copies of the show). Scooby cuts a rope, dropping them through a panel causing them to bump into the others. They all crash through a wall, and are back in the museum, with all the demon statues now gone.
Realizing what's going on, they now devise a trap to capture the leader of the demons, by hooking the other museum statues to the cable car system to chase him. Scooby lures him, and the statues chase him to the iron lid, which he escapes down, via a spiral stairway. The gang follows, and end up back in Captain Sally's basement, where they find Albert. Scooby leans on his sea chest, breaking through it, and pulls out money. The angered sailor runs and the gang gives chase. Shaggy and Scooby manage to trap him in a barrel.
He's really Sam Crenshaw, and was going to use the Albert disguise to make his getaway (with the money), but the matchbook connected him to the sailor, so he had to make him disappear too. He got the demon costume from the museum, and hooked the statues to the cable car system. (He gives the standard "I would have gotten away with it too, if you and that dog hadn't come along", as Scooby poses in the demon costume). Back in the space needle restaurant, Scooby is now frightened by the steam of a boiled lobster.
•Seemed like a run of the mill story, but notable for the highly unusual pairup of Shaggy, Scooby and Daphne, albeit accidental. In actuality, demons were a good "spooking" idea that hadn't been done before on Scooby, along with the theme of Seattle and its underground city
•The backgrounds of the underground city are usually drawn accurately as cavern walls behind the buildings, but in the cable car scene, they appear to be more of a night scene for an above ground countryside, showing distant trees, plains, mountains, etc.
•The werewolf statues are nearly identical to the one in second season "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Werewolf?"
The gang is driving through the desert to Daphne's uncle Matt's ranch. Shaggy and Scooby are eating a Texas weenie, and Scooby sucks the meat out, leaving Shaggy to think it "tastes like bread". (He never gets wise to this one). Suddenly, Fred brakes hard, for a flying ghost bull that comes after them. They escape through a tunnel. At the Lazy S Ranch, he believes it's only a local legend, but his neighbor rancher Sam Ferrin thinks it might explain how 20 cows vanished from the ranch without a trace, and some say Tamuka (the flying bull they "think" they saw) did it. Matt explains the legend: 1000 years ago, a tribe of cliff dwellers had a burial ground that was guarded by the spirit of the flying bull. He thinks they only imagined they saw it from hearing the legend, except that they had never heard the legend!
Scooby, then the others think they see a ghost, but it's only Lenny the cook, holding a sheet. They think they see another ghost, but it's only the headlights of the ranch foreman, reporting that the cows in the south pasture have vanished.
The rancher, foreman and cook drive off, Matt goes to tell the sheriff, and Shaggy and Scooby go with him hoping to find an all night diner, and Fred and the girls check the south pasture. Matt drives through a mountain, and has disappeared when the jeep emerges out the other side! Shaggy now takes over, and drives over the mountain, for fear of going back through the tunnel.
Fred and the girls find a fence cut with wire cutters and no hoof prints. To Daphne's horror, a cow skull is moving towards her, (Told not to move; "Don't tell me; tell it!") but it's only a prairie dog underneath. It's frightened away by Tamuka, heading for them in the sky. They take off in the Mystery Machine, and Shaggy and Scooby at the top of the mountain are narrowly missed by it as well. Back at the ranch, Scooby sniffs to find the others, but only finds a bull in the stable. He and Shaggy ride him, with feed bags on their heads, and are the bucked off and left hanging from a tree. They don't realize the Mystery Machine has driven under them, so they can land safely, but feeling the solid surface, then end up walking off it into a water trough.
They each tell each other what happened. (Driving to look for Tamuka, Shaggy tells the nailbiting Scooby he'll protect him, and then he bites the nails on both paws!) They see cow tracks that start from nowhere and follow them to Hidden Valley where they see the ancient cliff dwellings from the legend. (Shaggy: "Like Why don't we let it stay hidden") Unseen to them is a "medicine man" (an Indian witch doctor, similar to "Decoy for a Dognapper") watching them from one of its openings. Where the cow tracks end, truck tire tracks begin. They follow them to a herd of cows, which are the OO brand rather than Lazy S. Suddenly, they are all lassoed by a cowboy who says that this is Sam Ferrin's ranch (when told these were the cows that disappeared from that ranch) and that they are trespassing.
They go to the burial mound, which Shaggy and Scooby refuse to enter, because "when it comes to checkin', we're chicken", and so stand guard outside. Daphne bends down to pick up Velma's glasses, and ends up guiding a skeleton whose hand rests on her shoulder and begins walking with her, unbeknownst to her. Shaggy and Scooby see the medicine man (chanting "muka wonga!") up in the cliff, and run inside to tell the others and see the skeleton, which collapses as Daphne turns around.
Fred, in another room, sees Tamuka, and they all run and climb up into the cliffs, and enter separate apartments, and both groups are attacked by the medicine man throughout the various floors of the dwelling. Shaggy and Scooby both manage to escape by squeezing into a tiny pot after a "shell game" with the "creepy chiefie". (When Shaggy pulls Scooby out, his body is all discombobulated —"Your ankle bone's connected to your neck bone!")
Shaggy and Scooby are attacked by a huge eagle, and eventually fall into a store room (which seems out of place). They look outside to find the quiet suddenly disrupted by a stampede, and then go back inside to find a pile of cow costumes. Fred and the girls, still upstairs, also see the stampede, and hear cowboys, but don't see any. If that wasn't weird enough, they see a cow talking to the medicine man. They then see the top of the burial mound open which allows the flying bull (which is really a kind of helicopter) to fly out. Fred ties its hoof to the ground with a rope, trapping the medicine man piloting it ("Can you believe that's the first time I ever roped a bull?")
Shaggy and Scooby had decided to go out in the cow disguise to blend in ("Now I know why they call this a "cow hide"), and are seen by the others as they fall out of the costume. (Velma calls them a "Lazy SS" brand). This shows them how the rustlers stole the cattle without being seen (and used the legend of Tamuka to explain why the cattle vanished). Saying "two can play at this game", they send Shaggy and Scooby back out in the costume to join the herd (a "Trojan cow") and find out who's taking the cows and where. In the herd, they quickly find themselves being butted into a truck by one of the disguised rustlers. On the other end of the trip, they are then branded as a OO cow by the cowboy who lassoed the gang earlier, causing them to run wild in pain. The disguised rustler chases them, but is lassoed by the gang, who are then in turn lassoed by the cowboy, who is then lassoed by Uncle Matt, who has arrived with the sheriff, who has the medicine man in custody!
He had been yanked out of the jeep in the tunnel and was held prisoner and managed to escape. The "OO" brand was formed by simply branding it neatly over the "S", leaving no trace. The cowboy was Sam Ferrin's foreman. The medicine man was Lennie the Cook, and the phony cow was Sam Ferrin himself!
Matt thanks a real cow instead of Shaggy and Scooby, and Fred and the girls think it's them too, until they show up and remove the costume. They had been out "grazing" for carrots!
•Episode is like a cross between the first season "Decoy For a Dognapper" with the western Indian ghost and witch doctor in the desert cliffs scene, and third season "The Spooky Fog" with the cattle rustling conclusion.
•Uncle Matt's last name is Blake, which in the 1983 season would be revealed as Daphne's last name; i.e. the family name
THERE'S A DEMON SHARK IN THE FOGGY DARK
On East Indian Airlines, two men, handcuffed to a suitcase, are transporting a shark frozen in a block of ice. The customs agent says he doesn't envy them, transporting the million year old humanoid shark demon from the Indian Ocean to go on display at Aquaworld. They show him their trunk containing rare pearls for the museum, worth $2 million. In the customs storage area, the shark is shown melting, then in a flash of lightning, the pearls are gone.
The gang is at the beach; Scooby and Shaggy eating huge sandwiches as they ski! ("Well, skiing gives you an appetite!"). The boat's radio broadcasts the story of the disappearance of the pearls. A wave knocks the sandwiches out of their hands, which a shark begins eating in the water. The shark now begins eating Scooby's skis (as seen in the opening sequence). They escape on another beach isolated by a cliff. They use an anchor to climb up, and the shark demon is seen at the top, but gone when they reach it. Scooby uses a paw nail to cut a "doorway" in the thick fog.
They are at Aqualand aquarium. The demon shark comes out of a door. They run, and escape by falling into the pool, clinging to the tails of airborne dolphins.
Looking for clues, they get a three-way runaround between the manager M. Dreyfus, the biologist Professor Beaker, who supposedly brought him back to life with a book of ancient Hindu spells (but clearly shows that the shark is still frozen right in his lab, —but as they leave, the shark is once again seen melting), and Dreyfus' assistant Mr. Wells, who also denies having the book. (Daphne accidentally opens a secret draw he has made, his hobby being cabinet making).
Having split up, and even though they just saw the shark on ice, Shaggy and Scooby see it swimming in the tank they are next to, and run. He and "Sherlock Bones" Scooby (with the demon shark trailing not too far behind), find the Pie in the Sky revolving restaurant. Inside, they decide to "look for" the spell book inside dozens of pies, eating them all ("The tastiest search we've ever made"). Then they look in the kitchen, inside salami sandwiches. While eating, Shaggy sees the book "Secret Spells of Gastronomy", and gleefully grabs it. The shark enters and starts the restaurant revolving fast. They make it to the elevator, leaving the demon shark at the top of the tower.
Fred and the girls now find boxes of oysters from Sam's Fish Market ("Why would an aquarium buy oysters from a fish market? There's something awfully fishy about this!"), and look for the spell book in Dreyfus' office after he leaves, finding clues about oysters. Shaggy and Scooby drop the book on a rock in the middle of one of the fish tanks, where it is grabbed by a crab. They get scuba gear and jump in after it. They find the crab, who won't let go, and then all the crabs begin tossing oysters. They scoop them all up in a sack. Back above water, Fred and the girls arrive, thinking they're "playing around with crabs and oysters" (Shaggy: "I'll show you who's playing around; it just so happens, we've got the spell book right in...YOW!" [pinched by crab]) The book flies out, caught by Velma, who begins reading one of the "spells", which is for a spaghetti dish, and explains "gastronomy" means "good eating", and this is a cook book!
The demon shark arrives, and demands Shaggy and Scooby pick up the oysters. Scooby scoops them back up in the sack, and he takes them and runs off. When Shaggy tells them there are hundreds of oysters in the tank, Fred points out they've had a lot of clues, but weren't putting them together. Knowing the demon shark will return for more, they set up a trap. Without even a hint of fear or protest, Scooby lures the shark, however, running on his hind legs, is not able to clear an obstacle, and ends up in the trap himself. The shark ends up getting caught in it in a different way, with Scooby on top of him.
The oysters have not simply pearls, but rather pearl jewelry! ("I've heard of Oysters Rockefeller, but this is ridiculous!") The demon shark is Mr. Wells. In the presence of Beaker and an officer, they explain that the real shark is still frozen in the lab, but Wells had disguised as the demon shark. As part of a rather complex scheme involving the need to scare Dreyfus off as the shark demon, he had arranged the real shark and the pearls to be sent on the same flight, and used his cabinet making skills to build a compartment for himself in the base of the shark's cabinet, and then rob the pearls, storing them in the oysters from the fish market, and then putting them in the tank with the live oysters until he could pick them up.
Scooby now skis again, but his time not taking any chances; he dons a full suit of armor!
• Demon shark is nearly identical to the "shark god" of the Sonny and Cher episode
•Starts similarly to second season "Scooby's Night With A Frozen Fright" using a caveman, showing the ice-block encased creature being shipped to the US, and then apparently melted free
•The gastronomy "spell book" gag was an excellent red herring, for those who didn't know what gastronomy is.
•Scooby is unusually compliant in being the bait.
•The shark eating Scooby and Shaggy's skis is a prominent part of the Scooby Doo Show opening sequence
The gang is traveling aboard an industrial vessel with an oceanographer, Professor Poisson, for a science report for school. He's on a salvage mission, sent by the Maritime Museum, to recover ancient relics from the wreck of the Diablo D'Oro. The gang will assist him since they are all scuba divers. The ill fated ship had been skippered by a captain Pescado, and the one eyed first mate Mr. Carp warns them about the captain's ghost and "motley crew" of sea monsters. Poisson says it's old wives' tales.
Fred, Scooby and Shaggy soon see the ghost and two seamonsters in the ocean outside of their cabin portholes. They tell the girls. They're gone from the water, because they're now aboard. They tell Poisson. Carp enters and tells them also, and when Poisson refuses to abort the mission, Carp takes the launch with the other crew members.
The next morning, the ghosts' footprints lead to the professor's cabin, which has been ransacked, and the professor gone. They split up and the sea monsters lock both groups in their respective rooms. (Swiping the breakfast Shaggy, in the galley with Scooby, was cooking). Fred and the girls escape through the ventilator, and Velma checks the engine room and is locked in, but escapes up the stack pipe and sees that the launch is adrift and the monsters got the fleeing crew.
Shaggy, Scooby and Velma attempt to enter the radio room, but the kelp monster is inside. Velma uses a fishing rod to tap out a Morse Code message, but the octopus monster is now coming, and Shaggy and Scooby (whom Velma was standing on) run from him, and the kelp monster pursues Velma. Fred and Daphne see the ghost descend through the diving well, heading back to the wreck. They find and bring back the others, and Shaggy, Scooby and Velma go down in the diving bell ("Is this dip necessary?" Shaggy is worried about the hole in the bottom, not realizing how air pressure works), with Fred operating the controls.
At the wreck, the divers find air tanks ("Why would a ghost and sea monsters need air tanks?") and sacks of gold, and all three haunts appear and chase them away, and then head up after Fred and Daphne, who they trap in a small room. The others dive up and see the wet footprints and hear Fred's Morse code. The ghosts dive back into the hole, and Fred gets the ingenious idea to raise the bell to where it blocks the hole to keep the monsters out. They follow the footprints, which lead them to a room full of gold artifacts and the professor, bound and gagged. Upon freeing him, they see they've forgotten the boarding ladder was over the side, allowing the creeps to climb back aboard.
Fred hoists Shaggy and Scooby up with a net, as the monsters chase Poisson and the girls, and are then trapped (despite Shaggy and Scooby letting go with the wrong hands).
The Coast Guard arrives in time to arrest the trio of treasure pirates: 1st Mate Carp, and the other crew members, McFinn and McGill. (Whose initials had been written on a pad).
As the crooks are taken away, the gang is now the replacement crew to help him finish the mission. Scooby is wearing the jewels, like "the Six Millon Dollar Dog".
•All of the characters' names represent fish. "Poisson", and "Pescado", are French and Spanish, respectively, for "fish", and of course, "Carp", "Fin" and "Gill" are based on fish as well
THE GHOST THAT SACKED THE QUARTERBACK
At a football game the gang is enjoying, the Hawks narrowly win 7-0 with a touchdown. When the mechanical hawk mascot flies by and star player Flash Granger is carried on the shoulders of his team mates through the smoke of the fireworks, he is mysteriously gone when they come out of it, and a ghostly football player is standing on top of the scoreboard. (Scooby had earlier seen him, but the others were too into the game. "The double malt, four hot dogs and six pizzas are finally getting to him"). The ghost then vanishes.
They're driving away and decide to see the owner of the Hawks, Mr. Prentis, who explains to them the legend of the curse of the "Rambling Ghost", placed on the stadium in the 30's when a player called that name was booed off the field. He took Flash because without him playing, it will be impossible for the team to win the Wonder Bowl, whose ticket sales will probably be hurt by this.
At the practice session, they check the field for where Flash disappeared. Flash's replacement, Crunch Connor, warns the kids about the ghost, and then, running toward the tackling dummy, suddenly disappears in plain sight! The ghost is then standing next to the dummy. He chases Shaggy and Scooby, who get tangled in a link of hot dogs. Scooby then checks a series of lockers and finds the ghost, who is then gone. He comes out of another locker and activates a mechanical horse Shaggy was standing on to reach a clue. They try to lose him in the steam room, and come out tiny until they go through the showers. They land in a whirlpool bath which the ghost activates, propelling them to the roof where the others are. (In response to Fred's question "What are you, babies?" when they react to his description of the ghost, they disguise as babies in a carriage with pacifiers, "ga ga ga ga goo goo...", and Velma dumps them out of it, telling them "Grow up and get going"!)
Scooby's nose stretches into a room, and encounters a dazed man, Mr. Ellsworth the scoreboard operator, who had been grabbed by the ghost. Another player, Bulldog Kratowsky, enters (came in to make sure the scoreboard operator spelled his name right. [Hope I did!]) having seen the ghost as well.
Back on the field, they try to reenact the disappearance of Crunch. Scooby is chosen, to follow the path Crunch took. He trips on the tires, and rolls in them, but nevertheless disappears just like Crunch. But then reappears and disappears repeatedly. It's clear he's bouncing through a trap door in the field. This leads to a tunnel, which was apart of the old stadium (When Shaggy suggests "Can't we say we did [check it out], and don't?", this incredibly bossy Velma points the way and says "Anh anh! MOVE!")
They find two tunnels and split up. (Scooby suggests "ladies first" for Velma, and when she asks if he's a scaredy cat, he actually transforms into one!) They find a ladder leading to the old Greats of the Gridiron Hall of Fame (full of trophies and other memorabilia). The Rambling Ghost is at a desk writing on the same newspaper he had before. Shaggy and Scooby eye Velma as the bait for a change, but she demands "we'll do this fair and square" (such irony!) and play "odds and evens". Scooby loses, and has to sneak over (in plain sight) to get the newspaper. He uses his tail, but it gets caught by the ghost (as the paper flies over and is caught by Velma), and they run. He eventually activates a trap door dropping them into a room where both Flash and Crunch are trapped. (We get Shaggy's "I'm too young to be doomed" whine). Velma gets them out by inflating a canvas bag with Scooby in it, propelling him back through the trap door.
Back at Prentis' house, they show him the newspaper, which shows the old coaching staff. Shaggy and Scooby begin crawling away, "knowing what that means", when Fred starts devising a plan. They are to play on the team in place of Flash and Crunch, as a phony newspaper story of a publicity stunt is printed to lure the ghost out. (As the game begins, they try hiding in lockers). They are to use a trick football that will inflate.
On the field, they quickly bump into the phantom ("Foul! Interference!") and ride away on a lawn mower (which grinds benches to sawdust as the players duck off, and then grinds bleachers into theatre seats). They end up propelled into the air, and land outside in a shark float that the ghost is already inside. This is when they now use the trick football, but this causes the float to spit him back onto the field. They then chase him with the float, and corner him on a pole.
It's Mr. Ellsworth, but then a second mask is removed, and Prentis recognizes it as Buck Benders, one of the old coaches in the newspaper, who Prentis had fired years ago. (So this was revenge). They explain that the remote controlled hawk had grabbed Flash and taken him inside the scoreboard. Prentis gives the gang free tickets for the 50 yard line for the Wonder Bowl.
After the game is won (with a ten second play), the gang is thanked via their faces on the scoreboard, and Flash and Crunch decide to toss Scooby the game ball. It lands on his hot dog and he bites into it, which propels him into a tuba, and then onto their shoulders for a grand ovation.
•Shaggy and Scooby's cowardice is greatly verbalized and/or dramatized, yielding increasingly directive reactions from Velma.
To see the change in the character through the voice, compare Steven's "anh anh, move!" to Nicole Jaffe's similar, but not nearly as blunt (and still with a tinge of playfulness) "It's up to all of us, now march!" from "A Clue Fror Scooby Doo"
Here's a crazy idea fitting for Scooby. Basically, the "green ghosts" of the first season, but now recolored as ice cream flavors, haunting an ice cream factory!
Shaggy is driving the Mystery Machine for a change, and suddenly skids, swerving for a black cat, and crashing into a building, blowing all four tires. (The strawberry phantom watches from an upper window) They see a pile of 1000 "Gopsicles", and realize this was why they skidded. (Shaggy begins eating them, counting down, "999, 998...", etc.)
It's the Happy Humor Ice Cream Co. ("Leave it to Shaggy to crash right into an ice cream company!") They head inside to call a tow truck, and the radio announces a Blinks armored car with $2 million has vanished (10 million hamburgers with mustard and ice cream!)
Inside, they smell bacon and eggs. (Shaggy thinks it's "bacon and eggs ice cream", which he thinks sounds "super delicious". He sends "Sherlock Bones" to follow the scent). They find the hotplate where the food is being cooked, and flip the eggs, which land on a man's face, making him look like a monster. It's the [hard of hearing] guard Mr. Grisly, who tells them about the "technicolor phantoms", who've scared off all the workers. Shaggy and Scooby actually don't believe it, but all three phantoms soon enter. ("I think they're building a banana split, but I'm not waiting to find out!") Shaggy now thinks he sees a giant spider, but it's the shadow of the crutch-walking owner of the factory, Avery Queen. The phantoms had dumped the ice cream in the street, and it was the third truckload.
Scooby and Shaggy run into the ice cream storage room, but find the Gopcicles to be as hard as rocks. They are freezing, and to keep warm Scooby tries skating on Gopsicles, and then Shaggy builds a fire using ice cream wrappers, with the Gopsicles making the sparks. This only starts the sprinkler system, which then turns to snow, filling the room.
When the others' backs are turned, Mr. Queen gets up from his chair and walks away without his crutches. They enter the garage and see a crack in the ground coming from one of the ice cream trucks, which is strangely, locked.
Shaggy finds a "nice hooded coat" to keep himself warm, but doesn't realize it is a chocolate phantom costume. He scares Scooby, and also Fred and the girls, who were chased into the room by the strawberry phantom and join him hiding in the snow. In a repeat of "Haunted Candy Factory" (with Cass Elliot), Shaggy is mistaken as an accomplice by the other phantom, and is brought along with him. That is, until the real chocolate phantom shows up, and then he runs ("Phantoms and humans have one thing in common: three's a crowd"!) He defeats them using a forklift, and then finds the others in the room. The zipper is frozen, so he continues in the costume, only to be trapped by Fred in the ice cream vat (where he's paddled by the churning blade), when the others mistake him again. (This does get the zipper unstuck, however).
They go to look for Mr. Queen, only to find the chair and crutches, and then see him running. (Velma: "Walk my foot, he ran; and without his crutches!") The vanilla and strawberry phantoms are coming. Shaggy and Scooby crawl into a pipe, which leads them into the milk room, and they are locked in. They try to get milk from a tank, but two valves break, spilling the contents, and a third one just adds more milk, flooding the room. Fred and the girls find cans of wet paint, and the phantoms are painting a truck and run before they are seen. This is the same truck that has the crack under it, and it is also solid steel. The phantoms lock them in the garage and chase them. Shaggy and Scooby have to crawl out through a vent, with the milk almost at the ceiling, creating "the homogenized rapids", and land on the ghosts who had cornered the others.
The ghosts try to drive away in the truck, but are trapped inside by the gang. Money falls out of the back. Two of them are henchmen, and the vanilla phantom was Mr. Grisly, who is really Sammy the Shrimp (recognized by the officer who has arrived), "the cleverest hijacker in the country".
Mr. Queen (who Shaggy bet a steak dinner was one of the phantoms) enters with his crutches, which Shaggy snatches away from him to expose him, and Queen then breaks open his cast revealing money (Shaggy: "I told you he was guilty!") but it's his own money he was hiding from the phantoms. They then have to explain to him how the crooks hid a stolen armored car there and painted it to look like an ice cream truck. (The crooks will now "keep for a long time in the cooler!")
Shaggy and Scooby now enjoy Gopsicles.
•In the comic book version of the story (Scooby-Doo [Marvel Comics] #1, Oct. 1977), Mr. Queen says the steak dinner Shaggy still owed would be on him.
•Great "red herring" of Mr. Queen and his phony crutch act!
We celebrate the bicentennial, with the gang visiting Washington, DC, and the "Splitsonian Institute", and encountering three Revolutionary War ghosts: Benedict Arnold (the well known traitor), William Demont (another traitor who switched to the British) and Major Andre (a British Spy, and never American).
They arrive in a thunderstorm, and so choose an indoor museum. (Shaggy's idea, and for once it didn't have anything to do with food! Until he sees the castle-like museum, and then would rather spend the day in a "nice warm hamburger joint"). One of the ghosts watches as they enter. The place is also empty, and the guard tells the gang of the ghosts. Now all three ghosts are watching them, as they do at every turn. Then, they see the wax dummies of the three traitors, which to Shaggy feels real, and Scooby, sniffing one of them, is kicked away by him. He ends up under a steam locomotive, a ghost starts it, and he falls through a trap door and gets tangled up in the attached cotton gin beltwork, with the sound drowning out his yelping, until they stop the machine. (That "rotton gin" gave him a "rotten time!")
The guards close the museum, figuring the kids found Scooby and left already. The gang sees dummies of the three figures in their underwear, and then the ghosts lock the trap door they used. Fred and the girls follow wet footprints (like the guard had made). Scooby chomps on a dinosaur bone and Shaggy tells him "there's a time and place for eating, which is all the time and any place, but not now, and not here!" The dinosaur collapses. Both groups are then chased by the ghosts and come back together. They find another guard who tells them they are locked in for the night (Shaggy counts the exact hours and minutes until opening). The noise of the train is irritating everyone, and they see a bear crawling toward them, and Shaggy hopes it's not suffering from a "severe case of indoggestion", but it's really Scooby under a bear skin. ("This is a museum, not a zoo!") He scares the engineer trying to fix the locomotive. (He sleeps there, since he has to keep fixing it). He has wet feet too. They notice the locomotive and cotton gin run and stop together. The gears at the top look brand new and the belts and footprints go through the wall. Scooby finds that the finger of a suit of armor at this spot is the switch for the rotating secret entrance. (Then he demonstrates, spinning them around wildly). It's an abandoned storm drain.
The belts run to a drill that has made a hole in the concrete wall, leading to a room full of brand new $100 bills and printing presses. They realize they have entered the US Mint, which was a few blocks away. The ghosts are carrying sacks of money, and then come after the gang ("The glow coats are coming!") Back in the museum, the chase continues on old vehicles, and Scooby lands in the Wright Brothers' plane, which traps the ghosts. ("Three cheers for Scooby, the Brown Baron!"; He was in "the Wright plane at the right time!")
The ghosts are one unnamed man, Mr. Willet the city engineer, and Mr Klein the other guard, but not "Grumper" (the first guard), as Shaggy expected. The government agent now there had been watching them all along, and they had ditched the real dummies in the basement and wore their clothes. They were then able to stay in all night, and work the drill day and night. It was connected to the cotton gin, and the locomotive sound was to cover up the noise. (Grumper's feet were wet from mopping up after the ghosts).
A $100 bill would buy 200 hamburgers, and Shaggy asks if he can keep the bill, but the agent says it's against the law, and the bills anyway were incomplete and worthless. Scooby eats the bill anyway, basically pretending it's 200 hamburgers.
1977 (Originally part of "Scooby's All Star Laffalympics". These episodes bear 1976 production numbers and were probably simply holdovers from that season. They all consisted of the full range of 1968-76 score; heavier on the older stock; making this season as a whole fit with the original show more. It has the least exposure on DVD. It seems these episodes except for Viking Lake, and Hang In There Scooby Doo and Ozark Witch Switch (and on the streaming service, those and Vampires, Bats and Scaredy Cats and Chiller Diller Movie Thriller) have had title screens added to them, which are identical to the ones introduced next season, including the animated (running) gang, and use an instrumental version of a clip of the "Scooby Doo Show" opening, where it says "Hey come on, get involved, till the mystery is solved" as its background music. It's claimed that these were added on some later network rebroadcast. They never appeared in the original debut broadcast, syndication, or cable, but does appear on the current Boomerang streaming service).
So far, we've seen relatives of Daphne, Shaggy and Scooby. We now for the first time get a relative of Velma, her Uncle John, who is writing in a diary by candlelight in a cabin on a lake, until he sees a ghost viking ship on the water, and a viking confronts him in the cabin saying he has violated the sacred burial grounds and will now pay the price.
The gang is driving in the area, having been invited by Uncle John to go fishing. (It's so cold, Shaggy's hot chocolate in his thermos bottle is frozen into a "hot chococicle". Scooby uses his tail as the stick to take it and eat). They arrive at the cabin to find him gone. Velma reads the log book, where he describes the viking ship and solving the mystery of Viking Lake. The writing runs off the page in the middle of a sentence. On the next page is drawings of Viking runes. Scooby then sees the Viking in the window (and scared speechless, holds up a sign reading "BARK!! BARK!!!")
Outside, they find footprints without heel or sole and Fred and the girls follow them into the forest, and send Shaggy and Scooby to check around the lake ("Where the ghosts are?") They hear the horn of the ghost ship, and then see it out on the water. They climb a tree, but a butterfly causes it to bend, throwing them onto a log in the lake. They collide with the viking ship. He grabs them aboard and chases them around the ship, until they jump overboard.
They swim and find Fred and the girls. They go to tell Sherriff Swenson, who shows them a newspaper story of two young geologists disappearing. They then go to the closed Viking Museum in hopes the curator Mr. Hanson will open for them and can read the runes. He says it's an ancient Viking curse on those who disturb the Viking burial ground.
They now head for the Viking burial ground. They split up, and Daphne quickly finds Uncle John's fishing hat, and tracks of someone being dragged, leading to a hidden cave. Inside, they find a painting of a Viking, which is the marking for the burial ground, and then the Viking blocks the exit and chases them deeper into the cave, and Fred bars a door shut. Inside is the idol of the Norse god Odin, and in the steam frequenting the area, a Viking appears, praying to him against the intruders, and then another blast of steam causes Fred and the girls to suddenly vanish.
Shaggy and Scooby steam hot dogs, and then look for Fred and the girls, and find the cave knowing they have to look inside. A Viking walks up behind them, and Scooby uses a Viking's helmet to open the door, and they hide behind the idol. A blast of steam propels Scooby to the idol's head, which opens the secret entrance freeing the others.
They quickly "split" up again (instead of "split[ting] outta here"). Shaggy and Scooby are chased by a Viking again, and disguise as masseuses. He slips out of the room on the oil they apply to him.
Fred and the girls are in a dead end tunnel and find Uncle John's glasses. Daphne is scared by a mouse and jumps, pulling on a Viking spear that opens the secret lift in the floor. Shaggy and Scooby arrive just in time to join them. It leads down to an underground cavern, where they see the ghost ship having cargo unloaded. They yet again split up, even with Shaggy's plea to stay together ("How scared can you be?") They see two vikings riding a mine car toward Fred and the girls, and then pursue in another one. They now voluntarily get the vikings to chase them. (Upon getting their attention and them reversing the mine car: "Hey, we did it! Now they'll catch us! Oh, boy, what am I saying?") Scooby constructs the "Scooby Dooby Bike-A-Copter" allowing them to fly to safety.
The others find steam turbines to make power, and then Uncle John suspended in a cage. Shaggy and Scooby fly in right on time to free him. Shaggy flies him down and returns for Scooby, waiting on the cage, but a Viking is now sawing the rope, leading Scooby to jump on the copter, causing them to crash ("A perfect no point landing!") Three vikings now chase them, and John is sent to go for help. The gang collides into each other, and Velma carries them off. They run into a big pipe, which Fred pushes, dumping them into the deep.
It's the curator and two geologists. The geologists discovered a rich vein of uranium on the lake shore, and used the Viking legend to scare everyone away while they stole the ore, and used the natural steam to run their machinery.
They now get on with the fishing the gang came up for, on John's boat. Shaggy and Scooby both get a bite, but it's really their lines tied together, and Shaggy ends up pulling Scooby over the side, and reels him in. "What do you know; I caught me a dog fish!"
•We really begin to see here the increasing rift between the gang, with Shaggy and Scooby always being sent out alone, and remaining that way in the bulk of the story. Even as they come back together, they are quickly sent right back out. Yet when trapped and realizing Shaggy and Scooby are their only hope, the others feel "doomed" (yet Shaggy and Scooby do come through and rescue them after all). We'll see this even more the next season. The group dynamic was changing, and the entire format would naturally follow another season and beyond after that.
•The first time a relative of Velma is seen. Fred and Velma, the most serious members, are the last to have family members shown. Freddy won't have any for over a full decade from now, in "A Pup Named Scooby Doo", which is more of a parody show, where Fred is a kid and no longer serious!
•The Scooby Dooby Bike-A-Copter is a truly funny gag, being a regular bicycle with a propellor. This also further shows the move to a more comedic role for Shaggy and Scooby
VAMPIRES, BATS AND SCAREDY CATS
The gang, with Scooby Dum, are riding a boat to Daphne's friend Lisa's 18th birthday party. She will inherit the hotel she's allowing them to stay in for free. It is on Great Skull island, whose mountain peak looks like a skull, and is said to have vampires.
On the island, the captain of the ferry asks them to take a huge package to a hotel guest, Mr. Drackul. Fred and Shaggy drop it, and it's a coffin! (Shaggy claims to be allergic to coffins; Velma: "Yeah, he breaks out in yellow streaks!"). The dogs try to load it into the Mystery Machine, and Dum is truly "dumb" in this one, trying to load it in width-wise, then to make it fit, attempting to saw it in half, or turn the Mystery Machine instead of the coffin). It opens up, and a bat flies out. Someone gets it in, and they drive off, but a vampire is watching them from behind.
Inside, the place is deserted ("Maybe the coffin is for the desk clerk"), but the clerk does answer the bell. The equally creepy Drackul also enters, accepting his coffin ("They make a great pair!") Shaggy has to help him carry it into the next room, and the dogs follow. The room is dark, and Drackul leaves, and the light turned on reveals "This room's a dirt free cemetery filled with coffins!" (They grab Dum and flee).
Lisa introduces the others to her uncle Leon, who manages the hotel and raised her, who is like a daughter to him, but tomorrow will become his boss. Shaggy and Scooby run in, and the others explain from Lisa, that the caskets were for a undertaker's convention.
The boys and girls turn into their rooms, but Lisa decides to switch her own room with Velma and Daphne who need more space. Velma tries to calm Daphne's fears, but a wind-blown shutter nevertheless scares both of them into bed. When they are asleep, the vampire has entered the room, and now lunges at Daphne. Velma wakes her up, and the boys and dogs come running. ("You're watching the Late Show, I hope!") The vampire is gone, but a bat chases Shaggy and Scooby ("Stay away! I gave at the blood bank!") Scooby Dum, scared by a bug he magnified as a "clue", bumps into the wall, knocking off a ventilator grate. This might be how the vampire got in and out, and so Shaggy and the dogs are sent to crawl through it. (Scooby inflates himself to be too fat, but Velma shoots him into it, for "two points").
Fred and the girls talk to Lisa, and Daphne answers the phone, and ringing is heard, and the vampire shown to be on the other end of the line. Shaggy and the dogs enter a dark, dusty room. Dum uses his flashlight, which exposes the vampire. Scooby jumps in Shaggy's arm, as usual, and Dum likewise jumps into the vampire's arms! He throws him down and goes after Shaggy and Scooby, and is then seen by the others, but is gone. He's dropped a whistle that only the dogs can hear.
Leon enters and explains the family's secret, of her grandfather being a vampire. ("Gramp was a vamp?") They had tried to escape the curse, but now he has found them, and is here to turn Lisa into a vampire. (This explains why he went after Daphne, who had switched places with Lisa).
Fred and the girls go to check out the coffins, and Shaggy and the "Scooby brothers" are to stay and guard Lisa. They "vampire-proof" the room by heavily barricading the doors, but Lisa answers the phone, and then turns around as a vampire! The barely aware Dum hands her a paper containing "beauty hints" (this scene was cut on the syndicated copies). The others finally see her and dig through the barricades ("On the double' we're in trouble!") and take off ensconced in a bed (and once again have to grab a listless Dum). They duck into a closet, but "Gramp the vamp" is in there with them. They run out onto golf carts, and Shaggy at one point lands with the vampire, who demands blood. ("You wouldn't want mine, it's yellow!")
They reach the coffin room with the others, and tell them what happened. Detective Dum knocks on a coffin, and the knock is returned, and a bat flies out. Inside is a torn paper reading "Exo 6 Desmo". Fred and the girls leave to look for Lisa and tell Shaggy and the dogs to stay. As soon as they are gone, the senior vampire leads Lisa into the room. Shaggy and Scooby hide in a coffin to watch (and have to pull Dum in with them). He has her rest in a coffin. Dum leans over causing the coffin they're in to fall, and they run and play the shell game in three coffins. We soon see they are doing this by crawling under the rugs, and then escape the room and find the others.
Back in "coffin corner", they open the one Lisa is asleep in, and wake her. The last thing she remembers was a bell, just like when Daphne answered the phone.
They now devise a trap, to have the vampire fall into a coffin when he climbs out of the ventilator looking for Lisa, whom Shaggy has to pose as, as the bait (via a wig). They hear him in the vent, and Dum doesn't know what to do, and jumps into the coffin, which Scooby now closes, as he was supposed to for the vampire. The trap now "sprung", the vampire chases Shaggy out to the pool, and the dogs bring the coffin, and bouncing on the diving board, the vampire is trapped in the coffin, which sinks.
In police custody, the vampire is Uncle Leon! He did not want to give up the hotel he's run for 18 years, to Lisa. He planned to make her think she was a vampire, so she'd let him put her away for her own protection and sign away the hotel to him. "Exo" was supposed to be "exotic pet store", and "desmo" was short for "desmodontidae", the Latin name for vampire bats. (We finally get to hear a big word from this incarnation of Velma, but she had to consult the dictionary, where the old Velma always already knew stuff like this!) The whistle was for the bats, and the bell, from his wristwatch alarm, (which was actually shown toward the beginning) was to hypnotize her into being a vampire (including wearing the false fangs located inside a drawer). The story about her grandfather was phony.
Lisa serves Shaggy and the dogs a huge stack of hamburgers. Shaggy decides to test the wrist watch to see if it really hypnotizes. Scooby walks in a trance, and gulps the rest of the burgers. Shaggy then realizes he's only spoofing.
•Another episode that's just about as good as earlier seasons!
•Scooby Dum's voice has changed, as it has in the concurrent Laffalympics this season. He's once again identified as "brother" to Scooby, and this is not contradicted later on, as it was in the Headless Horseman episode. And he is truly "Dum[b]" in this one.
•Believe it or not, this is actually the first time a vampire was the main haunt. The only vampire ever seen before this was in first season "Gaggle of Galloping Ghosts", where it was part of a trio along with Frankenstein and the werewolf.
•Great scare affect when Lisa turns around and is a vampire (can give you goosebumps if you're not expecting it!)
The gang is driving to the hang gliding tournament on Big Canyon. It seems to be the last place in the world something weird would happen, but a live pterodactyl is shown at the top of a mountain. They arrive at Big Canyon Dude Ranch, and in the quiet, they hear crickets, an owl, and the pterodactyl, who's swooping in on them. They take cover, and it flies away.
They tell the manager, Mr. Bohannon (Scooby does a ridiculous looking imitation, resembling and sounding like a horse more than anything else). He tells them the pterodactyls that inhabited the canyon millions of years ago evolved into manlike creatures. He takes them toward their rooms, and they see the hulking character of his handyman, Mr. Mordley, who aggressively takes their luggage. Bohannon "hopes" to see them in the morning, and the pterodactyl appears in a window.
At the tournament, Scooby's food gets tossed from the hood of a car and he follows it, and ends up sailing out on a hang glider! He passes the landing area, and sails to the cliffs where the pterdodactyl is, and into the cave. The others arrive, and see cave carvings showing the pterodactyls and Scooby, placed behind a square section of wall. They quickly find him, (scared stiff).
They've walked a long time, in the cave, and find bird-like tracks, which Fred hopes "if we're real lucky" will lead to "old fright face" (Shaggy: "I just know it will be my bad luck to have this, your 'lucky day'!") They find a "stone age living room" (Scooby finds a live lizard skeleton that snaps at him), and the tracks then split up. Shaggy and Scooby encounter the pterodactyl, and they disguise as cavemen and serve him dinosaur eggs, and run. The others hear weird music and find a tape cassette, and see Shaggy and Scooby chased by the pterodactyl. They find a man, who is really a skeleton in a hat and trench coat who runs when Shaggy mentions the word "haunted". ("I never saw a skeleton run so fast", and then it suddenly dawns on him and Scooby, and they run, only to encounter the pterodactyl again). The others grab them into a side cavern, and they leave and drive away from the cave. They play the unmarked cassette, and it's "Elvis John"s latest single.
(We now reach a historic moment in the entire series, as Shaggy says "Those stone agers like rock music!", Scooby laughs, but then confesses "I don't get it!". This will be used again a few times in upcoming seasons, and then be a frequently repeated gag 11 years later in the parody show "A Pup Named Scooby Doo").
They tell Bohannon, and then hear the creepy music from the cave again (not recognizing it as the same tune they played from the cassette, but with reverberation added). It's coming from the basement (the pterodactyl is there), and they see Mordley go out to burn papers. Shaggy utters "When I see that glow, it makes me want to go!" and he and Scooby run off, but again run into the pterodactyl, and run backwards outside past the others, pointing to him, but he's not following them.
They all now ride burros up to the cave, and the pterodactyl, who was outside, follows them inside. They ride back down as fast as the burros can take them (Shaggy and Scooby end up carrying their burros down instead), and duck into another cave. Shaggy and Scooby are trapped behind a false rock wall, which hides a room full of recording equipment ("It looks like our prehistoric pterodactyl monster is becoming less primitive all the time!")
They go back to the other cave and see tire tracks. Shaggy and Scooby start to dig places to hide, which becomes the idea for everyone else to dig road blocks to trap the pterodactyl. ("I don't dig all this digging!") "Monster eyes" are actually the headlights of a sandwich truck that the pterodactyl drives, hitting the roadblock, and spilling out hundreds of records and tapes, and is able to keep going. Outside, he's now escaping on a river raft. Fred, Shaggy (who was terrified of hang gliding) and Scooby now hang glide after him. Shaggy and Scooby grab on to the pterodactyl and land on the raft with him, as they go through the rapids. Scooby's claws pop the raft, which then goes flying, narrowly missing Fred, still on the glider.
They and Fred all land on the wharf with the girls and the sheriff, and the pterodactyl tied up in the deflated raft. "The kooky bird man" is Johnny, owner of the catering truck, and his real operation was a music pirating ring, copying hit tunes off of the air, and making a fortune with the bootleg records and tapes. Bohannon arrives, just in time to be implicated as part of the crime ("You have no evidence to tie me in with this!") The recordings, made in the cave, were flown down by hang glider, but when people became suspicious of the flights, Bohannon dreamed up the pterodactyl legend to scare everyone away; his involvement shown by the remains of the piece of paper Mordley was burning, which was a shipment order made out to him for 3000 albums and cassettes, with a check enclosed for $12,000! He tries to run ("Meddling kids! You ruined a perfect million dollar operation!"), but Shaggy and Scooby trap him with the raft. "Pretty snappy trappy, huh, Scoob?"
•Scooby's much later "I don't get it" gag has its origin here.
In a cove, a one-eyed sea monster rises from the ocean, and the gang is on a nearby beach, and Shaggy, on a raft, tussles with a huge fish he caught, which "wins" and then gets away. Scooby gets a big bite, but it's the creature. Its claw punctures the raft, sending them flying back to the beach. The others see the monster, and Shaggy and Scooby instantly construct a sand castle to hide in. They run for an old house on the cliff. Its owner, Captain Clemons lets them use the phone, but it's dead. He tells them the legend of an evil sailor cursed and thrown overboard by his shipmates, and now changed into this awful, supernatural creature, that has come up for "victims", to steal their spirits (Shaggy: "Well, my spirit, is unwilling!") As they leave, the man is being confronted by the creature (off screen)
The gang finds that the creature has tried to destroy the Mystery Machine. Scooby tries to erase his footprints ("Nice try, Scoob!") and they lead back to the captain's house, only for them to find the creature has stolen his spirit! Scooby and Shaggy are actually relieved to be able to stay there with him, as the others track down the monster ("At least he ain't gonna give us any trouble!") Yet, after awhile, he has gotten up out of his chair, placing his hands on Shaggy and Scooby's shoulder, and being commanded by the creature owning his spirit to bring more victims. He chases them, and they disguise as beauticians and mess him up with makeup, and find themselves in an elevator dropping fast.
They're back on the beach, but the "creepy heap" is now coming for them. They dig in the sand under something, and the others arrive and he suddenly heads out to a beacon of light out at sea, which is being responded to by the captain's light in his window. Shaggy and Scooby then surface, and the gang on two separate rafts follow after the monster. They get separated in the fog. Shaggy and Scooby drop a heavy anchor that pulls the whole raft to the bottom; a school of fish swim through Scooby's head, and the monster confronts them. The others see the chase, and jump in as well. They all enter a submarine, and Shaggy and Scooby are hiding in a medicine cabinet. They split up, and Shaggy and Scooby try to escape by opening doors, the second one allowing the ocean to pour in. The others are hit too, and they escape through the air lock.
They now check the beach, and Shaggy, Scooby and Velma find an old shack (at the disintegrating door: "Anybody home?" "Like besides termites?"), and monstrous gargling they hear is a beach hermit, who then feeds Walter, his "little fishy", which is a shark; but throws in Scooby (who was sniffing the steak that the man was reaching for), who quickly jumps out, and they all flee, while the fish is revealed to be a harmless sand shark.
Fred and Daphne find more tracks and a flimsy key. They encounter the monster and run, and now the gang is back together on the beach, and adds up their clues. Scooby counts "five" (monster, sub, captain, light, key), but it really adds up to "zero". They now head out to see what the light out at sea is, and it's on a ship. Looking from over the side, they see the sea monster being hoisted aboard. They go to the chart room, and see that the submarine is directly under the ship. They now have to go back down to the sub. (Daphne tosses out a whole box of Scooby Snacks to get Shaggy and Scooby to go).
They reenter the hatch, and find a room full of hair dyes ("an underwater beauty parlor"), and a wanted photo of a criminal ("Their customers sure need one") and also a picture of him made up to be handsome and blonde. They are confronted by both the captain and the creature and run (Shaggy and Scooby stopping by a counter of food to whip up huge sandwiches), and end up in the torpedo room. Scooby sits on a remote control dummy torpedo, which then chases them and is lured like a bull in a bullfight by Shaggy, to the launch tube, giving Fred the idea for the trap.
The monster is to chase Shaggy, Scooby and Velma back into the room, where they will be rescued by a net, and the monster and captain bounced by several objects to the launch tube, which will send them to the beach. It works as planned, and they count "Fire One!", "Fire Two!", and then, an unexpected "Fire Three!" as the laughing Scooby has fallen out of the net and into the trap as well. All three are launched for a sandy landing, with Scooby on top.
The sheriff has rounded all the criminals up, and Captain Clemons was the mastermind, having found the wrecked sub and realized it could be used as a secret lab to help criminals escape from the country. They disguise as the monster to scare off any onlookers on the beach, signal the ship with the light, and then swim out to the sub, where Clemons changes their appearance and then hoists them aboard the ship, to take them safely out of the country. This latest monster is a notorious bank robber who broke out of jail, explaining the homemade cellblock key.
Shaggy and Scooby brag that it takes a lot more than a big monster to scare them. But a "little monster", like a crab, sends them running down the beach.
•This episode is particularly sped up, making Pat Stevens at time sound almost like Nicole Jaffe; particularly when Velma is being the bait, and says "Nyah, nyah, nyah, betcha can't catch me!"
THE CHILLER DILLER MOVIE THRILLER
An adventure on a cross country train trip, with a stop in a town's cemetery.
Movie star Scooby Dee is filming her latest scene, of the Phantom of Dixie attacking her "Jane" character by the fireplace. As the gang watches, Scooby Dum runs to try to "save" her, and Scooby Doo tries to stop him. The scene is ruined as the dogs and the human actor land in the fountain ("Duh... you're no phantom!") She kisses him for for attempting to save her, and then Scooby says he "would have saved her" too, to get a kiss. Both are in a daze of hearts.
It's a remake of the original silent film "Phantom of Dixie", whose star was Milo Booth, as the phantom. She goes to take her makeup off, and a real phantom enters her dressing room ahead of her, leaving a note telling her to quit the film or it will be her last, signed by Milo Booth, who's been dead for 20 years. (Shaggy figures out this means he's a ghost).
Scooby Dee is placed under 24 hour guard (Doo and Dum volunteer, and trying to kiss her, she ducks, and they kiss each other, not even realizing), including on the train trip back to the west coast that night, where she has her own private car. The gang goes along, as well as dog trainer/dramatic coach Rod Kennedy and studio chief, Jim Moss. A coffin is being loaded aboard the baggage car. (Fred believes it's a prop for the picture, but once the train is enroute, the phantom is shown rising out of it). Shaggy and the male "Scooby cousins" are in the kitchen fixing themselves sandwiches (Shaggy keeps Dum from getting it, only to have Doo grab it. "Oh boy, that's what I get for watching the wrong Scooby!") The phantom is in the window, and they run and tell the others; Scooby grabbing a man's hat and coat to imitate him.
Moss orders Dee back to her car, and directs the gang to split up. Shaggy and Scooby are terrified of being sent to the baggage car where the coffins are, but Velma points out "People don't get out of a coffin — very often!" Inside the coffin is the conductor who was attacked by the phantom. (Dum's "clue" is a carrier containing a cat, who hisses and scares him and Scooby to the ceiling).
The phantom enters Dee's car, where she is being guarded by Fred and Daphne. Shaggy and the others enter, and the phantom turns the light off, leading to total confusion, and the phantom is gone. The gang devises a plan to have Scooby Doo dress as Scooby Dee ("You'll do it for Scooby Dee, won't you?" and her saying all sweetly, "My Hero!") She's moved to another car with Shaggy guarding. He falls asleep, and she goes to get a drink. Fred and the Scoobies return and they find her gone, and the male cousins look into all the sleeping compartments, until the whole sleeper car yells "QUIET!". Meanwhile, Dee is getting captured by the phantom, and replaced by a lookalike, who now fools the others.
The phantom then uncouples the car as it passes through the town of Boothville, named for the actor, and the gang notices it slowing down even though they were not supposed to make a stop there, and the phantom is in the window. They know he's heading back to his grave. So now they have to check out Boothville, starting with the graveyard.
They split up to look for the Booth mausoleum. (Dum, with his magnifying glass, thinks "the phantom is a bug"). Fred and the girls find it, and it is empty. Shaggy and the dogs hear something (the phantom) in the bush, and Shaggy sends Scooby to check it out, but being out of Scooby Snacks, promises a Scooby Dee kiss instead. The phony Dee, disgusted by the idea, does a poor imitation of a kiss with fountain water and stretching his lips out, which he doesn't buy, and neither does Dum who tries it out as well. Shaggy realizes she's phony (and then she pulls his lips the same, and then joins the phantom), and the real Dee has been dognapped, which they then go and tell the others.
The phantom slams the mausoleum door shut, trapping the gang. They form a human chain to reach a loose stone on the roof, and needing one more person; Dum, on the bottom, climbs to the top, causing everyone to fall, and himself to be catapulted from the lid of the tomb, to slam into the door hard enough to open it.
They head for town, and see the billboard for the Milo Booth Film Festival. So they go to the Booth Film Museum, and watch an old newsreel of him, noticing the original had glasses, unlike the current phantom, and also see the footprints of the phantom and phony Dee, who had been there looking for the film. Outside, they see the fake Scooby Dee and give chase, soon finding the phantom, with the real Scooby Dee in a sack. He tumbles the pursuers in an amusement park spinning tunnel and then takes the Dee's on the carousel. Shaggy tries to lasso him, but lassoes a pole instead. They next go on the log ride, and Shaggy, Doo and Dum hang from the top of the tunnel entrance and rescue Dee, (but then fall into the water).
Shaggy and the dogs then lure him and the fake Dee ("Nyah, nyah, nyah, we got Scooby Dee!") into the ferris wheel, where they trap them in one of the cars. The phantom is Jim Moss (called "the detective" now), and even the phony Dee is unmasked, revealing an ugly mongrel.
Moss planned to get rich making movies with the fake Scooby Dee who would only obey him. The phantom legend would explain why the supposedly frightened Dee stopped obeying her dramatic coach. He stopped them in Boothville to make them think Milo had risen from the grave, and switched the name plate of Milo Booth to an empty coffin. (Doo demonstrates this for Dum by moving Dum's hat to his own head).
In Hollywood, they all attend the movie awards and watch Scooby Dee win the Golden Rover award for "Outstanding Actress in a Canine Role". She thanks her "hero cousins", Scooby Doo and Dum, who join her on stage, and receive kisses, putting them in dazes as before.
•Scooby Doo and Dum are "cousins" again, after being called "brothers" in Dum's last appearance, and one of the previous season's appearances. Of course, making everything stranger, is that Dee is also a cousin, and yet a female love interest the male cousins compete for. (Perhaps you can explain it as them being dogs, and not having the same concept of "incest" as humans?) At one point, there was a rumor floating that after "The 13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo", Scooby Dee would return as his "girlfriend", but that of course never materialized
•This is the last appearance of Scooby Dee and Dum in Scooby episodes, though Dum will continue for one more season on the Laffalympics. Scooby's relatives will switch from "Scooby", to "Doo" as the family name, starting with the infamous addition to come in two seasons. Only two more "Scoobies" will appear after that; Grandpa and Great Grandpa, but the rest of the family will be "Doos".
•Jim Moss was introduced as "studio chief", but in the end is identified as "detective".
•Episode retains the "stuffy" sound that most of the Scooby Doo Show had in its syndicated run. Otherwise, is another one of the best of this era.
SPOOKY CASE OF THE GRAND PRIX RACE
During The Grand Prix Time Trials, Carl Conover in car 49 is overtaken by The Phantom Racer from out of the fog, and disappears! The gang, at an ice cream parlor, reads the story. Fred decides to go to the race track to find out more about it. In the pit area, they talk to Mr. Osbourne, who tells of the legend of a racer who went of a cliff in the fog years ago, and his ghost seeks vengeance on all race drivers. One driver quits, but the others stay. Conover enters, looking like a phantom, and couldn't remember anything.
The gang drives away into the fog and find race car tire tracks, with a second set disappearing, and figure they were the phantom racecar and his victim. They leave the road, and Scooby tries taking off his nose to avoid sniffing him out. (Fred: "GET - GOING!") They find an auto junkyard (an old car looks like a monster and both Shaggy and Scooby jump into Velma's arms, and she throws them down). Those tracks disappear as well, near a jet plane with the engine missing. A strange flickering light is coming from a house. They enter and the watchman says the phantom (whom Scooby demonstrates by "driving" a pail) has been haunting the Antique Car Museum. There, the phantom is inside watching them. Shaggy and Scooby are sent across a tree branch, which bends, slinging Scooby inside, to open for the others. They split up, and Shaggy and Scooby quickly encounter the phantom who chases and catches them, placing them in a car he pushes down a hill. It falls apart, and they land on a tree branch (still alive, but a pair of vultures "don't believe it"). They run crashing into the others, and the phantom gives a warning that no one who races will escape his vengeance.
They go back to the time trials to try to stop the next racer from racing. It's too late, as Ken Rogers is trying to qualify right now. The phantom is now after him, and makes him disappear in a bank of fog as well. They see the tracks again, but this time the phantom's car didn't leave any. Fred realizes the only thing they can do is get the phantom to chase them.
They borrow car #13, and Shaggy and Scooby are to have the phantom chase them into the Valley of No Return ("UNH-UH, UNH-UH and UNH--UH!"), with the gang following, and a parachute is in the car if he catches them. As soon as they are driving the car, the phantom is on their tail. (Scooby tries using foot power, but he's still gaining on them). They eject, but then land in the phantom's car! Scooby falls out; and covered by the parachute, looks like a ghost, and is pounced by Fred and the girls.
The phantom goes to the junkyard, and receives a signal from the watchman's house. The tracks end there like the others. Scooby pulls himself through the exhaust of a car, thinking the phantom has him. Inside the house, Daphne falls down a trap door into a cavern. The others join and split up. Fred and Daphne find all three cars that disappeared, which someone started to repaint. Fred finds books on how to hypnotize, and magic tricks. Velma and Scooby find the phantom race car, and the phantom bricking Shaggy into a small cavern. They use soap powder and water to make the bricks slippery. (A brick in a bubble pops, landing on Scooby's foot; he yells into a bottle, but the yell pops the cork, alerting Shaggy and the phantom). They lure him away and trip him up with his wheel barrow of bricks, which he rides into the wall he built, freeing Shaggy. They run and join the others.
The phantom is coming, and they drive off in two different cars with him in pursuit. A boulder enters the chase, and ends up catapulting the phantom's car atop a tree.
It's Ken Rogers, who faked his own disappearance in order to steal all the race cars and sell them overseas. The airplane jet was what made the car so fast, and the car was rigged so that it could pick up other cars (from above, encasing them, basically) with magnets, and drove to the cavern, to repaint them. He hypnotized the drivers so that they wouldn't remember what happened. He had projected the image of the phantom that took his own car. The old watchman was Rogers in disguise.
At the Grand Prix, a "phantom bone" floats by. Scooby drives an imaginary car to grab it, and continues floating down the track with it.
•While sports have been done before, a racing scene is new ground for Scooby
•The Phantom Racer (including his watchman guise) is Vic Perrin, who also did the Puppetmaster of first season "The Backstage Rage", and the laugh is very similar (think "YOU HAVE LEARNED MY SECRET!". Perrin would also voice Sinestro on the Superfriends in the following season after this
We now visit the story of the Hatfields and the McCoys, with a witch as the proverbial "last McCoy" who seeks to settle the score with the Hatfields. We open in a lightning storm with her atop a mountain, where at a bolt of lightning, she turns into a black cat.
The gang is driving a shortcut to the Ozark River for river rafting (Shaggy: "This looks more like the back road to Dracula's pad"!) They hear shooting, but it's really all four tires blowing out. (Scooby tries to inflate one with his mouth, but the air all ends up in his head, and he looks like an old bassett hound for a moment. "You got a steel belted radial head!") Needing a place to spend the night, they are by the old McCoy cabin, now inhabited by the Hatfields. At first, the door is slammed on them, but Fred insists, and they can stay "at their own risk". (Their dog, who takes a liking to Scooby scratches out her swarm of fleas, which bounces off a wall and returns to her, narrowly missing Scooby). They tell them about Witch McCoy, who was hung for witchcraft 100 years ago and seeks to turn them into frogs and lizards, due to the old feud.
As everyone sleeps, the black cat arrives, and changes into the witch. Scooby unwittingly pulls her into the bed, and then everyone wakes up, and she tells everyone to leave. In the other room, Pa has been turned into a frog. The gang splits up, and Shaggy and Scooby (carrying the amphibious Pa) are sent into town (named "Spooky Hollow"). Scooby sees a phone in a store, and gets in via a panel in the window frame. Someone is entering, and it is the owner, Aggie Wilkins. They tell her about the witch, and she lets them call, but the phone is dead (seeing the snapped wire, "somebody killed it!") She tells them to have nothing to do with the witch or her cave on Spider Mountain, where people who have gone there are never seen alive again. The cat is there, and Shaggy and Scooby leave. Fred and the girls search the woods, and see a zombie digging. Daphne slips and falls near him, and he runs, and is gone.
Back at the cabin, Shaggy tells them about Spider Mountain, which is "a fur piece back in the woods. We'uns don't go near there 'cause it's so spooky". The gang of course goes, and find strange looking marks gouged in the trail. They pass the sawmill, and find a fork in the road. Shaggy, Scooby and Velma see the cave, which is across a gorge. They have to cross a log. The zombie comes from behind and pushes the end and they fall, grabbing onto a branch, that slings them to the other side. (Sneaking up to the cave, Shaggy and Scooby take the shape of several objects they duck behind, including Velma!) They enter and find two spell books. Shaggy reads one, about nails and boards, which Velma realizes is a clue. The cat enters, and turns back into the witch, who realizes intruders are in the cave.
Velma has Scooby dress up as a witch while she throws her voice ("Who did you expect? A Ghost from the coast? A spirit from Spokane? A zombie from Bombay?") Shaggy paints a frog hand-puppet, and uses the smoke trick to "magically" produce it, which fools the witch, until she takes it, exposing his hand. They run and are netted. She now has them in her kettle, aiming to make lizard and frog stew, with them as the frogs. (We get a hilarious scene of Shaggy and Scooby whimpering, "Oh no; hohohohoh no!" while Velma sits next to them totally emotionless). She goes to get the lizards, and Velma has them hop away in the kettle. They escape and hop across the gorge, but begin rolling down the hill into a lake. Scooby finds two frogs, thinking the witch changed Shaggy and Velma, but they are standing a few feet away. Happy, he kisses the frogs, and they wipe the kisses off saying "yyecch!"
The gang is now back together, and returns to the cabin to hear the witch, and then find all the Hatfields turned to frogs (including the dog, who still scratches fleas!) They also find a mound of sawdust, and realize the dots were Morse Code for “S M”. They follow the spell (finding the nails in the floor), which opens a secret panel in the floor, with a message they don't reveal, but instead change, to fool the witch and zombie.
They hide outside the cabin and watch both the witch and then the zombie enter and leave it. They then go seeking to dig in the same spot, and begin arguing with each other (the witch not expecting the zombie to be there). The gang now appears, disguised as the ghosts of the Hatfields and read a spell to turn Witch McCoy into a frog. She backs up, into a trip cord that drops a frog suit onto her, and they show her a mirror. (Again, she actually falls for it: “They did it! I'm a frog!”) The zombie is watching and runs. Scooby pursues, and both are slung back by a tree branch, and Scooby holds him.
The zombie is Zeke Harkins, a bank robber who broke out of prison, and the witch is Aggie Wilkins, Zeke's old girlfriend. He had buried half a $million from a bank job, and learned Aggie found the directions to it (under the floor), and they were both trying to get to it first. The Hatfields had since moved in, and she had to scare them away with the witch legend, and locked them up in the saw mill (indicated by the sawdust and Morse code) while replacing them with the frogs in the cabin. She used her pet cat to make it look like she was turning into a witch.
The Hatfields serve a whole table of food, and Shaggy and Scooby dig in, but all the farm animals come in and eat it right out of their hands/utensils! All that's left is a turkey skeleton, which jumps up and runs when Shaggy says the word “skeleton”.
•Zeke is never unmasked, and the zombie look is apparently his real appearance, and the gang simply assumed he was a zombie. This was a great plot idea.
•Aggie managed to find a frog who would emulate the dog's scratching
•Witch and zombie seem like a knockoff of “Which Witch is Which”, but it was a nice spin on it, and the way they captured the witch was unique. This is one of the better episodes of the Scooby Doo Show, in terms of having the feel of the classic series.
Professor Von Clem is having a hard time gettng the press to take seriously his time machine, as it is being hoisted aboard the cruise ship SS Tahitian Star. When in hits the side of the boat, it comes on and a monster is seen inside, but the professor brushes it off as “nothing”.
The gang is going to the three week cruise to the south seas, free, from Shaggy winning a contest. (He and Scooby are already tanning themselves with a lamp on their deck chairs, in the back of the Mystery Machine). On the ship, they climb down several decks looking for their cabins, and end up in the ship's hold. The lights go out, and they see an eerie light coming from under a door. Inside is the time machine and Prof. Van Clem, who explains it to them. Scooby looks in and sees the monster, but again, the professor says it's his imagination. He will demonstrate it to a group of wealthy investors who will buy an interest in it for half a million dollars. (Which of course, Shaggy, as always, translates to a million hamburgers). The gang asks to watch, and are invited as special guests.
At the demonstration, he points out that he must pay his financial backer Simon Grady by midnight, or the machine becomes his. (Grady, present, has an evil laugh, and was also seen in the last scene watching from behind a corner). He programs the machine to return something from the past, but instead, it goes 5007 years into the future and then the monster appears and chases the gang. The professor begins drawing him back, but the machine then breaks down and the monster carries the professor out of the room.
They split up to look for him (another ignored plea from Shaggy to stick together). Shaggy and Scooby check doors and find the monster. They run through a costume ball and disguise as Little Bo Peep and the sheep, and then as the recreation directors, giving him Polynesian dancing lessons with a Mueller exercise belt machine. He then catches them and carries them toward the machine to take them to the future. ("But I don't want to be a 5000 year old teenager!") They escape by hooking their feet onto poles, which then sling them into a vent duct, which he lifts, and they run off in it.
Fred and the girls are in the communications room, which contains the controls for the ship's closed circuit TV cameras, which aren't working, and then find a room containing a high powered laser beam and metal disks on the floor. They hear footprints, and capture the "Shaggy-Scooby ventilator".
Opening a trap door to the lower deck yields the monster. They hide in a room and find the professor bound in a hammock. Back in the presence of the investors (who nevertheless are convinced it works, and hand him the suitcase of money), he fixes the machine, which draws the monster, who then grabs the suitcase before disappearing into the machine as it overloads, and is wrecked beyond repair and he has no money to fix it. The gang knows what's going on, and promises to get the money back, as Velma will radio her uncle who's an electronics genius.
She fixes the machine, which again produces the monster (to the astonishment of the professor and Grady, who flee the room), and Fred tries to grab the suitcase before sending him back. The professor in another room shows Grady the suitcase of money he had hidden, and Fred enters "thanking" them for leading them to the money, and the monster unmasks, as Shaggy, showing the suitcase he had was empty. The two realize they have been tricked and grab the money and run for the lifeboats, but Scooby switches the sign and they crash into the janitor supply room. ("That mops up this mystery!")
Explaining the mystery to everyone, the discs were holograms of the monster they projected over the ship through the closed circuit TV. The "real life" monster in the machine was Grady in disguise. ("Perfect schwindle, ruined by you meddling kids!" "They'll have plenty of time [in the brig] to think about time machines!")
At the dinner table, Shaggy calls "All hands on food!" Shaggy brags about not being scared by the monster, but Scooby comes behind him disguised as the monster, and takes his sandwich when he runs off.
•This episode, like the last one, had an ingenious capture plan enacted by the whole gang, and did not involve forcing Shaggy and Scooby to be the "bait" by themselves.
•Another near giveaway, and the professor and Grady clearly looked suspicious or phony throughout the story, like the professor's two denials of the monster others saw, and he sounded totally fake when saying the machine was ruined, after the money was taken.
1978 (Originally part of "Scooby's Allstars"; i.e. the second season of Laffalympics. Some episodes reportedly debuted in a separate slot of "Scooby Doo Where Are You?", and now the whole season is often sold as a "third season" of the original show, even though it the most different of all from it! The previous season would have fit much better as such).
One thing we will see this season, is the gang is starting to be called to many of the cases, (in various locations around the world), by friends or others in need.
We must be making up for lost time with Velma relatives. Today's uncle is Dave, who, like John in "Curse of Viking Lake" lives in a cabin in the wilderness, and the gang is going to see him on a stormy night, but he is missing. Instead of a Viking ship, it's a huge fiery owl monster who swoops down on them in the lake, barely missing them (Scooby ends up hiding in a rolled up sleeping bag).
They search the lodge, which has been ransacked (Shaggy and Scooby want the food he was in the middle of eating when he was abducted, until a bat scares them) and Scooby sees owl men in windows on both sides, but the others don't see them, and he has to do charades to describe an owl. Outside, they run into Red Heron of the Chippewa and a friend of Dave. They came because one of his companions, Gray Fox had heard the owl call Dave's name, and when this happens the Willowaw; the fiery monster the gang saw, swoops out of sky to carry you away. Since the gang saw it, one of them will be his next victim (Shaggy tries to crouch down hiding behind Scooby).
Fred sends Shaggy and Scooby to stay on the boat to guard it, while he and the girls stay in the cabin. On the way, a regular owl swoops down on them, and then one calls Scooby's name! (Shaggy: "That means the Willowaw's coming; and I'm going!") They're under the covers shivering on the boat, and sure enough, the Willowaw comes. Scooby accidentally starts the boat and the chase extends out on the lake. Freddy and the girls run to the wharf. The boat goes into a cave, where they see footprints and wheel tracks. Fred and the girls follow, and Fred goes ahead. Velma reads a pictogram left by her uncle, and the two owl men enter and come after them, and they and Fred escape in a room. Shaggy and Scooby think they see owls, but they're really costumes. Fred and the girls have set a trap, and see the owls coming and trap them, but it's really Shaggy and Scooby in the costumes. They had found a treasure cave, while Fred and the girls found kerosene.
The Willowaw is coming again and Fred and the girls wait with a trap. It chases Scooby, and both are slung by the trap, and the Willowaw comes apart (a balloon with a motor in a basket and an owl cover), and Scooby pops the balloon and falls. (Asked if he was alright, Scooby answers with Señor Wences' "'salright!") The pilot is Gray fox, the mastermind of an international smuggling ring. As they explain the mystery, Uncle Dave arrives with Red Heron and the two owl men in custody. Gray Fox realized Dave (who seems to be some sort of officer) was on his trail, and sent the owl men to get him and lock him up. (Red Heron says the council of elders will punish those who "bring shame on tribe").
On the way back to the cabin, Scooby passes the owl who called his name, and tries to bluff him. When the owl screeches, Scooby jumps to the top of the tree. "That's the first time I've seen an owl turn chicken!")
•Here we really see the split in the group dynamic, as Freddy thinks nothing of sending Shaggy and Scooby to sleep out onto the lake where the Willowaw is flying, while he and the girls stay in the safety of the cabin. Shaggy and Scooby are again in their totally selfish mode, wanting to leave without finding Uncle Dave, and then only being concerned about eating the missing man's food. Welcome to the 1978 season and the beginning of the end!
•Musically, this episode is more like the previous two seasons, than the rest of this season. Several 1968 score pieces are used, and one '69 Scooby "climactic conclusion and resolution" cue (the deflating balloon sequence and explanation of the mystery) as well as newer '76 and some brand new score, but not the more familiar ones to be heavily used later. The rest of this season will use more exclusively, new music. One piece used when they arrive at Uncle Dave's cabin, sounds like what Ray Ellis was producing for Filmation those same years.
A CREEPY TANGLE IN THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE
Weather Eye 1 enters the hurricane at the center of the Bermuda Triangle. A UFO comes out of the clouds and eats the aircraft!
The gang is sailing on the gulf stream. Suddenly the storm moves in, and they hear on the radio about the hurricane hunter plane disappearing. The storm is blowing them right into the Triangle and they have to deal with monster waves, and lose the mast. They enter the calm of the eye, and see the flying saucer eat another plane. They enter the storm again and land on Diablo Island. A submarine comes up and two one eyed skeleton men open a door in the underwater cliff. Shaggy and Scooby are sent to look for firewood, and Scooby encounters a one eyed "old sea dog" who says "get off this island", and then comes and warns the gang about the skeleton men. He then disappears in a bank of fog. Fred and Velma hope to solve the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle.
Shaggy and Scooby guard the campfire while Fred and the girls search the island. They find an abandoned airstrip, but with newly used smudge pots and modern equipment in the tower. Three skeleton men surface on the beach. Shaggy and Scooby hide in a ventilator and land in an underground cavern, where the submarine is. The skeleton men follow and they try to take off on a raft they forgot to cast the lines off from and are slung onto a crane, and then hide in the sub, but the skeletons are still following. Scooby is torpedoed into coral. Shaggy runs through the sub, passing the missing pilots, bound and gagged, and keeps going.
Fred and the girls find a false cliff they open with a wheel. Inside is the missing weather planes, which are being repainted. Fred calls the base and tells them where the planes are. They enter a room, which begins filling up with water. Someone drops them a ladder, but when they climb out, no one is there. They see the submarine and head for it. Shaggy enters a room with a laser, which he activates accidentally and Fred and the girls see the beam producing the flying saucer. Scooby (still in the coral), Shaggy and the skeleton men arrive. Shaggy jumps in the water, and Scooby takes a boat and rescues him. Fred directs them to lure the skeleton men under the crane, where he hooks them, and drops them into a bin. As Shaggy and Scooby run to rescue the airmen, they are scared by the old sea dog, but the others realize he is on their side, having rescued them. He's Commander Sterns, US Navy Intelligence.
The thieves were using the Bermuda Triangle legend to steal the planes and sell them overseas. The skeleton men are Dr. Grimsley, head of the weather eye project, the one man who always knew when the planes would be flying, and two others. The Navy is thankful to the gang, and they get to "travel home in style" on a Navy submarine. And of course, when on a submarine, you have to have what else, but a submarine sandwich, which Shaggy and Scooby bring, as Scooby eats the whole thing. All he gives Shaggy is the worm he was fishing with in the beginning.
•The typical music stock of this season begins to be used
•We now clearly see the new gang dynamic begin to take off, where Shaggy and Scooby not only spend the bulk of the story on their own, but are also totally clueless as to what the mystery is about at the end, and it's to them that Fred and the girls explain the mystery.
A SCARY NIGHT WITH A SNOW BEAST FRIGHT
Rather than a manlike "Yeti" or "Big Foot", as in the two earlier appearances, this "snow beast" is essentially a giant white T-rex, who grabs a man, professor Kreuger, walking through the snow. The gang is being flown in by him to an Eskimo village in the North Pole, and don't know what the urgency was. They pass totem poles carved by the Eskimos. They arrive at the village in a blizzard and notice the igloos have been smashed, and Kreuger is gone.
They split up, and Shaggy and Scooby are attacked by a polar bear. The others come running to find them in an igloo tussling with fish being hung to dry. They leave, and Scooby falls into a giant footprint. Scooby recreates it to the others by swelling his paw and making a print. They hear a dog sled arriving (the female husky at the head, and Scooby take a liking to each other). It's chief Manook, who tells him of the snow beast who took the professor and smashed the igloos. The legend says the beast comes to life when mankind invades the sacred lands of the north. (Shaggy wants to leave, of course, but he concedes, in unison with Velma, "There's a mystery to solve!")
They check the professor's nearby hut, and his assistant Jean Pierre Baptiste answers and tells them to leave, and leaves himself. Velma finds a drawing of the totem poles. A knock on the door is the snow beast, who picks up the entire hut and then plays the shell game with Scooby in three igloos. The beast then takes Manook.
Fred has Scooby take charge of the dogs, and they find black snow on the ground, and the totem poles making a heartbeat sound. The snow beast is coming, and digging under the snow, Scooby mistakenly heads for the snow beast and then climbs a totem pole and pretends to be apart of it, fooling the beast, but then freezes into a pop sicle and falls. The husky sniffs up to him, thawing him out!
They follow tracks into an ice cave they suspect is his lair ("Suppose he's hungry and thinks that we're people burgers?") The snow beast blocks a subterranean cliff they have fallen off of. They look for another way out and see what look like the eyes of the monster, but are really a pair of lighted tunnels in the ice (raising the question of why electric lights would be in a cave). They split up into them. At the end of Fred and the girls' tunnel is a submarine and more black snow. The snow beast soon follows Shaggy and Scooby in their tunnel. They grab onto a stalactite that the creature breaks, and they construct a wall of snowballs that he breaks right through. They disguise as dentists and clean his teeth.
Fred and the girls find the professor and chief, and Shaggy and Scooby enter as well. Back on the surface, they plan to capture the beast by making him slip on the ice. Shaggy backs up, volunteering Scooby. It works, and the beast slams into one of the totem poles, breaking it open, revealing a hidden oil derrick, and the destroyed snow beast as a mechanical monster, run by Baptiste.
Explaining the mystery, Baptiste came across the black snow while doing research for the professor and realized it was oil, and took advantage of the Eskimo legend to scare them away, and built the derricks and disguised them, and began smuggling the oil out beneath the ice in the submarines, and then locked up the professor and chief.
The gang ready to leave, Scooby is fishing with his tail, and the bite he struggles to pull in (motivated by impressing the watching husky) is from a walrus. He's slung and shoots across the ice like a pinball, and lands at the husky, who kisses him, and he melts a hole in the snow, and comes up with a fish!
•Some '68-9 score is used
Only Shaggy and Scooby could be foolish enough to be running around the infamous witch-burning town of Salem (which hadn't changed a bit in 200 years), on Halloween, trick-or-treating as a witch and her helper, with the ghost of the witch running around!
We open with the graveyard caretaker Mr. Mooney digging the grave of the witch Melissa Wilcox, and she appears, and he runs to tell Squire Marley. He brings the cranky squire back and they both see her. ("Saints preserve us!")
The gang is driving in to see their friend Arlene Wilcox, who inherited the old family home, and the phone went dead before she could tell them of her problem. Shaggy and Scooby can only think of trick-or-treating. The squire stands in the road and tries to turn them back saying their friend is a witch. Fred persists and drives on. Arlene tells them her dilemma, herself being a descendant of "that poor old woman they burned at the stake for witchcraft", and she is set to seek her revenge that night.
Later that night, the witch is approaching the house. Shaggy gives Scooby his witch costume, and Scooby goes to look at himself in the mirror, and thinks the real witch in the doorway is his reflection. Shaggy is the one who notices and calls her out, and then the others arrive, but she is gone. Where she was standing, a liquid is eating away at the carpet. Looking out the window, they see her heading for the graveyard.
Fred and the girls drive after her, while Shaggy and Scooby stay behind with Arlene, but they think a tree branch reaching in the window and touching their shoulders is the witch, and run after the others. They take a shortcut through the pumpkin patch (getting them on their feet) and catch up, as the witch disappears behind her gravestone. There's a hot piece of wire, and a mark left on the grave, which Mooney, now there, identifies as the Mark of Mormo; the witches' sign. Scooby (in costume) runs with the broom, and a branch propels him into the sky, riding the broom across the moon just like a witch, and landing on Shaggy who naturally thought it was the witch.
They go to check the records at the Salem Witchcraft Museum. Meanwhile, at the town hall, the squire has rallied the townspeople to come after the Wilcox girl who they think the witch has taken the form of, and make her confess. At the museum, the gang finds a book showing the sign of Mormo, which is supposed to keep a witch from rising ("If that's what it's supposed to do, it sure didn't work tonight!") In the Wilcox family records, where Arlene is supposed to be just reads "Gemini" and something else is blotted out. (This can't be her birth sign, because Geminis are born in the spring, and Arlene was born in October). Fred and Velma realize it's still is a clue.
Shaggy and Scooby leave to go trick-or-treating and meet the gang at the cemetery in an hour to catch the witch. The squire's torch-carrying mob is heading for the house. Mooney arrives ahead of them to warn Arlene to run for her life. All Scooby and Shaggy get in their bags is a cat and someone taking Shaggy's bag and placing it over his head. The others arrive at Arlene's house to find her gone, and then head for the graveyard.
The town mob is now chasing Arlene, who tells Shaggy and Scooby, and the mob catches Scooby, naturally thinking "the witch turned herself into a dog", and carry him off as Shaggy and Arlene watch helplessly. He sends Arlene to join Fred and the girls, while he follows behind the mob (taking the shape of objects he sneaks behind, like in "Ozark Witch Switch"). He soon gets caught too when Scooby calls for him. Arriving at the cemetery to find them not there, Daphne thinks that they must be "having the time of their lives" on Halloween, but they've been brought to the museum to have the old torture devices preserved as exhibits used on them to make them confess. Scooby is dunked, and at first simply uses the occasion to bathe, with soap. Shaggy, in stocks, backs off of his stool and escapes, walking on his toes and fingers in the stocks, and reaches the cemetery with the others, right behind Arlene.
Back at the museum, Scooby is now getting waterlogged, and the others have set up the dummy witch exhibit on the balcony (with Velma throwing her voice), to make them think the witch is rescuing her "sister witch". They push the dummy, and it lands on the dunking lever catapulting Scooby to the balcony, and they flee the museum and the mob pursues. At the cemetery, they dig a trap for the witch, and Shaggy and Scooby, watching the mob arrive, run to tell the others, but fall into it themselves. The witch still falls into another pit anyway.
Velma explains that this was Arlene's twin sister (hence, "gemini" meaning "twins", and the blotted out name), who only pretended to be a witch to get the inheritance from Arlene (who never even knew she existed!) and take over her estate. Mooney helped her by wiring the witch to glow, and the bubbling liquid was battery acid.
At Arlene's house, Scooby has the sniffles from all the dunkings, so Shaggy brings him chicken soup —with the live chicken still taking a bath in it! "Scooby Dooby a-choo!"
•The sister, as the witch, did not need unmasking, as she apparently looks identical
•The squire, with his obnoxious "puritanical" attitude makes you wish he would be the villain and get his comeuppance in the end, but he instead ends up taking the meekly man he was bullying to jail. This was a good plot twist, in that we would never expect Mooney to be guilty, but then there was no reason he was really needed, and that the Wilcox twin could not have acted on her own.
The gang is driving in the Turkish mountains on the way to Professor Brickston's camp. He had discovered a whole city that's been buried for thousands of years. For music, Shaggy acts as a snakecharmer using Scooby's tail. At the professor's tent, he tells them about the terrifying tar monster (which was just seen rising out a tar pool they passed by), that protects the ancient city of "Byzantius" (which contains a treasure), and that all his workers were frightened away. He's already destroyed his assistant Stoner's tent.
As they sleep, the tar monster enters Shaggy and Scooby's tent. They tell the others, and show them the tent covered with tar ("For once, you two weren't imagining things!" A literal "yellow streak" runs down Scooby's back when Velma uses the expression on him!) The tracks end at a tar pool and they find a piece of pottery.
They enter the city and the inner sanctum (Scooby reassembles a statue they break to look like Scooby). Inside, the treasures have been stolen and all that's found is a statue of the tar monster. Tar tracks go down different corridors so they split up. Fred and the girls find the tar pool the tracks lead to, and eventually a map of the city, and Shaggy and Scooby find the tar monster. They disguise as statues, and then as photographers and take wedding and other photos of him. Scooby gets covered with tar, scaring Shaggy. They find an air compressor and set a trap for the tar monster that pumps air through the tar pool, forcing him to the surface. It's Stoner. He posed as the monster to frighten off the workers, so he could steal the treasure, and used scuba gear to dive through the tar. He won't tell where he hid the treasure, but the map shows it is in a secret room behind the tar monster statue, which opens it when tilted (Scooby discovers this accidentally).
Scooby poses on top of the pile of treasure, wearing a crown and jewelry.
•The tar monster is reused in "Scooby Doo and the Cyber Chase" (2001)
A HIGHLAND FLING WITH A MONSTROUS THING
Six years later, we get to see the actual creature referenced in the second Globetrotters crossover, and what that episode was in fact named after (and one of its haunts a cheap imitation of), as Scooby now tackles the legend of the Loch Ness Monster, which was enjoying some popularity around this time, being featured on shows like Leonard Nimoy's "In Search Of".
We open on people fleeing the Castle McDuff tourist attraction. Aggie McDuff calls her friend Velma to come tonight as it's urgent. So the gang drives in, and Scooby, as an English officer, has to shepherd a herd of cattle out of the road. (He gives a cow a ticket for "jaywalking"). They almost drive off a cliff into Loch Ness (Velma has to explain to Shaggy that a lake is called "loch" in Scotland. "A loch sure looks a lot like a lake"!)
In addition to the dinosaur-like aquatic reptile, is a bagpipe-playing ghost of a Scottish highlander, who the gang now hears and sees, in addition to the monster. ("We've had spooky mysteries, but this is the spookiest!") They ask direction at an inn, and the innkeeper warns them to stay away from the castle. (Velma now calls Shaggy and Scooby out on their willingness to turn their backs on a poor, defenseless friend, and they have to "think it over"). They find the castle, and Aggie's chief of staff Jaimie Cragmoor, who greets them, thinks the ghost is her great grandfather Finnean McDuff. He started appearing when she began taking in guests to keep the place going. Shaggy and Scooby devour a whole table of food.
At night, the monster breathes through the window on Shaggy in his bed, and Scooby brushing his teeth. Shaggy screams and the others come. Then, they all see the ghost outside playing the bagpipe. He floats toward them and disappears.
Fred and the girls and Aggie check out the parapet the ghost was on, and have Shaggy and Scooby check out the castle. (They test yelling, when promised all they had to do is yell if they run into trouble). We get the old door gag when Scooby finds the ghost, and Shaggy doesn't. They find a half burned paper reading "Switzer 100 wristwatches". The ghost activates a trap door and they fall into a dungeon and bump into a skeleton who runs off. The ghost chases them and they disguise as a rock band, singing "You Ain't Nothin' but a Bassett Hound". Fred and the girls find a roll of wire.
The two groups find each other. They go to the lower section which has been closed off for centuries. Yet they see new footprints. Shaggy and Scooby get separated and are chased by the ghost again. In a room, the others find boxes of brand new wristwaches. Trying to get out of a room, Shaggy gets caught on a pulley outside, and dangles above the loch. He has Scooby play the bagpipes to alert the others (who recognize that the playing sounds different now), but it also draws the monster, whom Shaggy ends up riding, toward the ghost! Both Scooby and the ghost play a musical tug of war with the monster via the bagpipes. The monster grabs the ghost with his mouth, and they enter the moat, which is then drained.
The monster is a miniature sub and the ghost is Jaime Cragmoor. He was smuggling in wristwatches from Switzerland, and the tourism was interfering with this. The ghost disguise was to scare everyone away, and he smuggled the goods inside the monster sub, which was controlled by the bagpipes. He also appeared to float, using the wire.
Scooby is now playing the bagpipes like a real Scotsman. Except that the sound is really coming from a portable record player he has on the side, revealed by him having to fix it when it gets stuck in a groove.
•Nice crisp, clear almost 3D graphics on the stonework in the dungeon and stairwell.
•We see here the pattern of Shaggy and Scooby always being alone, and even any additional guests always being with Fred and the girls, who themselves could practically be played by a single character. They could have for all purposes replaced them with Scrappy already in these episodes (not the naive Scrappy of his first season, but the later one).
•The gang will have another Loch Ness story in the 2000's revival
The gang is boating with Shaggy and Scooby skiing, and a storm is brewing. Suddenly, they see a school of metal sharks, and their "teacher", an iron-masked figure controlling them with a whip. In a virtual repeat of the "Demon Shark" episode and the scene used in the opening, one of them takes a bite of the skis. They land in the water, and Scooby coaches Shaggy in rowing, using himself as a raft. They land on a beach.
At Mama Meone's they discuss being taken by their tour guide Captain Morgan to Skull Island, which used to be a prison, but will become a tourist attraction. (The clam in Scooby's clam chowder sneezes pepper in his face). They see old championship pictures of Mama Meone who identifies them as her. She warns them about Skull Island and Iron Face, a pirate who was a prisoner there 100 years ago, and so mean the Warden had an iron mask welded on him so he wouldn't have to look at him. The captain, who they're waiting for is hours overdue. As a delivery truck speeds by, it seems she has a lot of business for such a tiny cafe.
They decide to look for the captain on Skull Island. Looking for a boat, Captain Flint also tells them to stay away from the island. They find a glass bottom boat, and among the fish, see a "dog fish" that looks just like Scooby and even calls his name! They also see Captain Morgan's boat, sunken by what looks like a torpedo hole. Velma thinks this is connected with Iron Face (Shaggy: "You and your spooky hunches!") They send Shaggy and Scooby up to the prison ("An old motel for retired ghosts") while they check the beach.
Shaggy and Scooby find Iron Face who chases them around the prison. They disguise as wardens and do exercises with him. Outside, he shines a spotlight at the barrel they're hiding in, and they do hand shadows. They climb a ladder, and "make a wish" and pull it apart like a wishbone when Iron Face begins climbing, and then use the two vertical members as stilts, but Iron Face begins chopping away at them with an axe. They fall down a laundry chute, and land in a room filled with prison uniforms.
Fred and the girls find a dock and a crane and crates of food, and later, a fancy dining room, a kitchen filled with food, and a living area. They wonder why all of this would be on a deserted island. They hear a moan through a ventilator, and find Captain Morgan in a pit. He doesn't remember what happened to him. Shaggy and Scooby find the bays for Iron Face's sharks, which are really painted torpedoes, and launch themselves in one, as Iron Face follows. They pass under the dock where the others are.
Freddy uses the crane's magnet to capture Iron Face, who is Mama Meone, the champion water skier. Her cafe was a cover for her real business, of smuggling convicts in and out of her fancy hideaway under the prison. They were smuggled inside the sharks, lifted with the crane and then launched. She took advantage of the legend to scare away curious boaters. It worked until Captain Morgan arrived with his Skull Island tours. The high paying guests panicked and deserted the place. Capt. Flint arrives and reveals he's really Hargrove, a federal agent, and commends the kids for cracking the case he'd been working on for months.
Scooby is now skiing on Iron Face's sharks, and nearly collides with the boat, falling into the water. He poses for them through the glass bottom.
•Iron Face is reused in "Scooby Doo and the Cyber Chase" (2001) and "Frankencreepy" (2014)
•We see again Fred and the girls sending Shaggy and Scooby off into a really dangerous place, and them being alone most of the episode
On a jungle island, the huge gorilla-like beast with a feline face is worshipped by two natives and the witch doctor. He comes to life and they run. The gang is flying to Rio De Janeiro. (Scooby is being Carmen Miranda and eats the wax fruit, and still thinks it's delicious). The plane has to make an emergency landing, and finds a clearing in the jungle. One of the pilots tells them it's Jaguaro country. (The natives that worship him aren't cannibals, but rather "head hunters").
They split up, and Fred and the girls go to the village while Shaggy and Scooby go check along the river for any boats. They soon bump into the Jaguaro. They hide in a pair of large flowers, and a playful parrot fools them by pretending to be the Jaguaro, and is almost caught by him himself. Scooby hollows out wood for a canoe, but the piranha begin eating it. They jump and are hanging from a snake, with a crocodile beneath them, narrowly escaping his jaws. Fred and the girls see a boat, and it's adventurer Barney, who's making a film on the Jaguaro worshippers, who are working themselves up to go after the gang, since their plane (a "great bird") angered Jaguaro, making the idol come to life. His boat would never manage the rapids downriver to take the gang to safety, but he says he'll try to radio for help, and takes off.
They find Shaggy and Scooby and go back to the plane, which has been attacked by the Jaguaro, and the pilots are gone. Someone was dragged off into the jungle. Shaggy and Scooby stay with the plane to guard it. (They wanted to separate from the others this time). Looking for food, Scooby ends up having to entertain a young gorilla in a tree. The natives come and capture them.
The others find what looks like a hut, but is really a sluice, used to mine something. Barney's boat comes speeding down the river, with Luis, one of the pilots. They flag him down, and he tells them the natives are on the rampage. Luis escaped from the Jaguaro and fixed the plane, but the other pilot, Jose wasn't as fortunate. Barney asks Luis to take a roll of film to Rio. He takes them back to the plane, and Shaggy and Scooby are of course gone, with only a native fetish left, signifying their capture. They are now being carried on poles by the natives. Fred and the girls know to head to the sacred island, and Luis can only wait an hour, and then will take off without them. They enter a cave, and find a Jaguaro statue.
At the native ceremony, Scooby cuts through the rope their hands are tied in, with his tail made into a blade. They escape by disguising as natives and joining the ceremonial dance, but the others get wise to it and give chase, passing Fred and the girls. They end up trapped on the rope bridge between the natives and the Jaguaro, who both now begin wrecking the bridge from both ends. They are now trapped on the bridge tower. Fred and the girls go upstream and open the boulder dam, which sends a cascade of water that sweeps the Jaguaro away, along with Shaggy and Scooby. They all go over the waterfall, with the tower trapping the Jaguaro, whose body is now gone, revealing a regular man.
It's Barney, and Jose is tied up below deck on his boat. He and Luis were partners in a diamond mining scheme. Luis faked the emergency landing so he could pick up a new shipment of diamonds without anyone realizing. Barney used the Jaguaro legend to frighten off the natives, and grabbed Jose who spotted him panning for diamonds on the river. Luis claims it is ridiculous, as he's trying to inch his way aboard the plane with a suitcase, but Velma opens it, showing that his film can is really filled with diamonds. He grabs it and tries to take off, but Fred had removed the spark plugs.
They've finally made it to the carnival at Rio, and are doing a conga line dance, with the young gorilla and his parent from the jungle trailing behind Scooby.
•This episode is more like Jonny Quest than Scooby. It epitomizes the irony that this is the season that is getting sold as being part of the original "Scooby Doo Were Are You?" show. You can compare this to "A Tiki Scare Is No Fair", which has the same basic setting, and some plot parallels, but this one sounds and "feels" so different.
The good thing about it is the utter suspense of Barney speeding in the boat, telling them the natives are on the rampage and the gang should take off fast, and Shaggy and Scooby are already being carried to the ritual and the pilot can only wait an hour for the gang, before leaving them. Even before that, Shaggy laid it all out: "Our plane's damaged, the pilots are missing, the Jaguaro is running loose, headhunters are after us! WE'RE DOOMED!"
•Another typical story this season where Shaggy and Scooby are separated for the bulk of the episode, but this time, in the first splitup, Velma was actually, originally supposed to go with them to the village, while Fred and Daphne checked the river; but they didn't want to "go calling on any head hunters", so Fred swapped them with him and Daphne —them not realizing the river would turn out to be the more dangerous area where they would run into the Jaguaro, among all the other perils they faced!
MAKE A BEE-LINE FROM THAT FELINE (aka "Who was that Cat Creature I Saw You With?")
On a windy night in New York City, on the top floor of the York Towers, Daphne's aunt, Olivia Durvy is having a restless night muttering about her innocence, while a cat amulet glows, and apparently changes her into a cat creature, who gets up and goes out the window.
The gang is trying to hail a cab (Shaggy and Scooby have a "mile long hot dog", and Scooby eats the entire thing). His paw is then run over by a cab. They are outside Bixby Jewelers, and upon hearing a crash inside, Shaggy looks in through the fogged window, and sees the cat creature. When Fred looks, it's gone, but the place has been torn up. Scooby has fallen through a manhole into the sewer, and the cat creature runs past him with an arm full of jewels. He climbs back up and describes it to the others. A police car arrives, with Mr. Bixby, who had been alerted by the burglar alarm. The jewel he cares about most is the Richmond Ruby. An emerald is attached to Scooby's collar ("I told you to never accept gifts from strangers. Especially cat creatures, which is about as strange as you can get!")
They finally get a cab and arrive at Aunt Olivia's, where the cabbie claims strange things happen there—some people go in, and never come out. (Shaggy thinks it's a "New York cab driver's sense of humor") As they ride up to her, the cat creature is returning, and then apparently has changed back to Olivia. She then explains how a strange package containing the medallion arrived, and then she dreamed she turned into a cat creature who would go out and commit robberies. The utter proof is the jewelery that was just robbed. Shaggy and Scooby callously run, offering as help "We'll send the National Guard", but at the door encounter her doctor (Bell), who's been treating her nervous condition. The wrapping paper the medallion came in has a return address.
Just like in the previous story, Shaggy and Scooby swap splitup places, and head to the address instead of the jewelry store, for fear of the cat creature, but find something worse. They think they've "put one over on them", but the address is a cemetery! Shaggy says the old custom is "dogs before chickens", and Scooby gets his chicken suit from "The Fiesta Host is an Aztec Ghost". (What would his father say if he saw that? "Cockadoodle doo!" We now also get a repeat of the future running gag, where Shaggy asks "Is anybody home?", and then "Who'd be home in a cemetery?", Scooby laughs, and then says "I don't get it!"). The cat creature is now there, and they go to "13 B" listed on the paper, and find a cat creature statue. Now, when they come across the real cat creature, Scooby thinks that's a statue too, until it hisses, and then chases them around the cemetery. They twirl around the statue, and get tossed into a mausoleum.
Back at Olivia's, the doctor gives her a prescription, and she goes to bed, and turns into the cat creature again. Fred and the girls talk to Mr. Bixby and check the store ("Don't bother locking up when you leave. There's nothing left anyway!") He gives them a picture of the Richmond Ruby, which was not among Olivia's jewelry. Velma finds a trap door, leading to the tunnel. They think the cat creature is coming, but it's only an alley cat. They come out in the mausoleum, rising out of the stone coffin (that reads "The cat creature who will rise again"), scaring Shaggy and Scooby.
The cat creature climbs down another manhole, and then comes up after the gang, and tears off a piece of Shaggy's shirt (as he's doing that long cartoon run start. Shaggy and Scooby disguise as hot dog vendors and trick the cat creature into biting his own finger).
Back at Aunt Olivia's, she has the piece of Shaggy's shirt, seemingly proving once and for all that she's the cat creature. Shaggy and Scooby are placed in her bed as bait (When assured "what better protection from a cat creature than a guard dog"; "Yeah, but this guard dog is a scaredy cat!") Scooby goes to close the window (passing the medallion), and when he returns to the bed, Shaggy has been replaced by the cat creature. Scooby takes to the glass elevator, and the cat creature rides on top of it, and then breaks through and chases him in circles. It finally lands, and the cat creature is unmasked.
It's Doctor Bell. He hypnotized her into thinking she was the cat creature, because she responded to hypnosis better than any other patient. He used her as a front for his robberies, and left just enough jewels to convince her, while keeping the valuable ones like the Richmond Ruby for himself. Shaggy is in another bed behind a rotating secret panel (which Velma activates), and slept through the whole chase scene. When Scooby jumps in the bed happy to see him, the panel begins rotating so fast, it throws both of them out the window, hanging from a gargoyle. When asked what they are doing, "Oh, just hanging around".
•Shaggy completely misses the actual conclusion of the mystery, and wouldn't have even known it was over at that point
•We again see Shaggy and Scooby's antisocial behavior, in the way they react to Aunt Olivia.
THE CREEPY CREATURE OF VULTURE'S CLAW
In an overgrown botanical garden on Vulture's Claw, a mailman tries to deliver a package to Professor Greer and is attacked by a seven foot mantis creature. The gang is driving to see Greer, and nearly collides with the fleeing mail truck. Shaggy and Scooby bump into the hulking caretaker Harry Keeble, who says they and the professor should leave, because of something big, loose and evil in the garden. He leaves, and Shaggy and Scooby faint. Scooby gets separated, picking Shaggy flowers, and then he and Shaggy encounter the mantis. They catch up to the others and tell them. ("Anybody got a 20 gallon can of bug spray?")
Professor Greer finds them and tells them about the creature as well. He takes them inside (Scooby oils a door so it won't creek when Shaggy complains, but it still creaks) and shows them a lab, where someone made an error in an experiment, and was changed into a praying mantis creature. There's only one entry in the diary, and no indication who's diary it is. Someone is eavesdropping from the stairs, and Scooby runs and both fall. It's Clyde Dickerman, who's a real estate developer who's been trying to buy Vulture's Claw to build a housing development, but Greer resists (He doesn't own the property yet anyway, as the deal hasn't gone through yet).
Fred and the girls go check the garden, while Shaggy and Scooby stay in the room they're to sleep in. First, the others knock on the door to invite them to come along, and the next knock is from the mantis. He chases them and they play the drawer game (similar to the file cabinet from "Watt A Shacking Ghost") but then end up in a wardrobe, not knowing how they did it. He eventually drops them through a trap door, where they land in a muddy tunnel and are attacked by a crocodile.
In the lab, another eavesdropper falls from behind the books in a bookcase. Its Eric Arby, the professor's assistant (who he had never said anything about having). Shaggy and Scooby enter through a rotating wall, still chased by the crocodile. (Shaggy then gives his "up to here" speech: "Had it with creepy mansions, muddy tunnels, secret passages, crocodiles snapping at my heels, and 7 foot insects scaring me half to death!") They hear the mantis and Arby runs off and disappears, and the mantis then grabs Daphne from behind a secret wall panel. They wake Greer, and then see a light in the garden and go outside and pounce, but it is only Dickerman ("Why aren't you afraid of the creature, Mr Dickerman?!") Shaggy and Scooby think he's hiding in a bush, but it's the mantis. They run into a cabin and find Daphne in a closet. Keeble now bursts in and warns them again.
As they walk through the garden, everyone they've met there is watching them. Back inside the house, they see they've been tracking oil. Greer enters, and the mantis is seen in a window, and Greer runs, Velma observing his footprints. The mantis is inside, and backing Fred and the girls up, while Shaggy and Scooby have jumped up to a chandelier. Freddy asks Shaggy for "Plan 46" —he reads his book of plans, such as 12, for sea monsters, 33, for ghosts, etc., and then 46, for 7 foot insects, which is just to saw the chandelier down on him, trapping him.
Everyone bets on the different people they've encountered, who enter showing it's not them. Only Velma correctly names Professor Greer, who is then revealed under the mask. His oily footprints showed that he was outside, even though he supposedly had come down from being in bed. (Also, that his only one entry showed he was not a serious scientist, so the lab was just a cover). The mantis in the window was a cardboard cutout. When he found the oil, he was trying to scare everyone away until he could finalize the deal. Keeble knew "something fishy was going on", or as Shaggy corrects him, "something buggy".
•The plot was not really a crime, as he is not stealing the oil, and might have purchased the land anyway. In fact, Dickerman was also motivated to try to buy the land from knowing the oil was on the property. While Greer is never arrested in the story, in the next season, we will see someone else who didn't really commit a crime be implied to be arrested
•Eric Arby is voiced by Welker, using the same higher pitched voice he used for Marvin White on the Superfriends, and had also been used for the hermit in "Jeepers It's the Creeper".
•The different members of the gang all naming one suspect apiece, and only Velma getting it right, will become a regular feature in ten years on later episodes of "A Pup Named Scooby Doo"
•The seven foot mantis may make one think of Zorak, the arch villain on Space Ghost.
At the Ace Decade recording studio, the "disc demon" chases songwriter Tony Signs, for "knowing too much", and he begins writing something on sheet music, and is cornered.
The gang arrives at the studio to watch a recording session by singer Jimmy Lewis, and he tells them about Signs' disappearance. He introduces them to the studio personnel, including the nephew of studio founder Ace Decade, and the pianist plays the song Signs left, which seems to blow out the equipment. He tells them the legend of the phantom, the ghostly musician seeking vengeance on those who ruined his career (Shaggy: "Maybe he knows we didn't buy his records")
Shaggy prepares the play the piano, and the phantom jumps out and chases them (and picks up Tony's song). They run encased in the piano, and tell the others. Shaggy and Scooby go to Jimmy's dressing room to get another copy of the music, and the phantom is in there and demands the sheet music. (He chases them around a desk, and they jump out of the chase and play cards on the desk as he continues running by himself but then gets wise). They then find the others, and the phantom begins speaking over the speakers, but Fred, the girls and Ace Decade find it was a tape recorder from Decade's office. Shaggy and Scooby go to the cafeteria, and think they've captured the phantom in a closet. The guard grabs them and throws them out into the alley, and they try to climb in through a window. Tipping over a garbage can reveals hundreds of Jimmy Lewis albums.
Daphne now tries to play the song on the piano. Velma suspects it might be a message. Shaggy and Scooby enter through the vent, and tell them their find. While he talks, the phantom enters the room and grabs the sheet music. Scooby lassoes it and the pursuing phantom eventually crashes into reels of tape. It's Ace Decade, who was stealing records from his uncle's studio and selling them for his own personal profit, smuggling them in the garbage cans. The notes in Tony's song spelled "ACE DECADE". Tony was the person in the cafeteria closet. Just as Shaggy and Scooby thought he was the phantom, he thought they were the phantom. Scooby pretends to be the phantom, and is scared by his own reflection, and runs, bumping into the soda fountain, and drinks away.
•The Demon (phantom) obviously is made to look like a member of the real life KISS band; this period being their heyday. In 2015, the gang would actually have a story featuring KISS
SCOOBY'S CHINESE FORTUNE KOOKY CAPER
On the Rampoo River in China, a reflection of the moon appears to turn into a monster. The gang is driving near the town of Rampoo (Shaggy is learning "important Chinese words" from a Chinese food menu he brought from the States). Daphne reads of the town's legend of the Moon Monster that centuries ago came to earth on a moonbeam (Shaggy: "It was probably cheaper than a taxi!") and entered the palace and cast its shadow on people turning them to stone. They develop a flat, as it would happen, right at the palace (Shaggy: "It's only flat on the bottom!") Fred suggests staying at the palace. Shaggy and Scooby aim to fix the tire, and as the clouds move from the moon, the monster appears, and then gives them the final hard pump of the jack Shaggy is asking for, sending the Mystery Machine up higher than their heads.
They faint, and are awaken inside the palace by the others and Lin Fu and Kim Chow Ling, the new owner of the palace. (They get into a greeting bow match that Shaggy doesn't know how to stop). Kim thinks it's "a trick the full moon plays on one's eyes". (He introduces his uncle, Chin Wong Song). Kim will also take possession of the family's treasure of jewels and gold. Lin Fu says there's a curse on the treasure, and to not dispose of it will anger the moon monster and everyone will be in danger.
In bed, Shaggy and Scooby are too nervous to sleep. The moon monster enters their room and they run and hide in accordion-like Chinese decorations, and then tell the others. Fred and the girls run to check it out, and see him rowing in a sampan. Kim shows Shaggy and Scooby the treasure. The dinner gong rings (at 2 in the morning; "Anytime is dinner time"), the others come back and when they open the door to the kitchen, they see the moon monster standing behind Uncle Chin, turned to stone, and then the monster disappears. There are also greasy streaks leading to Uncle Chin's feet. In his room are Chin's collection of ancient tools.
Fred and the girls take the sampan to see where the monster went, and leave Shaggy and Scooby to search the palace. (They again beg to stay together, even offering to swim since the boat's not big enough). The current has caught them, pulling them into the rocks, where there is a cave. Inside, they find a tunnel. On the bridge over the water, the moon monster appears behind Shaggy and Scooby looking at their reflections. He chases them, and they disguise as rickshaw drivers and lose him. Back inside, they see a moving wall, behind which is Fred and the girls. A can of flour falls on them making them look like the moon monster when the lights are turned out, scaring Kim, who enters. It's actually a fluorescent powder ("You mean if we made a birthday cake out of it, we wouldn't need candles?")
Lin Fu convinces Kim to throw the treasures into the bay, and now the gang enters and agrees! So he allows Scooby to do so (his foot gets caught, he falls into the water, and then drains his head which a fish was swimming in, wetting Shaggy and Velma's clothes. He wrings Shaggy's shirt, and offers to do the same for Velma, but of course, she's a lady!) They have Kim follow them. The sack of treasure washes into the cave and is opened by the monster, who is then confronted by the gang, with Kim. They all chase up through the passage, and Shaggy and Scooby make waves on the wooden plank bridge, throwing the monster into the water, and Kim catches the treasure.
The moon monster is Uncle Chin, who was trying to frighten Kim out of his legacy. When he appeared turned to stone, it was a statue, carved with the carving tools (which were worn like they had been used recently), pushed from behind the wall. (This was clearly obvious, when we saw it). He knew the tides would wash the treasure into the cave. (Lin Fu: "I should not have been so fooled!")
Shaggy and Scooby now make a "snack" with a whole table of food, loaded into "super special Shaggy sandwiches". Shaggy compresses his down with string. Scooby attempts to do the same, but it reexpands in his throat. Scooby's eyes are bigger than his stomach, or more accurately, his mouth!
At the Venice Opera House, a Doge Malvolion bas relief wears a necklace with a triangular medallion. The caped Ghostly Gondolier swings in on a rope and swipes it right before the audience, and then rows himself away with it in a gondola.
The gang has just arrived, invited by their friend Antonio. (A fish traffic cop stops a boat so a school of fish could pass by. "It's the only city where the fish have the right of way!") they load their luggage into a gondola, and split into two gondolas (Scooby has to be a gondolier, since there was only one gondolier there). Shaggy tries singing "O Sole Mio", and Scooby keeps seeing the ghostly gondolier riding nearby, when the fog clears. Shaggy finally sees him, and they accidentally dump all the luggage out of the gondola, and then swim on it like a raft, to landfall, where they tell the others.
They meet Antonio, descendant of Doge Malvolion, whose treasure has never been recovered, except for four golden medallions, one of which, Antonio's wearing, and another one, recently disappeared. Shaggy and Scooby make food from scratch, such as slicing their "leaning tower of pizza" in the ceiling fan blade, which serves it to everyone).
Outside, Antonio's friend Mario runs reporting the theft of the medallion from the opera, leaving only two. At the Academy of Fine Arts, the wall is lined with pictures of his ancestors, excluding the Doge, but including the ghostly gondolier! Professor Solari (who they were going there to see) sees Shaggy and Scooby looking at the picture, and tells them (since they said they saw him) that he's been dead for 500 years. He tells them the legend. Doge Malvolion the 4th sentences the gondolier (already in his ghostly hood getup) for the crime of treason, to the dungeons for life. He promises his spirit will roam and curse the city forever. He escaped and led enemy armies and overthrowed the Doge, and the four medallions were all that was left of his fortune.
The other medallion is in the palace museum, of which the professor is the curator. He gives the gang the keys to make sure it is safe. Antonio takes them to it, and takes it out and lets Daphne try it on. The ghostly gondolier enters through a window and chases her, and soon catches her, taking her and the third medallion on his gondola. They split up, and Shaggy and Scooby almost catch him as he sails by, but then chicken out at the last minute, and run the other way, and get slung by a clothes line, colliding with the others (Shaggy is now wearing a dress). Velma finds a small compressed gas cylinder, and Daphne is locked in a cell, and the ghost displays the three medallions he has so far. They're heading back to the academy and bring Mario along as well. They ask the professor about the Doge's painting, which there are records of, but was never found. (Shaggy pours the water of a painting onto Scooby's head!)
They split up, and Fred sends Shaggy and Scooby with Antonio into the basement. Mario takes Fred and Velma to the paintings he and Antonio were working on, but the door is locked, and he goes to Antonio's office to get them. He and the ghost are heard offscreen, and Fred and Velma run to see the room ransacked and they've gone out the window. Velma finds red plastic. Scooby is scared by a painting of the ghost, but behind their backs, a panel the painting is on opens up, which the ghost is behind, who now begins following them. Scooby grabs his hand instead of Antonio, who's gone. He disappears, and Fred and Velma enter, and they all follow footprints, leading to a gondola, and the ghost seen out on the water. They go after him, and he cuts in front of them, and grabs Scooby's pole, rupturing the gondola, and sinking them. Scooby is thrown off onto a cliff opening, which leads into a room where Scooby goes into a secret panel behind a fireplace, on the other side of which is the missing portrait! Behind this panel is the cell where Daphne and Antonio are being kept, but not Mario.
Shaggy sees that the Doge is wearing all four medallions around his neck, which all fit together to make a bigger medallion. Velma suggests going to look for the ghost on the Piazza San Marco. There, they find the ghost opening a secret passage under the statue seen in the photo, with the medallion. They all follow, and find him raiding a treasure trunk. He blows the dust off of a crown, which causes Scooby to sneeze. He chases Shaggy and Scooby to the roof (they have to jack open a hoistway door with Scooby's tail). They hide amidst the sculptures of an automaton clock, and then climb a winged gargoyle, which breaks off, and they sail across to Fred and the girls, who grab Shaggy off, but Scooby continues and collides into a gondola, which is punctured, and then rockets off into the air, and wraps the ghost to a pole.
It's Mario, who is also a descendant of the Doge, from another branch of the family. He didn't want to share the treasure with Antonio. He hid his family's trait, green eyes, with the red plastic, making them look brown. He had discovered the lost portrait, which made him realize he needed the four medallions to find the treasure, and he used the legend to make people think the thefts were apart of the curse. His rubber gondola could be deflated instantly to get out of tight spots and reinflate it with the cylinder of compressed CO2.
In an outdoor cafe, Shaggy and Scooby carry a huge stack of sandwiches and walk into the canal, and watch underwater as all the food floats away. "We should have ordered submarine sandwiches!"
•Here's one where Daphne spends a sizable chunk of the episode separated from the others.
•Episode was for some reason left out of the original 1980 syndicated package, and would not air again until cable.
DON'T GO NEAR THE FORTRESS OF FEAR
Two boys walk up a steep hill street in Puerto Rico to see the ghost of General Juan Carlo appear at an expected time. He does, and they run, and he lights a cannon from a fortress, which the arriving gang now hears, wondering what it was (like perhaps a 21 gun salute for their arrival, "all at once!") They see police searching bins for something, and Fred and the girls talk to them. The museum was robbed of many artifacts, and the ones they're packing must not leave Puerto Rico. They offer to help, but the police decline. A man in a white suit is watching them (as he does throughout the episode), and also scares Scooby, hiding from Shaggy whose pineapple he's swiped.
Driving away, another blast is heard, coming from the castle up ahead. (Voting whether to check it out or not, we get a repeat of the Speed Buggy episode, where Scooby tries to make it look like there's more votes for his side, leaving him with no legs to stand on!) Inside, they split up, and Scooby finds that the cannon is hot, and the ghost arises, saying "Out of my fortress! Be gone!" (Shaggy: "Let be-gones, be be-gones!"). They of course flee. Back outside, Fred and the girls return, having found nothing. Shaggy covers Scooby's mouth and says that they have found nothing as well, so that the others won't want to go check it out (Daphne: "Why don't I believe that?")
The next day they are on a fishing boat trip, and Freddy and the girls ask the skipper, Captain Eddie about the fortress, and he tells them about the ghost. Juan Carlos was a 16th century Spanish general who guards the fortress and likes to shoot off the cannon. They realize this is what they heard. Shaggy gets a bite, and it is a swordfish, that pulls them off the boat, and they are chased by another shark (who almost bites Shaggy on the bottom, and then crashes into a buoy). They are pulled up into the air, taking an octopus along with them, who lands on a rock and tosses them back onto the boat ("He's probably telling his friends about the ones that got away"). Shaggy thinks the swordfish is still on the line, but it's really a parachute (too small for a man to use).
Fred says they'll grab a bite before they go back to the fortress, and Shaggy and Scooby interject "With the ghost?", exposing their lie. ("Oops, didn't we mention the ghost?")
Shaggy and Scooby refuse to go in, and guard the entrance. Scooby finds a secret entrance in the stone wall, and they go up through a trap door, at the feet of the ghost. He chases them, and they leapfrog over the crenels and end up hanging over the rocks far below, from a stone the ghost is prying loose. Fred and the girls arrive and see this, and scare off the ghost and rescue Shaggy and Scooby as the stone falls. They then leave them again, to check out the hall of records, assuring them the ghost won't come back, because "lightning doesn't strike twice in the same place" (which it then does!) Velma explains the situation to the curator who is annoyed for being disturbed so late at night. Daphne finds a map showing a tunnel leading from the museum to the fortress and suspect a connection with the museum robberies. The curator closes the book on them and puts them out.
They now head to the museum, and look for a very well hidden entrance to the tunnel. Daphne trips on a crack in the ground, bumping against a phone booth, which moves, revealing the secret entrance. ("No wonder the police missed it!") The man in white is now following them. They walk through the tunnel for almost an hour. At the end, they find a corner filled with the stolen treasure. The shadow of the ghost is scene approaching a lever, and suddenly, a section of ceiling falls almost on the girls (pulled away just in time by Freddy), with a crash so loud that it's heard by Shaggy and Scooby, on the roof. They run down and fall into the pit (we get some wacky animation of them as they teeter at the pit's edge), where they are found by the others, and the ghost seals them in. Scooby plays with cannonballs which turn out to be hollow. Velma finds the secret exit.
Fred sets up a trap using the parachute. Shaggy and Scooby see the man in white and run. He introduces himself to the others as Inspector Armandez of Puerto Rico police. He had been on the case from the beginning and congratulates them for finding part of the treasure. The ghost swings down on them and enters the fortress, and they give chase. He leads them to the dungeons, which he then traps them in. Scooby meanwhile trips Fred's trap and runs blinded by the parachute, colliding with the ghost, leading to a tussle, while Shaggy frees the others.
It's Captain Eddie, and the rest of the treasure was on his boat. He got the treasure over the police with the cannons, aimed toward his boat.
The gang is now on the beach, vacationing. Shaggy has built a huge fortress in the sand, "And this one doesn't have a ghost!" Yet, it apparently does; a "sand ghost"; Scooby, who arises out of it, wrecking it.
•Exactly three solid minutes, from Fred pulling Shaggy and Scooby up from the parapet, to the collapse in the tunnel, use 1969 Scooby score, which is otherwise getting rarer and rarer.
•Another one where Fred and the girls keep leaving Shaggy and Scooby, as soon as they find each other and as they beg to stay together. Also, Shaggy not knowing anything of what was going on, and the others explaining the mystery to him.
A very good plot, and one can see why some might think of these episodes as a "revival" of the original show, but the fractured gang dynamic and much of the background score just kills it.
Tennis star Jimmy and his manager Nick are jogging, for the Wimbledon match. Finishing first is Jimmy's dream. They come upon the ancient Druid ruins of Rothmore and find a demonic looking staff that begins smoking, and when tossed, it produces the warlock Anthos and his Devil Hound, who have returned to fulfill the curse against the Felton family, of which Jimmy is the last. He tosses him the cursed staff, by which he is doomed. He tosses it away and runs.
The gang is heading to the ruins. Scooby shines a light from the sunroof ("I've heard of fog lights, but never dog lights"), which catches Jimmy and Nick running across the road. (Scooby swallows the light, which then beams out of his ear). They tell the gang they were attacked by the warlock (when Velma explains this is a kind of magician, Scooby pulls a rabbit out of a pom-pom cap, which then roars at him. He places it down over Shaggy's face). They introduce themselves. They arrive at his huge stone family mansion. John the gatekeeper lets them in.
His housekeeper Mrs. Warren serves them pastries, and then reads his tea leaves (to answer his question of why the warlock would show up now), and the image of the warlock forms in them ("I see danger; terrible danger!" Shaggy: "that's the worst kind!"). The warlock enters and then disappears, leaving the staff. (Scooby eats from an empty bowl, because the fog is "thick as pea soup". When Shaggy says it's only an expression, Scooby dumps the soup on his head, and he enjoys it!) Everyone hears cries for help from the gatekeeper's house, and runs toward it, and it has been ransacked, and John gone. They find red mud, and follow a trail of paw prints. The prints stop as if the hound vanished into thin air.
They are met by Mr. Burgess his solicitor, and back at the house, Jimmy explains the situation. Burgess explains the old legend. Anthos was accused of witchcraft, and the Peltons drove them off the land. The warlock cursed the family, and debts forced them to sell the estate, until Jimmy bought it back. But his finances are bad, and if he doesn't win the match, he will not have the money to pay the mortgage, and will lose the house.
Shaggy and Scooby try to get rid of the staff in a pond, and the warlock grabs it from underwater, and throws it back to Scooby. They run back to the others, and the warlock and devil hound appear, and cause Nick to vanish. Jimmy breaks the staff in two and tosses them, but it's still alive.
They go to the ruins where Jimmy saw the warlock. The mud is the same as what they saw before. They hear a dog howling from the manor, and find the staff, whole again, with a note, "if you play tomorrow, it will mean your doom!" Burgess comes out, and tells Jimmy not to play, but Jimmy intends to play, and win.
Fred and Daphne drive Jimmy to the game, while Shaggy, Scooby and Velma stay behind in the ruins. Shaggy and Scooby "put their foot down" as far as searching, and the ground gives under them, landing them in a secret chamber, which looks like a carpenter's workshop. Velma finds a bill for "one pair spec. lens", and Shaggy finds weird boots. The warlock appears and they run down the tunnel, which leads to an underground lake and they escape in a rowboat. The warlock and hound are right behind them, and they exit the cave, and "the warlock is falling behind", because "the water is falling ahead". They go over, but have lost the warlock. They are near Wimbledon stadium and join the others, watching Jimmy play. As he serves, he sees the warlock in the stands, and stands frozen as the ball returns. This happens a second time (with the warlock in a different place), and when the gang looks, he's nowhere to be seen. (They think the strain is starting to affect him). A third time, and he swings for the ball, misses, and his glasses fly off, picked up by Velma, who realizes something from trying them on. She hands him hers, and he makes an amazing comeback.
Meanwhile, Shaggy and Scooby are getting food, and the devil hound eats the hot dog out of Shaggy's hand (leading him to blame Scooby). They run into the locker room, and disguise as tennis players and head out onto the field. The warlock follows, and threatens Jimmy. Scooby gets picked up and tossed by a player's tennis racket, and lands on the devil hound, riding him and pulling the warlock along on the leash, off of the field. With them gone, Jimmy then makes the winning serve. The warlock and the dogs crash into the hot dog stand.
The warlock is unmasked and is Nick. (Just like in "Chiller Diller Movie Thriller", the canine sidekick is also unmasked, and is a harmless looking old bassett hound!) Velma realizes another warlock is on the loose, and looks through the TV camera and finds and calls him out. The police catch a bearded guy who doesn't even look like a warlock. At the police station, Velma shows that by looking through Jimmy's glasses, the man now looks like the warlock. Nick substituted these glasses for Jimmy's and they have special lenses which see invisible makeup that makes him look like the warlock. The bill of sale clued Velma on to the trick. There was more than one staff, carved in the workshop. Removing the beard, the other warlock is John the gatekeeper. One clue being the red mud, which is near the ruin. The reason he did it is because he's more than the gatekeeper; he's also Nick's brother, and descendants of the warlock Anthos, who wanted Pelton Manor for their own, and would have bought it when he lost the match, completing the revenge of Anthos.
Scooby looks at himself in a mirror, and when he tries on the trick glasses, his image mutates. He has Shaggy try them on, and he runs (what he sees in the mirror is not shown).
•Interesting new idea for a story, and uses a real place name and sporting event
•This is the only time this season, and the last time in the series, that Velma will accompany Shaggy and Scooby in splitups. Fred and the girls vs Shaggy and Scooby (and their new companion we will see soon) will now be the permanent arrangement of intentional group assignments. (A fact that is omitted in the modern portrayals of Fred and Daphne being a romantic couple because they "always" travel together!)
•A common original 1969 cue is used when Shaggy and Scooby fall into the workshop, up to the time the warlock appears
•Episode was for some reason left out of the original 1980 syndicated package, and would not air again until cable.
THE BEAST IS AWAKE IN BOTTOMLESS LAKE
At Bottomless Lake, a bug-eyed reptilian beast arises from the water. The gang is driving on a Northwoods trip, and the river has risen, blocking the road. Fred swerves onto a side road, and Scooby is ejected ("dog overboard!)", and skis from the fishing line he was practicing with in the Mystery Machine. The detour takes them to the Canadian border, and Bottomless Lake ("Best pike fishing in Canada") is two miles ahead. They arrive at a fork in the road. Velma sends Shaggy and Scooby to ask directions at a cabin (telling them the hospitable Canadian might have food for them). The beast comes up behind them and grabs Scooby by the tail, to eat him! They run back to the others (who've found the sign for the right road), and drive to the town, which is totally deserted. At the deserted service station, they see a three week old newspaper headline about a Klondike gold heist.
A man. Mr. LeBeauf arrives, and tells them about the beast, and Mr. Taylor, a pike fisherman shows up too, for some bait. Scooby and Shaggy fix the Mystery Machine, but the gang is staying, since they've stumbled on to a mystery. They stop at the Johnson's Family Market, and Scooby is scared by the glowing eyes of a cat on a shelf, whose tag reads the store name. Julie Johnson, daughter of the owners then introduces herself, and says she came back to get the cat, who runs from her, claiming the dog (Scooby) must have scared her (Scooby: "What dog?")
They camp at the lake, which has dropped. They then hear thunder, without a cloud in the sky, and see a pair of lights in the lake. They have Shaggy and Scooby guard the camp. They plan to put all the food in "a safe place" (eating it), but the beast comes at them. (They eat in midair the sandwiches they had run off without while suspended). They trap him in the cabin, and the others come. Inside, he is gone, but Scooby finds a wet rug with a trap door beneath it leading to a secret tunnel. Daphne finds a clump of green clay, Fred and the girls check it out, leaving Shaggy and Scooby to guard the cabin, but the beast is there after all. They run out and hide in the Mystery Machine, but the beast attacks it, and they end up driving down a steep hill. They chase him to the lake, where they find a pontoon. The others in the tunnel hear them yelling and see the beast puncture the pontoon, sending them airborne to where the others are. The beast returns to the bottom of the lake. Part of a wooden plank with the letters KL is strapped to the pontoon. Shaggy and Scooby return to the town to get scuba gear, and Mr. LeBeauf has deserted the store. Fred and the girls find the beast's footprints leading to town. The beast has followed Shaggy and Scooby, and now chases them behind the store. They use the air tanks to inflate themselves to a huge size, and scare him off as the others arrive. The tracks continue to a bush, which Mr. LeBeauf appears out of. ("If you kids are crazy enough to go diving in Bottomless Lake, I'm not going to stop you!")
On the dock, Shaggy and Scooby refuse to suit up and go down with the others, but the beast appears, and then they join them ("Velma was right; suit yourself!") The beast follows, and they escape into a submarine. The others have found wooden crates, and Shaggy and Scooby join them, with the beast right behind them. Shaggy and Scooby ride a crate, which the beast jumps on top of, and crash into the air lock which Fred seals, not realizing Shaggy and Scooby were in the crate. Scooby accidentally presses the eject button, which allows them to swim out, and they and the beast are sucked toward a storm drain, on the other end of which they are netted by two men waiting for "the boss's latest shipment", and all are now tangled up in the net, as the others follow.
The beast is Julie, who was scaring people off while she smuggled the Klondike gold out of the country. When the Johnson's cat ran from her, it was evidence she wasn't their daughter. "KL" on the wooden plank were the first two letters of "Klondike". She used the beast disguise, the cabin, the tunnel and the air lock to smuggle the loot, where it would be captured by the two men. It would go from Canada to the US without being discovered by any US checkpoint. The green clay is the plastic explosive used to blast the tunnel, as shown when Scooby throws it into the campfire (near some of the crates, whose contents, the gold is then tossed by the explosion). That was the "thunder" they heard, and why the lake level kept dropping and the river to flood.
Scooby uses the beast suit on the fishing line to literally "scare up some fish" into his pan. (He dumps them back).
•Julie is similar to Aggie from "Ozark Witch Switch", who also had a cat in a store, but this time, neither the cat nor store are really her own. The overall plot is similar to "Harum Scarum Sanitarium", with the international smuggling operation near the border.
•The beast actually was going to eat Scooby!
•Episode was for some reason left out of the original 1980 syndicated package, and would not air again until cable.
1979 (special)
Scooby is by now portrayed as a TV star in "the real world", doing his popular show, and now finishing up his last scene, being chased down from a creepy castle by the latest "Scooby Doo Show"-esque weird monster "The Crabby Creature of Creepy Crag". They land in a barrel near Fred and the girls, going in to film their scene, and Shaggy has had it. They walk through the studio seeing all the perks other stars have that they don't. They then go into the song "The Name To Remember is Scooby Doo", which takes them through several different scenes and ends with the special's opening title screen.
They go to the network headquarters (everyone in the studio recognizes Scooby, but not Shaggy). In the president's ("C.J.") office, Shaggy acts as Scooby's agent, saying Scooby is tired of being cast as a "cowardly, clumsy dog", and has him set up a film, showing all that Scooby can do.
The first film is "How Scooby Won the West" (written by, produced by, directed by, and starring Scooby Doo, and Shaggy, in the film, nails "With: Shaggy" to a cactus) where he's a sheriff (CJ is incredulous), and Shaggy, the deputy, posting a wanted poster of a Jesse Rotten, a western bad guy they are trying to capture. He gives them two minutes to high noon for the showdown. Scooby flees destroying the set, and yet rides off into the sunset anyway.
Shaggy tells CJ "there are a few rough spots near the end", and when he says, dumbfounded, "I don't believe it", Shaggy thinks he's praising it as "unbelievable". CJ now starts to think it's all a joke.
With only one way to prove they're serious, they announce to Fred and the girls that they're leaving the show, so Shaggy can make him a star in various other fields. (Fred; as Scooby crashes dancing right into a closet: "I think you've got your work cut out for you").
At the roller rink, a star, Lavonne (who looks like HB's cartoon version of Laverne, from "Laverne and Shirley") takes out of her time to help them, with a film, "Lavonne and Scooby". Scooby's horrible skating messes that up.
They return to CJ with another film (each time, he is getting tangled up in the film just in setting it up). This one is "Scooby Days", with "Groovy" as an imitation Fonz, who tries to bully Shaggy for the booth at "Harold's", as "The Scoob" rides in on his motorcycle, and tries to do a spin, and lands on the jukebox. Groovy has it play "You're Just a Rooby Doo Guy", and they both dance and sing. When the girls ask him to play another song, he touches the jukebox, destroying it.
CJ leaves the room and screams ("I needed that"). He asks Scooby to go back to his regular show. Shaggy shows him this long term contract he has drawn up that specifies everything he wants. When they leave, he screams "HELP!"
He has Scooby go and "mingle" with a room full of other stars. He dons his movie star suit and sun glasses, and is seen by a lady trying to retrieve his glasses out of the punch bowl, and takes all the food (but then hands it to the waiter when everyone looks at him angrily, and flees the restaurant). CJ now reads the newspaper "Top Hat is not Doggie's Bag. Scooby Doo barred from local restaurant".
At the Beverly Moles Hotel, which is filled with big time producers, Scooby has trouble just trying to dive into the pool. Velma reads the paper "Scooby A Washout At Hollywood Pool". Fred points out that without him, they too don't have a show.
Velma now takes a look back at when they first found him at Grillo's pet store. (Our very first view of "a pup named Scooby Doo", this youngest version voiced by Frank Welker rather than Don Messick). They first see a white pup (greatly resembling Hot Dog, of the Archies, which was a show that was one inspiration for Scooby, who was earlier on planned to be a similar sheep dog), but say he lacks character. The clumsy young Scooby however, Shaggy thinks has "too much character", but Velma likes him. As he shakes off milk he spilled onto himself, onto everyone else, they buy him anyway. They next cover his first birthday party. He sucks up his whole cake, wishing for more cake, and pounding the table, causing everyone else's cake to line up for him to suck in.
They point out "There's no other dog in the world like Scooby Doo", and then reflect on "all those great adventures we shared", starting with actual footage of the Headless Spectre with his candle, in "Haunted House Hangup", as they sing a revised version of the "Scooby Doo Comedy Movies" theme, called "Scooby, We're Missing You". Also seen is the dinosaur skeleton of "What a Night for a Knight", the three monsters of "Gaggle of Galloping Ghosts", swinging into the castle nearly bitten by an alligator, Shaggy puncturing Scooby's diver suit and him crashing through a wreck, and tugging on the glowing seaweed with the rat in "A Clue for Scooby Doo", the bone and bulldog in "What the Hex Going On?", eating all of Shaggy's peanuts in "Kooky Space kook", saving Velma from the log strapped with dynamite in "That's Snow Ghost", the Miner 49er in the mirror, sippng the drink on top of his nose, and licking the cotton candy off his face from "Foul Play In Funland", and quick flashby's of several other scenes.
Passing by the Chinese Theatre, Shaggy now has Scooby imagine he's already a star, entering the theatre on the red carpet (still arriving there by the Mystery Machine, with Shaggy as chauffeur, and tripping and getting rolled up in the carpet), to watch his movie, "Super Scooby: A Movie". He collides with the building in a cloud, and forgets to be "disguised" as a mild mannered typist; the disguise he changed into in the phone booth simply being a hat and glasses, as he's still in his super suit). He rescues Lucy Lane and gets blown up by the rocket she was on.
He now changes the letters on the marquee to "the Sound of Scooby", and we get very realistic looking backgrounds of the mountain and lake scene), and he dances and sings in Julie Andrews' dress, but then falls off a cliff.
Scooby scratches his name in the cement, and gets his feet stuck, as Shaggy reports that CJ is now holding dog auditions to replace him in his show. Shaggy has to tow the whole section of sidewalk. ("Imagine CJ trying to find another talent like yours! Does he think it's easy to act that clumsy?")
In studio A, Fred and the girls and CJ first interview a Scottish terrier, as Shaggy and Scooby watch and laugh. Then a bulldog, a blind sheep dog who lands on CJ, and then a dog who talks like Burt Lahr (think Cowardly Lion, Snagglepuss, Funky Phantom, etc). This last one gets hired, right as Shaggy and Scooby laugh that he's "rotten"! (CJ, to Fred and the girls, "You think that did the trick?")
Shaggy and Scooby then approach CJ about making him a prime time star, and he laughs so hard his chair falls back. ("We bowled him over, Scoob!") He now sets the next film, "Scooby and Cherie". Scooby is a magician, and does the disappearing act with Cherie, but as he bends over, all of his magic stuff falls out, including the rabbit in the hat, who scares Cherie, behind the curtain in the box, ruining the act. CJ is now crying. They do their disco song, "Love You, Scooby Doo". He ends up landing in the orchestra.
The next one is "The Love Ship", with Scooby as captain, and Shaggy as first mate. He didn't untie the ropes, and the ship is dragging the whole pier with it, with people even still on it. CJ is now begging to stop the film ("I can't take it anymore!" They still think he "really flipped for your film").
He then says if Scooby is serious, they'll announce it on the Jackie Carlson show. Now, the fans are being alerted, including a whole Scooby Doo Fan Club house. The entire world of kids now calls "Scooby Doo, Where Are You?" CJ now thinks the "perfect vehicle for Scooby" is "a bus out of town", with him under it! The next film is "Scooby's Angels", and now he laughs, crazily. The angels are staking out a criminal hideout. Scooby flies in on a plane and forgets to pull the parachute cord until he's already landed in a barrel.("Better late than never"). Now even Scooby wants to "Stop the cameras!".
CJ suggests once again to go back to his regular Saturday cartoon series, as he's already a big star. He opens the terrace door, and the entire city, starting with Fred and the girls, is shouting "We need you. Scooby Doo!", and then "Scooby Doo. We love you!" and the message on balloons, buses, etc. He now says he'll do it. For the kids; for his fans.
Now, as soon as Scooby leaves, Shaggy returns with ideas for his own pilots, "Mork and Shaggy", "Welcome Back, Shaggy", "Shaggy and Hutch". The gang has driven off as the studio execs toss Shaggy out wrapped up in his film, and he hops after the Mystery Machine, as Scooby shouts "Scooby Doo!".
Of course, we all know, Scooby did return that season, but not without his new addition, that many hate, but was ultimately said to have saved the show, which was being threatened by cancellation (as we can see above, the format had grown old. This story was likely reflecting this near death and revival, in a paraphrased sort of way).
With this, we conclude the original period of Scooby's run and now enter the Scrappy era, which continues the basic form, with the whole gang plus the new member in this first season (and some cues from here will be used heavily in the new show, like the one toward the beginning when they are driving to the network office).
DYNOMUTT appearancesEVERYONE HYDE Both Blue Falcon and Dynomutt (in their debut episode) and Scooby Doo and the gang are looking for the a "Mr. Hyde". The gang has set a trap outside a back door, and Dynomutt literally "springs" it in another malfunction and is caught by Scooby, and they meet for the first time. Blue Falcon explains to them that Mr. Hyde is not the typical "ghost" (as they are accustomed to), but rather a diabolical criminal (voiced by Henry Corden) with a dual personality, that he activates with a mist, that turns him, his dog, and his victims, into monsters. After a robbery, he uses an antidote to transform back to normal, and then walk away inconspicuously. Blue Falcon accepts the gang's offer to help ("Scooby Dooby Doo — and Dynomut too!") They all talk to the mayor at City Hall, and then Fred and the girls are sent to the museum to search for clues, while Shaggy, Scooby, Blue Falcon and Dynomutt check the Orville Research Institute for the antidote. Hyde is nearby listening to their plan to create an antidote. When Professor Orville answers the door, a telegram releases the mist that turns him into a monster. Hyde demands that he becomes mayor by the end of the week, or he will turn everyone in Big City into Hydes. (Shaggy, Scooby and even Dynomutt jump into the file cabinet). The two heroes catch the professor, and then they split up to pursue Hyde, and the dogs enter a room full of animal skeletons (Scooby does the taking the shape of things he passes behind gag), and both get covered with fur and think each other is Hyde. Dynomutt ends up vacuuming Scooby, and all the exhibits in the room, and then have to put them back together. Regrouped at the mayor's office, Fred and the girls have found a rubber glove that was on the museum floor where Mr. Hyde stood. This tells them Mr. Hyde is the burglar Willie the Weasel. The heroes then tackle the villain (and fake getting turned into Hydes themselves). They trap the dog, as the gang returns, looking in through a window, cheering them on (Scooby: "My hero!") and then the heroes catch Hyde himself. Everyone turned back to normal, the mayor thanks the heroes and the gang on behalf of Big City. Shaggy tries to remember something, and as Dynomutt leaves through the back door, it becomes evident, it was to disassemble the trap they had set, which Dynomutt gets caught in again! He tries to activate his parachute to get him down from a tree, but activates all of his other gadgets instead. WHAT NOW, LOWBROW The caveman-like villain Lowbrow is robbing a school of books (to get an education in being a smart criminal!) Knocking a hole in the wall to get out, the gang is driving by and sees him, and the Falcon Car also drives up, in pursuit of him. So they meet again, and both groups continue the pursuit (Scooby and Dynomutt have swapped vehicles, and when Dynomutt returns to the Falcon Car, Scooby stays with the heroes. They have to enter a department store to fix Dynomutt's sniffer). At the mayor's, they devise a plan, and the gang is out hawking newspapers saying the university has developed an "electro super brain device". Lowbrow and his accomplice read it, and it will be demonstrated in the auditorium that night. So he plans to steal it. The gang then disguises as scientists doing the demonstration, with a disguised Dynomutt as the volunteer from the audience. (Now told to act dumb, two negatives cancel out, and he at first gets the right answer to 2+2=4, which he thought was a wrong answer, as he thought 3+1=4. This basically does the trick!) Lowbrow swings down and swipes the device off of Dynomutt's head and is then confronted by Blue Falcon, but Dynomutt catches Blue Falcon in a cage instead. The heroes and the gang then search the university for him. (Shaggy joins the dogs on all fours sniffing, before realizing "I'm not a dog!") Dynomutt crashes into everyone in the gym, and they are all netted, under a huge boulder that will roll onto them if anyone moves, or even breathes too hard. Dynomutt has to have his paw leave the building and ride a taxi to a store to get cheese, take a number, and go back to get the money from BF; all to lure a nearby mouse over to gnaw at the net. It works, and Lowbrow has left a note with pictures of a rock, a string and a pair of arms. They figure it refers to "Stonewater Arms", which is be Lowbrow's apartment building. (Lowbrow is meanwhile testing out the phony device and realizes it's fake). They arrive and he's gone, but has left a book showing ski jumping, which Dynomutt's computer figures indicates his next crime will be at the Big City mint, and in five minutes! The kids are sent to notify the mayor and chief of police, while the heroes go after Lowbrow. THE WIZARD OF OOZE The gang is in a swamp looking for the "Bogmire swamp ghost" (1969 score is used here and in the Blue Falcon/Dynomutt scenes leading up to this). They see the heroes riding toward them and think they are the ghost (Shaggy and Scooby try to hide in the water breathing through straws, but Fred pulls them up to help set the trap). The heroes are caught in the trap, and once again, meet the gang. BF tells them there is no ghost, just a pair of hijackers they're after, and accept their offer to help. They split up to search the swamp. Fred and the girls go with Blue Falcon, and Shaggy and Scooby go with Dynomutt in his Dyno-raft (which they rip apart rowing in opposite directions). Shaggy and the dogs find Swamp Rat's hideout and hear his "super plan" to "finish" Big City. Shaggy and Scooby distract him by disguising as "termite inspectors", while Dynomutt takes a picture of the plans. His neck gets caught in the window, giving them away, and the three are tied up. Dynomutt bluffs calling Blue Falcon on his wrist beeper, but his other hand is bound, and the crook takes it from him, to set a trap for Blue Falcon, who along with Fred and the girls are netted when they approach the hideout. They're now all in a net suspended above a bunch of alligators, and a beaver will chew the tree holding them, as Swamp Rat goes to turn Big City into "Bog City". The beaver chews through, and now the tree is teetering back and forth. BF has Dynomutt grab another tree, but the beaver goes and begins gnawing on it! When that one is chewed through, Dynomutt, using his legs, works the trees like stilts. Blue Falcon again thanks the gang for helping them wrap up the case. Dynomutt jumps into the Falcon pool, but the swamp has backed up into the pool, and he is chased by the alligators. Non-animated cameo: "THE GLOB" (second season) Blue Falcon has been "globified" (actually having escaped off of the conveyor belt the villain strapped them on, leading to the "maser" ray, but strapped back on, in another Dynomutt "blunder"!) BF has him sculpt him back to normal, but he first shapes him as a bust of Scooby ("Hmm; that face looks familiar!"; and as he sings the scat line from "Strangers in the Night"—!!!) •These were actually great uses of the gang, and a totally new direction for them! It might have been better to have included them in more, if not all episodes, instead of producing the new Scooby episodes these seasons. The series would not have been run into the ground, and there would likely not have been the pressure to "change the format" three seasons later, and there might have been no need for Scrappy! |
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