Nostalgia Trip: Scooby-Doo

The ABC Years

The Scooby-Doo Show (1976-1978)

The Scooby-Doo show intro

Scooby, along with several other Hanna-Barbera properties, moved to ABC for the 1976 season. Another rebranding saw Scooby share a one-hour block with another canine hero for a show collectively called The Scooby-Doo/Dynomutt Hour. The running time was changed back to 30 minutes, with Dynomutt’s show airing in the second half. Other than that, the format was still much the same as the previous years. The only other thing of note is the addition of another character, Scooby’s cousin Scooby-Dum, voiced by the legendary Daws Butler.

The Scooby and Scrappy Doo Show (1979-1980)

1979’s Scooby and Scrappy-Doo intro

1979 saw the removal of Scooby-Dum and the addition of Scrappy-Doo to the cast. Messick would do double duty as Scooby and Scrappy for most of the following seasons.

Scooby and Scrappy-Doo (1980-1983)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKYf-19WDqQ
Season One (1980-81) intro for the Scooby-Doo/Richie Rich Show

The show got the biggest revamp yet in 1980. Not only was it paired with another Ruby-Spears creation, Richie Rich, but the format was changed entirely. Instead of regular 30-minute episodes, The Scooby and Scrappy-Doo Show was made up of several short stories. Only Scooby, Scrappy, and Shaggy appeared regularly, as the other characters were removed for the next few seasons.

The New Scooby-Doo Mysteries (1983-1985)

A much more disco-like theme song for The New Scooby-Doo Mysteries

The episode format was changed from three 7-minute stories per episode to a pair of 11-minute ones. Daphne returned to the cast, and had a much more significant role with no Fred or Velma around. She also had inexplicably added skills such as helicopter piloting. The theme music also got a very 80s sounding disco theme with dancing monsters that looked like something out of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” video.

The 13 Ghosts Of Scooby-Doo (1985)

The intro for The 13 Ghosts Of Scooby-Doo with voiceover by Vincent Price

1985 again saw the show rebranded, this time into The 13 Ghosts Of Scooby-Doo. While there still was no Fred or Velma, the show finally returned to its classic format of 30-minute episodes. Shaggy’s wardrobe got an update with a red shirt to replace his traditional green. Another departure from previous seasons was the inclusion of an ongoing story, with each episode being a chapter.

Perhaps the most popular element of this season was the addition of horror icon Vincent Price. Price voiced the regular character Vincent Van Ghoul, who was modeled after him.

Susan Blu also joined the cast as Flim Flam. Blu went on to have a notable career in voice acting as well as voice directing. Her most notable work in directing was for the 1980s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series.

Ultimately the show ran its course without revealing the final 13th ghost. Reruns of previous Scooby seasons continued on ABC for a few more years.

A Pup Named Scooby-Doo (1988-1991)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uo1C1XL4p6c
The first season intro to A Pup Named Scooby-Doo

The first new episodes of any Scooby-Doo show premiered three years later in the form of A Pup Named Scooby-Doo. As the name implied, this depicted all the classic characters as children and Scooby himself as a small puppy. This all-new take was likely made to capitalize on the “kid versions of characters” craze that started with Muppet Babies.

This is also where the self-parody elements began in the franchise. Nerd-Girl Velma would have a supercomputer she could pull out of a briefcase. Daphne was an uber-rich girl with ridiculous assets. And naturally, villains resorted back to the classic “I would’ve gotten away with it if it wasn’t for you kids!”. Fred also at least once an episode would accuse the villain of being a bully kid named Red Herring, a pun on the storytelling term.

When A Pup Named Scooby-Doo ended in 1991, no new Scooby shows would air on ABC. And none would appear anywhere else until the new millennium.