Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! | |
|---|---|
 The first-season opening title from Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! |
|
| Format | Animation |
| Created by | Joe Ruby Ken Spears |
| Developed by | Hanna-Barbera |
| Voices of | Don Messick Casey Kasem Frank Welker Nicole Jaffe Stefanianna Christopherson Heather North |
| Opening theme | David Mook, Ben Raleigh |
| Ending theme | David Mook, Ben Raleigh |
| Country of origin |  United States |
| Language(s) | English |
| No. of episodes | 25 |
| Production | |
| Running time | 30 minutes |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | CBS |
| Original run | September 13, 1969 – October 31, 1970 |
| Chronology | |
| Followed by | The New Scooby-Doo Movies (1972–1974) |
| External links | |
| Official website | |
| IMDb profile | |
| TV.com summary | |
Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! is the first incarnation of the long-running Hanna-Barbera Saturday morning cartoon Scooby-Doo. It premiered on September 13, 1969 at 10:30 a.m. EST and ran for two seasons on CBS as a half-hour long show. Twenty-five episodes were produced (seventeen in 1969-70 and eight more in 1970-71).
Contents |
[edit] Overview
-
For more details on this topic, see Scooby-Doo.
Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? was the result of CBS and Hanna-Barbera's plans to create a non-violent Saturday morning program which would appease the parent watchgroups that had protested the superhero-based programs of the mid-1960s. Originally titled Mysteries Five, and later Who's S-S-Scared?, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! underwent a number of changes from script to screen (the most notable of which was the downplaying of the musical group angle borrowed from The Archie Show). However, the basic concept -- four teenagers (Fred, Daphne, Velma, and Shaggy) and a large goofy dog (Scooby-Doo) solving supernatural-related mysteries -- was always in place.
Scooby-Doo creators Joe Ruby and Ken Spears served as the story supervisors on the series. Ruby, Spears, and Bill Lutz wrote all of the scripts for the seventeen first-season Scooby episodes, while Ruby, Spears, Lutz, Larz Bourne, and Tom Dagenais wrote the eight second-season episodes. The plot tended to vary little from episode to episode, but somehow still managed to avoid the feeling of repetition. The main concept was as follows:
- The Mystery, Inc. gang turn up in the Mystery Machine, en route to or returning from a regular teenage function--a dance, a rock festival, etc., when their van develops engine trouble or breaks down for any of a variety of reasons (overheating, flat tire, etc.), in the immediate vicinity of a large, mostly-vacated property (ski lodge, hotel, factory, mansion etc).
- Their (unintended) destination turns out to be suffering from a "monster" problem (ghosts, Frankentstien, Yeti, etc.). The kids volunteer to investigate the case.
- The gang splits up to cover more ground, with Fred and Velma finding clues, Daphne finding danger, and Shaggy and Scooby finding food, fun, and the ghost/monster, who gives chase. Scooby and Shaggy in particular love to eat, including dog treats referred to as "Scooby Snacks" which are a favorite of both the dog and the teenage boy.
- Eventually, enough clues are found to convince the gang that the ghost/monster is a fake, and a trap is set to capture it.
- The trap may or may not work (more often than not, Scooby-Doo falls into the trap and they accidentally catch the monster another way); invariably, the ghost/monster is apprehended and unmasked. The person in the ghost or monster suit turns out to be an apparently blameless authority figure or otherwise innocuous local who is using the disguise to cover up something akin to a real-estate scam (involving an attempt to buy the property at significantly reduced price -- due to the "haunting" or "monster" depressing the market value of the property). In Scooby-Doo and the Loch Ness Monster, Fred cries, "Guess what, guys? One of our traps worked without an unforeseen detail going horribly wrong!" This is a reference to Scooby falling in nearly all of their traps.
- After giving the parting shot of "And I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for you meddling kids" (sometimes adding "...and your dog!"), the offender is then taken away to jail, and the gang is allowed to continue on their way to their destination.
[edit] Voices
As with most Hanna-Barbera shows, Scooby-Doo features an emphasis placed on verbal rather than visual storytelling, and the work of the voice artists was particularly important. Don Messick, the voice of Astro the dog, Dr. Benton Quest, and Boo-Boo Bear--among others--provided the raspy, mumbling voice of Scooby-Doo. Radio dee jay Casey Kasem voiced Shaggy, young actor Frank Welker voiced Fred (which began Welker's long career in voice work), and actress Nicole Jaffe voiced Velma. Indira Stefanianna Christopherson voiced Daphne during the first season, and moved to New York City to marry and start a family before production began on the second season. As a result, Nicole Jaffe's roommate, Heather North, took over the role of Daphne.
[edit] Songs and presentation format
Studio musical director Ted Nichols wrote an instrumental theme for the show, which was for the opening credits of and under the title cards for the premiere episode, "What a Night for a Knight". The closing theme of the first show was the now more familiar "Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!" theme song. The vocal Scooby-Doo, Where are You! theme was written by David Mook and Ben Raleigh, and recorded by music executive and studio singer Larry Marks three days before the show's September 13 broadcast premiere. After Nichol's theme was used as both the opening and closing theme of the second broadcast episode, "A Clue for Scooby-Doo", Mook and Raliegh's theme became the permanent opening credits theme, and was also heard as the closing credits theme on all but three episodes: "Hassle in the Castle", "Which Witch is Which", and "A Night of Fright is No Delight", which used the original instrumental theme in syndication in the early 1990s, when the show was presented on USA's Cartoon Express. Nichols' original theme is, however, heard under the title card for each episode of both this and the follow-up series, The New Scooby-Doo Movies, and is very prominently used as background score for most Scooby-Doo episodes through 1979.
The second season featured "chase scene" songs produced by La La Productions (which had originally been contracted to create the music for Josie and the Pussycats, the first of many shows made from the same mold as Scooby-Doo). These songs were written by Danny Janssen and Austin Roberts (singer), and were performed by Roberts, who also made a new recording of the Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! theme song for the second season episodes.
The first two episodes of the series ("What a Night for a Knight" and "A Clue for Scooby-Doo") both use unique title cards. Standardized title cards (featuring the oft-used run cycles for the Mystery, Inc. gang) are used for the other twenty-three episodes. Episodes from both seasons contained a laugh track, which was standard practice for American cartoon series during the 1960s and 1970s (a laugh track was even used in the main titles for "A Clue for Scooby-Doo"). It was removed for syndication in the 1980s. Not long after the Turner networks (TBS, TNT and Cartoon Network) began airing the show in 1994, the laugh track was reinstated in 1998.
[edit] Release and reception
Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! was a breakaway hit for Hanna-Barbera and CBS, who quickly introduced similar cartoons to accompany Scooby-Doo: Josie and the Pussycats (1970), The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show (1971) (which re-imagined the toddlers from The Flintstones as high-school students), and The Funky Phantom (also 1971).
In 2005, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! came 49th in Channel 4's 100 Greatest Cartoons [1], and was, more recently, voted the 8th greatest Kid's TV Show by viewers of the same channel [2]. As of 2007, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! is airing on the Cartoon Network on August 2007.
[edit] DVD release
All 25 episodes were released to DVD in March 2004 by Warner Home Video as Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! The Complete First and Second Seasons. A DVD entitled Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! The Complete Third Season was released on April 10, 2007, made up of episodes produced in 1978, added to the Scooby's All-Stars package, and later syndicated as part of The Scooby-Doo Show.
| DVD Name | Ep # | Release Date | Additional Information |
|---|---|---|---|
| Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! - The Complete First and Second Season | 25 | March 16, 2004 |
|
[edit] Airing History
- USA
- CBS (1969-1976)
- ABC (1976-1984)
- USA Network (1990-1994)
- Cartoon Network (1994-present)
- Boomerang (2000-present)
- México
- Canal 8 (1970-1974) in Spanish
- Canal de Las Estrellas (1974-1980) in Spanish
- Canal 5 (1980-) in Spanish
[edit] See also
- List of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! episodes
- The Scooby-Doo Show for information on episodes produced in 1978 and briefly aired under the Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! title.
[edit] References
- Baxter, Joel (2003). The Complete Scooby-Doo Episode Guide. Retrieved from http://www.execulink.com/~joelb/scooby/doobydoo.htm on September 3, 2005.
- "Hanna-Barbera Studios" (and subarticles). The Big Cartoon DataBase. Retrieved from http://www.bcdb.com/cartoons/Hanna-Barbera_Studios/index.html on September 3, 2005.
[edit] External links
- Official Scooby-Doo Website
- Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! at the Internet Movie Database
- Cartoon Network: Dept. of Cartoons: Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! - cached copy from Internet Archives
- The Scooby Doo Case Files
