This is a list of Scooby-Doo characters.
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Scoobert "Scooby" Doo is the eponymous character and the protagonist in the Scooby-Doo animated television series created by the popular American animation company Hanna-Barbera. Scooby-Doo is the pet and life long companion of Shaggy Rogers and in many iterations, including the original series, is regarded as a unique Great Dane dog who is able to speak in broken English, unlike most other dogs in his reality, and usually puts the letter R in front of words spoken. Other incarnations, such as A Pup Named Scooby-Doo, present talking dogs like Scooby as quite common.
The head of children's programming at CBS, Fred Silverman came up with the character's name from the syllables "doo-be-doo-be-doo" in Frank Sinatra's hit song "Strangers in the Night".[1]
Norville "Shaggy" Rogers is a fictional character from the American animated television series Scooby-Doo, about the adventures of four crime-solving teenagers and Shaggy's pet great dane, Scooby-Doo. Shaggy is a cowardly slacker more interested in eating than solving mysteries. He is the only Scooby-Doo character (besides Scooby) to appear in all iterations of the franchise.
In all depictions, Fred wears a blue and/or white shirt (which is sometimes worn under a white shirt, sweater, or jacket) and blue jeans. In the original depictions, Fred wears an 16 1/2 size orange ascot. In the 1990s direct-to-video movies and in the 2000s series What's New, Scooby-Doo?, Fred's outfit was given an update, with the removal of his orange ascot and two blue stripes added to his sleeves. He is often shown constructing various Rube Goldberg traps for villains, which Scooby-Doo and/or Shaggy would often set off by mistake, causing the villain to be captured another way. Fred usually takes the lead in solving mysteries. When searching for clues, Fred and Daphne usually go together with Velma coming along, but sometimes Fred and Daphne would pair off, having Velma to go with Shaggy and Scooby. Many people having been wondering if Fred and Daphne are doing something else other than searching for clues. In A Pup Named Scooby-Doo, Fred was depicted as being somewhat less intelligent and was often believing in crazy legends such as Bigfoot and mole people and liked reading a magazine called The National Exaggerator. In each episode, Fred would (usually wrongly) blame the crime on the neighborhood bully Red Herring (a play on the idiom red herring). In his teenage version he is shown to have many interests (obsessions for traps, martial arts, wrestling, and weight lifting). He is shown to be hopeless at speaking any language other than English (in an episode of What's New, Scooby Doo?, Fred is learning to speak French - badly - and Daphne suggests he just sticks to saying 'wee-wee', to which he replies, "I already did that before we left the hotel"). He typically shown to be oblivious to Daphne's romantic interests, while at the same time falling for other girls.
Fred is named after Fred Silverman, who insisted the character be named after him, apparently as a condition of the show being picked up.[2] Fred is sometimes called "Freddy" through out the series. In the episode "The Song of Mystery" from Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, he is called Fredrick by his tutor Mary-Ann Geerdon. When the voice actors Casey Kasem and Frank Welker became a part of the original Scooby-Doo series, Kasem wanted to portray Fred, while Welker wanted to portray Shaggy Rogers. Instead the network assigned Kasem to Shaggy and Welker to Fred.[3]
Together with her other teenage companions, Fred Jones, Shaggy Rogers, Velma Dinkley, and Shaggy's pet Great Dane Scooby-Doo, Daphne would engage in solving various mysteries. Daphne was portrayed as the enthusiastic, but clumsy and danger-prone, hence her nickname "Danger-Prone Daphne" (revealed by her cousin, Shannon, being danger-prone is a Blake family trait in Scooby-Doo and the Loch Ness Monster), member of the gang, who always follows her intuition. She serves as the damsel in distress and would occasionally get kidnapped, tied up, gagged, and left imprisoned. Scooby and Shaggy usually save her, but sometimes Fred and Velma or even the whole gang do it. But as the franchise went on, she became a stronger, more independent character, who can take care of herself. Daphne's character is the most developed in the starring cast, going from a klutzy teenager to a successful journalist to an ingenuous fashionista to a black belt martial artist. When Scooby is nowhere to be found, Daphne also yells "Scooby-Doo! Where are you?!". In later shows, Daphne is the one who owns the Mystery Machine and lets Freddy drive it due to her crush on him. She occasionally helps the rest of the gang capture the villain by using some random, yet helpful, accessories in her purse, backpack, or any other bag she has at the moment. For example, in one episode, the gang is tied to posts by ropes, so Daphne pulls out her credit card and slices the ropes in half, leaving her free to untie the other members of the gang.
During the series' fourth incarnation, Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo, some of the episodes focused on Daphne. In the episode, "Shiver and Shake, That Demon's A Snake", Daphne buys an idol which is cursed by the snake demon. On the sail boat, the snake demon attacks Daphne and demands an idol to return. Daphne throws it to Scooby, Shaggy and Scrappy. In the episode, "The Scary Sky Skeleton", Daphne is reunited with her old friend, Wendy. In the episode, "I Left My Neck in San Francisco", Daphne becomes ill and she's unable to help the gang to solve the mystery about The Lady Vampire of the Bay. Due to the vampire's look, Daphne's unseen reflection in the mirror, the bat flying around Daphne's bed and herself returning to bed a little later, Scooby, Shaggy and Scrappy are convinced that Daphne is a vampire. When the vampiress is revealed to be Lefty Callahan, Scooby, Shaggy and Scrappy realize they made a mistake with suspecting Daphne and she's feeling well again.
Her usual appearance consists of a purple dress, pink pantyhose, purple shoes, and a green scarf. In Scooby-Doo and the Cyber Chase, she wore a purple and green three-piece suit with matching shoes. In one level she is a damsel in distress being guarded by a dragon. As a child, she wore a pink sweater, red skirt, and pink pantyhose with white go-go boots. In the 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo she wore some other purple clothes with purple pants and purple high heels.
While not as clever as Velma, Daphne would always solve her problems in a different way. The character later became more confident and started playing a more active role as time went on, a result of changing attitudes towards women during the 1970s and 1980s. In What's New, Scooby-Doo?, Daphne has also been known to open locks or do other tasks with strange items from her purse.
The youthful Daphne portrayed in A Pup Named Scooby-Doo would commonly call upon her butler, Jenkins, to do various tasks, such as ridding her of people, beating up a monster, freaking out, etc. The younger Daphne is shown (along with her parents) not believe in ghost/monsters/supernatual (one of her catchphases in that series was "There is no such thing as ghosts (monsters)!), a trait she lacks outside the A Pup Named Scooby-Doo series.
In the movie Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island, Daphne as a young adult, had a very successful investigative TV series called Coast to Coast with Daphne Blake on a fictional channel called "Americana", which the show had aired on for two seasons. The producer of the show was Fred Jones, who she began a relationship with at the end of the film.
Throughout the various incarnations of the character, there has been speculation that Daphne and Fred had an attraction toward each other. This is emphasized in Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated. Throughout the first season, they are shown to be actively dating with Fred showing more of his feelings toward Daphne.
Throughout her various incarnations, Velma is usually portrayed as a highly intelligent young woman with various interests ranging from highly specified sciences (which in the "Scooby and Scrappy Doo" series leads her to pursue a career as a NASA research scientist) or merely being very well read on various and sometimes obscure information, such as ancient Viking writing (as in the third Scooby Doo series "The New Scooby Doo Mysteries"). In Scooby-Doo! Abracadabra-Doo, Velma is described by her younger sister Madelyn as being "born with a mystery book in her hand". Consequently, Velma is usually the one to figure out the mystery, sometimes with the help of Freddie and Daphne.
In the first series, notably "Where are you!" and "New Movies", a running gag is Velma's severe near-sightedness and her trouble with keeping her glasses on her face (usually after falling off while being chased by the villain).
When Scooby is too afraid to volunteer to help with a mission, Velma often offers him a dog treat called a "Scooby Snack" as a bribe. Her catchphrases are: "Jinkies!" and "My glasses! I can't see without my glasses!"
Like all of the Scooby Doo gang, later ret-conned as Mystery Incorporated members, Velma has differing personal backgrounds and histories depending on which series one is referring to.
In the original Where are you! series, Velma attended the same high school as the rest of the gang (as stated in the episode A Knight for a night). However, in the second series, the New Scooby Doo Movies, Velma is said to have graduated from a different high school than her friends (as stated in the episode Spirited Spooked Sports Show). In the current series, Velma is stated to be a native of Ohio, unlike the other members of Mystery Inc. But on one occasion, she mentioned she's from Texas.
Scrappy-Doo was added to the cast of Scooby-Doo to save the show's ratings, which by 1979 had begun to sink to the point of cancellation threats from ABC. After his addition to the show proved to be a ratings success, Hanna-Barbera restructured the show around Scrappy in 1980. The original format of four teenagers and their dog(s) solving supernatural mysteries for a half-hour was eschewed for simpler, more comedic adventures which involved real supernatural villains (the villains in previous Scooby episodes were almost always regular humans in disguise).
Scrappy remained an integral part of the Scooby-Doo franchise, on both TV and in Scooby-related licensed products and merchandising, through the end of the 1980s. He was also briefly the star of his own seven-minute shorts — the Scrappy and Yabba Doo segments of The Scooby & Scrappy-Doo/Puppy Hour. Teamed with his uncle Yabba-Doo and Deputy Dusty, he helped maintain law and order in a small town in the American west. In later years, the presence of Scrappy-Doo has been criticized as having had a negative effect on the various Scooby-Doo series of the 1980s.[4] However, the gradual decline of Scooby-Doo has been credited to other factors as well, such as changes in format.[5] Scrappy-Doo has become the symbol of an irritatingly overexuberant or cute character added to a series in an attempt to maintain ratings, a phenomenon also known as Cousin Oliver Syndrome.[6] Due to the general perception of the character by audiences, Scrappy-Doo has not appeared in any Scooby-related spinoffs since the made-for-television movie Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf in 1988, with four exceptions:
Scooby-Dum is a supporting character in The Scooby Doo Show, voiced by Daws Butler.[7] Scooby-Dum, a Blue Merle Great Dane with spots and buck teeth is Scooby-Doo's slow-witted cousin/brother (his lineage is dubious because Shaggy has said that he is his brother on one occasion but also his cousin).[8] Dum lives with Ma and Pa Skillet, in the Okefenokee swamp of southern Georgia. Whenever Doo and Dum greet each other, Scooby-Doo yells, "Scooby-Dum" and Scooby-Dum says, "Scooby, doobie, doo." They then do a special handshake involving two high fives. Whenever he heard the word "Clue", he would invariably pull out a magnifying glass and, intoning the opening four notes of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, chant "Dum dum Dum DUM!", even after a mystery is solved. The inclusion of Scooby-Dum was considered one of the first missteps in Scooby-Doo cartoons.[9]
In Laff-a-Lympics, Scooby-Dum was also added as a team-mate for the Scooby-Doobies.
Yabba, Scooby-Doo's brother, is a white Great Dane, shown to be more courageous than his cowardly sibling. His adventures take place out west, where he fights crime with his master, a bumbling deputy named Dusty, and his enthusiastic nephew Scrappy-Doo. In contrast to Scooby's catchphrase of "Scooby-Dooby-Doo!", Yabba's was "Yippity-Yabbity-Doo!" (and not "Yabba-Dabba-Doo!", presumably due to Fred Flintstone's use of that particular catchphrase).
In The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, Van Ghoul is a renowned magician and warlock, with extensive knowledge of the supernatural. He is first visited by Shaggy, Scooby, Daphne and Scrappy with Flim-Flam, after they need some help with their plane, which has crash-landed in a nearby temple in Tibet. After Shaggy and Scooby unwittingly unleash thirteen terrible ghosts from the chest in which they were locked, Van Ghoul tells them that they must trap them again. "Why us?" a terrified Shaggy moans, to which Van Ghoul replies, "Because you let them out!"
Despite being very angry with the pair for unleashing the ghosts, he agrees to help them in their ghost-questing, and gives the group a crystal ball through which he can contact them.
In Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, Van Ghoul is an actor who does horror films (much like Vincent Price who he is inspired after). He is constantly referenced in the entire series and glimpses of his movies can be seen throughout the series. He even makes a full appearance in the episode "Nightfright", when Shaggy and Scooby win an essay contest to have dinner with him.
Flim Flam was a part of the gang for all thirteen episodes of The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo. Flim Flam is the only pre-adolescent child to become part of the Mystery, Inc. gang.
Flim Flam is seen in the first episode, "To All the Ghouls I've Loved Before", trying to sell a magic concoction to a local town located in the Himalayan Mountains. However, he was kicked out of town, and managed to meet up with the current Scooby gang, who was trying to find the Mystery Machine (an airplane) hidden by Bogel and Weerd. He took them to a psychic (Vincent Van Ghoul) who could help the whole group find their mode of transportation, and warned them of ensuing danger. Daphne is a given a drink laced with wolfsbane due to the fact the townspeople believe that she overheard their secret, and when the night falls on the town, the group finds out that the whole town is actually a werewolf cult. They are pursued into the sewers, and Flim Flam opens one of his products to spray on Daphne, who reverts back to normal. He goes on to cure the rest of the townspeople, who are ever grateful for the help. When Scrappy, Daphne and Flim Flam question them as to how they got that way in the first place, they are told that they were turned into werewolves as revenge for sealing the Thirteen Ghosts into the Chest of Demons, and the current group races to keep Shaggy and Scooby from opening the chest, but to no avail. After Shaggy and Scooby open the chest and release the thirteen ghosts within it, Flim Flam decides to join them in their hunt to return the them back to the chest.
Bogel is a fat, dim-witted ghost while Weerd is a tall, skinny, five-haired ghost. Weerd is the mastermind of the two. They both are reoccurring characters in The 13 Ghost of Scooby-Doo and are first seen in the episode "To All the Ghouls I've Loved Before". Weerd comes up with a scheme to lure Shaggy and Scooby to open the Chest of Demons so him and Bogel can gain some glory with the thirteen ghosts. After this both are often hired by one of the thirteen ghost to help them lure Scooby and the gang into the thirteen ghost's trap so the ghost can destroy the chest. Towards the end of 13 Ghost Bogel and Weerd are trying to get into S.A.P.S. (pronounced as "saps"), a legion of high honor for the most terrifying ghosts and ghouls. Their plans to join S.A.P.S. usually involves the gang and one of the thirteen ghost as so happened in the episode "Coast to Ghost".
An eco-goth band. They appeared first in Scooby-Doo and the Witch's Ghost.[10]
Thorn - lead singer and guitarist. She is sultry and her voice seems to seduce audiences. Her real name is Sally McKnight. She is quite shy when not on stage, and claims that she is "1/16 Wiccan on [her] mother's side". She has long black hair with red highlights, teal (sometimes green) eyes, and wears a black and red dress in The Witch's Ghost, but a red and purple dress in The Legend of the Vampire. Her guitar shares several characteristics of models made by Dean Guitars (the "V" headstock) and B.C. Rich (the eccentric body style, in this case the outline of a bat). In Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated she still has her signature black hair with red highlights. Her eyes are green (The only Hex Girl in Mystery Incorporated with colored eyes) She now wears a black dress with a red belt, a shirt with white puffy sleeves underneath. Also red socks that come up to her shins and black strapped shoes.
Dusk - drummer and back-up singer. Of the three girls, Dusk reveals herself to be the fiercest, as well as the rebel of the band, and does not like to speak much about herself. She also tends to show that she is tough, but on rare occasions she displays strong feelings of love and friendship towards her friends. She has blonde hair (usually in pigtails) and wears a green dress. In the What's New, Scooby-Doo? episode "The Vampire Strikes Back," it was revealed she was leaving the Hex Girls to go solo (although this was probably just a rumor that was published in the magazine that Daphne was reading, because throughout the episode there are no more references to that subject). Her real name is Muffy St. James. When she appears in Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated her hair is in two thicker pigtails with red highlights. Her outfit consists of a red shredded top and leggings, black buckled boots and a black and white striped romper.
Luna - keyboardist and back-up singer. Of the three, she is considered the calm, wisest one. It was her father, a dentist, who outfitted the band with their trademark fangs. She appears to be of African descent, and has bright, dyed-red hair, black eyes and wears a purple dress. She is protective of her keyboard and prefers no one but herself touches it. Not much else is known about her. Her parents used to listen to glam rock albums. Her real name is Kim Moss. When she appears in Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated her hair is spikier, thinner and a light shade of pink. Her outfit consist of black pants, hoop earrings, a red and white shirt with puffy sleeves and red boots.
Crush - In Mystery Incorporated, Daphne had a brief spot on the band as "Crush" (although this was mostly to be bait for the Phantom). She sang the song she co-wrote with Thorn called "Trap of Love".
Red Herring is a neighborhood bully from the gang's hometown in A Pup Named Scooby-Doo. Fred Jones is constantly having a feud with him and always blaming Red for the crime almost automatically because of an incident when they were babies and Red tried to frighten them (which he repeatedly does through out the entire series) but he fails and is caught. In the episode, "Night of the Boogey Biker", Red is in fact behind the crime, but Fred was unable to accuse him because of a bet he made with Daphne earlier on in the episode, where he would not be allowed to accuse Red of a crime for 24 hours. This would be the only episode that would have Red as the criminal. Red is short, chubby, has curly red hair and normally wears a green vest over a white shirt, blue pants and cowboy boots. Among his catchphrases are "HAH! What a weanie!", "That's not very funny" and "I didn't do it, Jones!" His name is a reference to the idiom "red herring".