Scooby-Doo (character)
Scoobert "Scooby"-Doo is a fictional dog and the eponymous character of the popular television series Scooby-Doo. At an early age he was brought to the Mystery Inc. Scooby-Doo is a Great Dane who is the pet and best friend of Shaggy Rogers.
Personality
Scooby-Doo and Shaggy share several personality traits, including tremendous appetites and tendencies toward cowardice. Due to their said cowardice, Scooby-Doo, as well as Shaggy, would often have to be bribed by their cohorts (Velma, Daphne and Fred) to go after the costumed villains with "Scooby Snacks," a biscuit-like dog treat or cookie snack, although sometimes, Scooby Snacks won't work on Shaggy, so he may get "Shaggy Snacks". Within the universe of the show, Scooby-Doo was born on the Knittingham Puppy Farm (owned by Mrs. Knittingham).
Scooby has some difficulty with pronunciation, and tends to pronounce most words as if they begin with an "R". His catch phrase, usually howled at the end of every episode, is "Scooby-Dooby-Doo!"
Voice cast
Don Messick originated the character's voice patterns, and provided Scooby's voice in every Scooby-Doo production from 1969 until 1996, when Messick retired. Scott Innes voiced Scooby-Doo in four late 1990s/early 2000s direct-to-video films, and Frank Welker (also the voice of Fred) took over beginning with What's New, Scooby-Doo? in 2002 and other spinoffs. Because of this, Scooby's voice sounded very similar to Brain from the Inspector Gadget animated series (Brain was also voiced by Frank Welker). Neil Fanning provided the voice of the computer-generated Scooby present in the two Warner Bros. live-action feature films.
- Don Messick (1969-1997, till death)
- Scott Innes (1998-2001)
- Frank Welker (2002-present)
- Neil Fanning (live-action films)
Relatives
Over the course of Scooby-Doo's various spinoffs, various relatives of Scooby were introduced:
- Scrappy-Doo: Scooby's young nephew (and son of Scooby's sister Ruby-Doo), Scrappy is the most noteworthy of Scooby's relatives. Scrappy became a recurring character in the Scooby-Doo series beginning in 1979, and was noted for being quite headstrong and always wanting to face off in a fight against the various villains (unlike his uncle). Scooby and Shaggy were present at Scrappy's birth. In the first live-action movie, he was portrayed in a negative light, in response to the public dislike toward his character. Likewise, recent video re-releases of Scooby-Doo Meets the Boo Brothers, Scooby-Doo and the Ghoul School, and Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf omitted Scrappy from all promotional material (including the covers), though his part was not cut from any of the films themselves.
- Scooby-Dum: Scooby's cousin, a gray dog. A Mortimer Snerd-esque dog who longed to be a detective. Was rather dimwitted (he'd keep looking for clues even after the mystery was solved).
- Scooby-Dee: Scooby's cousin, a white dog. Spoke with a Southern accent, and was an actress, even though she was Scooby's cousin, she acted more like a girlfriend.
- Yabba-Doo: Scooby's brother, a white dog owned by Deputy Dusty in the American southwest. Unlike Scooby's and Scrappy's, his typical custom catch-phrase at the end is "Yippity-Yabbity-Doooo!!!", and not "Yabba-Dabba-Doo!", due to obvious reasons (Fred Flinstone says that)..
- Dooby-Doo: Scooby's triplet brother, a singer. He is one of Scooby's few siblings to have hair on his head.
- Mumsy and Dada Doo: Scooby's parents.
- Whoopsy-Doo: Scooby's cousin, a clown. Owned by Norville's uncle, Gaggy Rogers.
- Ruby-Doo: Scooby's sister, and mother of Scrappy-Doo.
- Skippy-Doo: Scooby's triplet brother. Highly intelligent. He is Scooby's only sibling to wear glasses.
- Howdy-Doo: Scooby's brother. Enjoyed reading supermarket tabloid newspapers. He appears to become a redhead.
- Horton-Doo: Scooby's uncle. Was interested in monsters and science.
- Dixie-Doo: Scooby's cousin.
- Grandpa Scooby: Scooby's grandfather.
- Great-Grandpa Scooby: Scooby's great-grandfather.
- Dumper Scoots: A confused lion that thinks he is a dog. Having the same speech pattern as Scooby-Doo he believes he is Scooby's cousin.
Love Interests
- Amber: In Scooby-Doo and the Alien Invaders, Shaggy and Scooby are kidnapped by the "aliens" and abandoned in the desert. There they meet a wild life photographer, Crystal and her dog Amber. Shaggy and Scooby fall for the pair and there love is expressed in a love song called "Groovy" where Shaggy sings of his plan to marry Crystal and have a Shaggy Jr. while Scooby and Amber have puppies. Scooby was heart broken when it is revealed that Amber and Crystal are actually Aliens from another planet and must go home.
- Thorn/Dusk: in the episode the vampire strikes back Scooby was caught in a costume and Thorn/Dusk kisses him. Scooby then giggles.
- Chiqita: in Scooby-Doo and the monster of Mexico Scooby meets up with Chiquita Alejo's son's dog when the gang arrives at Alejo's family hotel.
Trivia
- The "dog-treat/Scooby Snack" gag had been used before in several Hanna-Barbera cartoons, including Quick Draw McGraw and Dastardly and Muttley.
- Scooby-Doo appears at times in Cartoon Network's The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy as a character who is described as being on the "wrong show." He has spoken little, some of his lines being, "What am I doin' here, man? I'm just a stinkin' dog!", and "Mandy made fun of the way I talk. I mean look at me! I'm a stinkin' dog!"
- The second-season episode of The Venture Bros. entitled ¡Viva los Muertos! features the entire Scooby-Doo cast re-imagined as famous serial killers and radicals. Scooby's analogue, "Groovy", is possessed by a demon and talks only to "Sonny", Shaggy's double, enticing him to commit murder. The pairing is a parody of David Berkowitz, the "Son of Sam", who claimed that his neighbor's dog Harvey was a "high demon" who commanded Berkowitz to kill.
- In Shaggy & Scooby-Doo Get a Clue!, Scooby, as well as Shaggy, are not as cowardly as they were in previous series, although in the episode Lightning Strikes Twice, Scooby is shown with a severe case of astraphobia, something he rarely had in the other shows.
- The name Scooby-Doo comes from the last line of the Frank Sinatra song "Strangers In The Night",[1] although other singers have used the phrase before Sinatra's song was released.
- French names of the characters are different; Velma became Vera and Shaggy Sammy. As for Scooby-Doo his name was first written "Scoubidou" but lately, the original spelling has been used for the series and direct-to-video movies.
