Jeepers, It's the Creeper


 * This article is about the Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! episode. For the Little Golden Books adaptation, see Scooby-Doo! Jeepers, It's the Creeper!.

Jeepers, It's the Creeper is the fourth episode of the second season of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, and the twenty-first episode overall in the series.

Premise
A school dance at a rural barn is disrupted by the Creeper, a zombie-like figure, who has been seen robbing banks at night in town. The gang searches the woods and countryside for clues, while being chased by the Creeper, and encountering an eccentric old hermit who wants their company.

Synopsis
A bank guard driving through the evening countryside stops to move a log out of the road; from out of the bushes a green-faced, monstrous figure rises and stalks him.

Meanwhile, the team is on its way to their school's barn dance. They happen upon the scene of the bank guard's accident. He has been knocked out and his car ransacked. The guard regains consciousness long enough to thrust a blank piece of paper at Freddy and mutter "the flame will tell... the Creeper" The gang take the guard to the nearby house of Mr. Carswell, the bank's president, who explains that the Creeper is a phantom who has been robbing the bank. He agrees to look after the guard and sends the kids along to the dance.

At the barn dance, everyone's having fun until the lights go out; not wanting to dance in the spooky barn, everyone drives off to the Malt Shop, except for the team who stay behind to clean up. But as Shaggy and Scooby are taking the garbage outside they run into the Creeper, who demands the "paper" of them. The Creeper chases the kids about the countryside; Freddy, Daphne and Velma wind up in a ditch with a horse and cart, while Scooby and Shaggy crash into a hen-house. After the Creeper leaves, Shaggy and Scooby start to go too, but a baby chick hatches and immediately attaches itself to Scooby. Meanwhile, Freddy and the girls have found a car hidden in the bushes; it has no identification papers, but they find torn-up photograph negatives on the floorboards.

After running into Shaggy and Scooby (still fleeing the Creeper) they find some footprints which lead to a rope bridge spanning and chasm and plunging into a cave. The cave is the home to the "hermit of the hills" (whose cooking disgusts even Shaggy and Scooby). They escape from the hermit (who is all-too-eager for their company) and make their way back to the Mystery Machine, only to find the Creeper waiting behind the wheel for them. The Creeper chases them; everyone (except Scooby) falls into the hay-bale-making machine, leaving the Creeper (and the rest of the gang) neatly bundled up.

The Creeper is unmasked as Mr. Carswell, who had been robbing his own bank and using the Creeper disguise to throw people off track. But the security guard had installed a camera that caught Carswell in the act, and so Carswell had acted to silence the guard. The blank paper was actually a photograph (activated by heat) that showed Carswell looting the safe.

Back on the road, driving to the malt shop, the gang realize the chick still hasn't been returned. When Scooby returns the chick to the hen house and bids it farewell, he notices several other chicks hatching, who all see him as their mother.

Characters
Main characters:
 * Mystery Inc.
 * Scooby-Doo
 * Shaggy Rogers
 * Fred Jones
 * Daphne Blake
 * Velma Dinkley

Supporting characters:
 * Bank guard
 * Chick
 * Hermit of the Hills
 * Sheriff

Monsters and other villains:
 * Creeper /
 * Mr. Carswell

Other characters:
 * Party goers
 * Hens in barn
 * Pig
 * Horse 1
 * Horse 2
 * Hens in chicken coop
 * Chicks
 * Woman outside bank

Locations

 * Mr. Carswell's mansion
 * Farm
 * Barn
 * Farmhouse
 * Chicken coop
 * Hermit of the Hills's cave
 * Bank

Objects
Clues:
 * Fallen tree
 * Blank paper
 * Torn negatives

Food and drinks:
 * Corn on the cob
 * Chocolate syrup
 * Scooby Snack
 * Squirrel stew
 * Pickled bat wings
 * Crab grass roots

Other objects:
 * Scooby's dressing room mirror
 * Scooby's bowtie
 * Scooby's cologne
 * Scooby's comb
 * Bank guard's blanket
 * Mr. Carswell's telephone
 * Paper plates
 * Cardboard box
 * Velma's glasses
 * Hay
 * Rake
 * Rubber glove
 * Chick egg
 * Rope and plank bridge
 * Hermit of the Hills's wooden spoon
 * Pitchfork
 * Barrel
 * Ladder
 * Safe
 * Dollar bills
 * Security camera
 * Mr. Carswell's briefcase
 * Hay bales
 * Chick eggs

Vehicles

 * Bank guard's car
 * Party goers' cars
 * The Mystery Machine
 * Horse-drawn carts
 * Hidden car
 * Hay bale-making tractor
 * Sheriff's police car

Full credits
The following credits are how they are seen on-screen (or as close as possible).


 * Produced and Directed By: Joseph Barbera, William Hanna
 * Co-Producer: Alex Lovy
 * Story Editors: Ken Spears, Joe Ruby
 * Story: Larz Bourne, Tom Dagenais, Bill Lutz
 * Story Direction: Bob Singer, Paul Sommer, Howard Swift
 * Voices: Nicole Jaffe, George A. Robertson, Jr., Casey Kasem, Hal Smith, Don Messick, John Stephenson, Heather North, Susan Steward, Vic Perrin, Michael Stull, Barry Richards, Jean Vander Pyl, Frank Welker
 * Animation Director: Charles A. Nichols
 * Production Design: Iwao Takamoto
 * Production Supervisor: Victor O. Schipek
 * Layout: Bob Singer, Dick Bickenbach, Mike Arens, Gary Hoffman, Rick Gonzalez, Terry Slade, Jack Huber, Mo Gollub, Alex Ignatiev, Jim Fletcher, Mario Uribe
 * Animation: George Rowley, Bill Keil, Ray Abrams, Isadore Ellis, Volus Jones, Carlos Alfonso, George Goepper, Dick Lundy
 * Background Styling: F. Montealegre
 * Backgrounds: Rene Garcia, Curtis Perkins, Richard Khim, Gino Giudice, Bob Gentle, Gary Niblett, Peter Van Elk, Eric Semones
 * Titles: Robert Schaefer
 * Music Supervision: La La Productions
 * Musical Director: Ted Nichols
 * Technical Supervisor: Frank Paiker
 * Ink and Paint Supervisor: Roberta Greutert
 * Xerography: Robert "Tiger" West
 * Sound Direction: Richard Olson, Bill Getty
 * Editorial Supervisor: Larry Cowan
 * Music Editor: Joe Sandusky
 * Effects Editors: Earl Bennett
 * Negative Consultant: William E. DeBoer
 * Post Production: Joed Eaton
 * Camera: George Epperson, Roy Wade, Ralph Migliori, Bill Kotler

Notes/trivia

 * The episode's title is a play on the popular 1938 jazz-song, "Jeepers Creepers".
 * The physical violence in this episode should be noted:
 * The Creeper/Mr. Carswell attacks the bank guard (off-screen) and leaves him unconscious in the middle of the road (only to later tie him up and dump him in the basement).
 * Shaggy and Scooby accidentally knock Velma to the ground.
 * Scooby kicks the Creeper twice.
 * Velma kicks the Creeper in the knee.
 * Shaggy whacks his head on a wooden pole.
 * Shaggy, Scooby and the Creeper all hit themselves on the rake in the barn.
 * The wagon Fred and the girls are in crashes down a cliff and the wagon lands on top of them.
 * Fred, Daphne, and Velma jump Shaggy and Scooby thinking that they're the Creeper and beat them up.
 * And last but not least, the gang and the Creeper fight inside the hay before Scooby bounds them into hay bails.
 * In this episode, Scooby unmasks the villain; the previous being in Decoy for a Dognapper.
 * This episode was one of four Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! episodes, (the other three being A Clue for Scooby Doo, Hassle in the Castle, and The Backstage Rage), that were selected for the 1998 VHS Scooby-Doo's Greatest Mysteries by being voted "Most Popular" by the fans.

Miscellaneous

 * Disguises: Scooby as a hen.
 * Scooby Snacks bribe: 1 (eaten by the chick).
 * "Zoinks" count: 3.

Adaptations

 * There was an adaptation from Little Golden Books called Scooby-Doo! Jeepers, It's the Creeper!.
 * The Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated episode, The Legend Of Alice May, has its own version of this episode.
 * This episode inspired the first commercial from State Farm. In the same rural setting, the Creeper jumps out in the middle of the road, causing the Mystery Machine to have an accident. An agent pops up from nowhere to help them out, including unmasking the caught Creeper to reveal Mr. Carswell underneath.

Animation mistakes and/or technical glitches

 * Right before unmasking the Creeper, part of Scooby's neck turns the same shade of blue as his collar.
 * Fred's entire line of how the case is over and now they can go to the Malt Shop has two mistakes; in the first half of his line, his mouth doesn't move, and in the second and final half, Daphne's scarf is purple.

Inconsistencies/continuity errors and/or goofs/oddities

 * The bank guard says he better move the tree, then begins trying to roll it further along the road -- to move it, he would either need to lift it, or push it in another direction, and not from the middle of the trunk.
 * This episode is poorly executed:
 * Why would the bank guard have Mr. Carswell's personal address? In case he needs it? It's possible he saw the evidence on the photo of him stealing the money and he hastily rushed straight to Mr. Carswell's to confront him about it, which would leave him in a vulnerable position due to Mr. Carswell's voilent temperament (and proved true when he ended up locking him in the basement), instead of going straight to police. But if he had just found out that the security camera took a picture and wanted to tell Mr. Carswell right away it would have still left him in the same danger.
 * Mr. Carswell's address also seems to have been written in to get the gang there to create the mystery otherwise they would've just had to wait for him to come to and reveal it himself, with the police just going to his home and arresting him there.
 * The guard must have some serious trust issues if he didn't tell the bank president about setting up the security camera. Either that or he had forgot to say or wasn't his top priority which still makes him unreliable. If he had been told immediately, Mr. Carswell could've worn his Creeper costume from the start and avoided the whole situation although he might've still been caught changing and doing it during the night would've have made him harder to find. (Also, the bank guard may well have suspected the President too.)
 * It's unknown how long Mr. Carswell robbed from his bank. It was apparently long enough to get the story out of it, but exposition at the end neither implies the one day (which might make it slightly more plausible for Mr. Carswell not knowing about the camera and hastily having the need to violently knock him out and ransack his car) or more.
 * Mr. Carswell should have been more alert to the mysterious paper that the guard was so concerned about. If he had he could've asked for the paper from the gang because it was of the bank's matter, but of course that would've removed them from the mystery.
 * If the bank had been robbed for a few days one would wonder if they had more guards on duty at night. That's if they wanted to be there when a so-called phantom would be.
 * Following on from that, if the public was already aware of the Creeper then it makes one wonder what the woman was doing just standing alone outside the bank at night. Even if she hadn't heard reports of it, when she does see the Creeper, she's barely alarmed and just watches him walk away. Granted it's from the back, but that doesn't hide the features from the back of a creepy-looking hunchbacked figure.
 * When the outside of the barn is first seen there are no cars parked, but the next time it is when the teens prepare to leave for the malt shop the Mystery Machine and three other cars are parked right at the front, facing away from the barn.
 * Due to its size the incriminating photograph is always referred to as "paper".
 * When the photo reveals Mr. Carswell stealing from the safe, Fred calls him the Creeper. While that's true it's still not who's shown. (He is phrasing it in the context of the riddle)
 * The Sheriff seems to know exactly where to find Carswell and the Gang after being unable to find him at his house- presumably the "message" the gang left was the one when they phoned at the beginning of the episode, when they were told he was out of town. It is not explained how he found the barn–the bank guard may have informed him, however he was barely conscious when last seen.
 * With the case wrapped up, the gang are ready to join their friends at the malt shop (and if the episode went any longer it would've been shown), but they're a little presumptuous that they would still be there since it was already dark when the party at the barn started and it would've been even later by the time they got there as the case would've at least taken a couple of hours. There's nothing to say that the party didn't go on for hours after; especially if Daylight Savings are involved. The gang seem to have no concept of time anyway as they're usually always at the malt shop in the evenings, like in the previous episode and in A Pup Named Scooby-Doo -- they can spend all night solving a mystery as in The Sludge Monster From The Earth's Core and Night of the Living Burger.

Home media

 * 🇺🇸 Scooby-Doo's Greatest Mysteries VHS released by Warner Home Video on April 13, 1998.
 * 🇺🇸 Scooby-Doo's Greatest Mysteries DVD released by Warner Home Video on May 6, 2003.
 * 🇺🇸 Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!: The Complete 1st and 2nd Seasons DVD set released by Warner Home Video on March 16, 2004. For unknowns reason this episode is switched with the previous episode and the mistake is carried over onto the complete series set listed below, fortunately the series lacks any continuity betweenso no real harm is done.
 * Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!: The Complete 1st and 2nd Seasons DVD set released by Warner Home Video on June 20, 2005.
 * 🇺🇸 Scooby-Doo, Where Are You: The Complete Series (limited edition) DVD set released by Warner Home Video on November 9, 2010.
 * 🇺🇸 Scooby-Doo! and the Ghosts DVD released by Warner Home Video on August 30, 2011.
 * Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!: The Complete Series DVD set released by Warner Home Video on November 21, 2011.
 * 🇺🇸 Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!: The Complete Series DVD set released by Warner Home Video on November 13, 2012.