Mystery Solvers Club State Finals

Mystery Solvers Club State Finals is the fourteenth episode of the first season of Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated.

Premise
The Mystery Solvers Club State Finals is interrupted by Lord Infernicus, a maniac monster who can produce fire. He captures all the humans in groups, leaving the mascots to save the day.

Synopsis
Scooby has a fever, preventing the gang from attending the Mystery Solvers Club State Finals, a party for other teams of meddling kids. While Fred goes to "grieve", Scooby falls asleep (while being upset from Velma calling him a sidekick).

In Scooby's dream, Scooby has been cured and is well enough to go to the party. He goes downstairs and tells the gang the wonderful news. The gang then drives to school, where the party is being held. They arrive and meet the other teams and their mascots. The teams are; Jabberjaw and the Neptunes, Mudsy the Funky Phantom and his gang, Speed Buggy and friends and Captain Caveman and his Teen Angels.

Just as the principal is about to announce the teams and tonight's mystery, a fire skeleton named Lord Infernicus shows up and kidnaps everyone except the mascots, Angel and the principal. He gives them till midnight to find the kids or they'll never be seen again. Scooby is more than determined to find everyone, but Mudsy doubts it.

While Speed Buggy, Angel and the principal try to get help (but fail), Scooby, Jabberjaw, Captain Caveman and Mudsy find their friends turned into hamsters. Scooby however, is suspicious and gives the Shaggy hamster a Scooby Snack, which is thrown at him. Scooby realizes that this isn't Shaggy and decides to keep searching. Mudsy vanishes without a trace.

Scooby, Jabberjaw, Captain Caveman, Speed Buggy, Angel and the principal follow Infernicus' trail to the docks where the kids are trapped in a gigantic crate. Jabberjaw and Captain Caveman manage to free them and Scooby's unmasks Infernicus. The culprit is revealed to be Funky Phantom. Funky Phantom was tired of being the mascot and wanted to start his own team of meddling kids. His plan was to disguise himself as a fire skeleton, kidnap the meddling kids, replace them with hamsters (so the mascots would be helpless) and send them back to Africa where they belong. It was a foolproof plan and it would've worked if Scooby and the other didn't interfere. Funky Phantom's ghost cat, Boo gets angry and jumps on Funky Phantom and scratches him for abducting him. Just as the meddling kids start cheering for the mascots, Scooby faints and the dream ends.

Scooby wakes up and finds out his adventure was just a dream all along. Scooby is ashamed that he caused them to miss the party, but Daphne explains that they called the finals and had them move the finals to next week, enough time for Scooby to get better (Fred doesn't know about this). The chairman of the finals arrives and scares Scooby because he looks exactly like Funky Phantom.

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

Supporting characters:
 * Speed Buggy
 * Captain Caveman
 * Jabberjaw
 * Principal Quinlan
 * Angel Dynamite
 * Sheriff Bronson Stone

Villains:
 * Lord Infernicus /
 * Funky Phantom

Other characters:
 * Teen Angels
 * Taffy Dare
 * Dee Dee Skyes
 * Brenda Chance
 * Funky Phantom group
 * April Stewart
 * Skip Gilroy
 * Augie Anderson
 * Boo
 * Elmo
 * Speed Bugs
 * Tinker
 * Mark
 * Debbie
 * Neptunes
 * Biff
 * Shelly
 * Bubbles
 * Clamhead
 * Fred Jones, Sr.
 * Guinea pigs
 * Chairman

Locations

 * Crystal Cove
 * Rogers Mansion
 * Shaggy's bedroom
 * Kitchen
 * Crystal Cove High School
 * Sheriff Bronson Stone's office
 * Crystal Cove Docks
 * Coffee house
 * Chuckle Hut

Objects

 * Scooby Snack
 * Speed Buggy toy
 * Captain Caveman toy
 * Jabberjaw toy

Vehicles

 * The Mystery Machine
 * Looney Duney

Suspects

 * None

Continuity

 * The word "photosynthesis" is written on the classroom board, first seen written by Professor Raffalo in the series pilot.

Notes/trivia

 * This episode focuses on something entirely unrelated to the plot of the series.

Cultural references

 * The dream sequence is done as a homage to not only the mystery-solving shows that Hanna-Barbera did after Scooby-Doo (with some exceptions) but also the designs back then, resembling mostly Iwao Takamoto's work.
 * Speed Buggy, Jabberjaw, Captain Caveman and "Funky Phantom" are based off their original counterparts, all of whom (except the Funky Phantom) had appeared amongst Scooby-Doo in the Laff-a-Lympics TV series, as members of the Scooby Doobies; Speed Buggy had also appeared in an episode of The New Scooby-Doo Movies. Funky Phantom and Speed Buggy also showed up in issue 5 of DC Comics's Scooby-Doo where they teamed up to break Mystery Inc out of jail.
 * The flashback in Funky Phantom's story is based off of the intro of his series. Only in Scooby's dream is he called "Funky Phantom"; in the real HB show, that was only used as a description in the aforementioned intro. In the show, he was nicknamed "Mudsy" after his full name Jonathan Wellington Muddlemore, which the Mystery Incorporated incarnation reveals in his exposition, his teammates just ignorantly called him Funky Phantom and didn't bother to ask him what his name was. It is also worth noting that in the actual show, Mudsy got a fair amount of credit for his work when fighting the bad guys and was not the sidekick (Elmo and Boo were the sidekicks).
 * Suzie Chan from Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan makes a cameo in Funky Phantom's flashback. It is unknown if this is the same Suzie from other episodes.

Animation mistakes and/or technical glitches

 * Daphne's sleeve is blue instead of purple before Fred goes off to "grieve."
 * Fred's eyebrows are yellow when he says "What are we waiting for, gang?"

Inconsistencies/continuity errors and/or goofs/oddities

 * Shaggy's missing from the gang's table when the principal opens the folder.
 * Elmo doesn't appear until Lord Infernicus appears for the first time to make the kids disappear.
 * Even though Boo and Elmo are kidnapped as well, they don't have guinea pig counterparts.
 * The Funky Phantom is revealed to not be a real ghost, even though he can fly and is white. Then again, this was just a dream, so it didn't have to make sense.
 * Gary Cole is credited as Mayor Fred Jones, Sr. and "Black Knight" despite neither character appearing; Mayor Jones, however, is mentioned by Principal Quinlan.

Home media

 * 🇺🇸 Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated: Season One, Part 2 - Crystal Cove Curse DVD set released by Warner Home Video on January 24, 2012.
 * 🇺🇸 Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated: The Complete Season 1  DVD set released by Warner Home Video on October 8, 2013.