The Scarab Lives!

The Scarab Lives! is the first episode of the original half-hour, Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo (first series)Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo.

Premise
Shaggy and Scooby's favorites comic book, The Blue Scarab, becomes the center of this mystery. The Blue Scarab writer, Jerry Sloan, is haunted by his comic creation, who wants him to stop writing.

Synopsis
Jerry Sloan, a cartoonist, is being menaced by his own comic book creation, the Blue Scarab, a superhero, who is forcing Sloan to stop drawing comic books of the Scarab. The gang and their new friend, Scooby's nephew who wants to fight monsters and ghosts, Scrappy-Doo, hear about the menace in Jerry Sloan's studio and decide to help, since The Blue Scarab is Shaggy and Scooby's favorite comic book.

After they interview him, Scooby and Shaggy stay at the studio while Daphne, Velma, & Fred talk to Jerry Sloan's publisher, Mr. Hardy. Mr. Hardy tells the gang if Sloan doesn't keep writing comics, he'll be fired! Meanwhile, at ther studio, the Blue Scarab returns, threatening Sloan to stop making the comics and if he doesn't, he will turn to a life of crime, and then the Blue Scarab vanishes just as Fred and the girls arrive. Scrappy chases the Blue Scarab as he is leaving, and tries to catch him, but instead, accidentally catches Mr. Sloan's assistant, Howard Gruger, who quits because of the Scarab business.

Shaggy discovers that the Blue Scarab is doing the same thing that the character is doing in an unpublished comic book of Sloan's, turning to a life of crime, almost as if the realk-life Scarab is acting out the unpublished comic. Sloan tells the gang the only person who has read the unpublished comic is Mr. Hardy.

The Blue Scarab begins a crime spree across town, robbing a jewelry store, then a bank and then the local museum. The gang chases the Scarab around the city, trying to foil his robberies but they don't succeed. The gang then tries to figure out where the Scarab could be heading next, after hearing that Sloan has quit until the Scarab is captured. Velma deduces that the Scarab should be at the newspaper printing factory, and they follow him there to capture him. They find him in the machinery room, and Shaggy, Scooby, and Scrappy accidentally wind up on a conveyor belt, heading towards a machine with a sharp blade coming at them. They manage to escape and in the process, capture the Blue Scarab by wrapping him up in unprinted paper.

Back at the studio, the gang explains the clues that helped them figure out what was going on. Because of the crimes, whoever was pretending to be the Scarab, had to have read the unpublished comic. Their second clue is that whoever it was might be a good artist. The Scarab was painted pretty well on the wall. It could have been Sloan's competitor, Floyd Hotchkiss, the best artist in town. But their last clue is the Blue Scarab's disappearence in the hallway. And the only person in the hall was Sloan's assistant, Howard Gruger. Sloan unmasks the Scarab as Howard Gruger. He padded his suit and loaded it with gadgets like Sloan created in his comic. Grueger was sick & tired of being Sloan's unknown assistant. He dressed up like the Blue Scarab to destroy the Scarab so he could create his own character. Gruger is apprehended and presumably taken to prison.

Villains

 * Blue Scarab/Howard Gruger

Locations

 * Lake City
 * Jerry Sloan's studio
 * Malt shop
 * Press room
 * Romeo Jewelry
 * Lake City Museum

Notes/trivia

 * When the stack of comics falls on Scooby, one of them has Yogi Bear on its front cover.

Animation mistakes and/or technical glitches

 * TBA

Inconsistencies/continuity errors and/or goofs/oddities

 * TBA

Home media

 * TBA