It's a Wonderful Scoob

It's A Wonderful Scoob is the ninth episode of The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo.

Premise
Scooby has a traumatic experience with demon Time Slime and is replaced by lazy dog Bernie Gumshire, but Vincent Van Ghoul shows what will happen to the gang if Scooby doesn't come out of retirement.

Synopsis
While in pursuit of Time Slime, a demon (or ghost) who can control time, Scooby has a close call, after being forced through a temporal vortex resulting from the villain's failed attack (in which Vincent recovers the Time Staff, which Time Slime uses to control time)

With this event, all the years of danger, fear and spookiness catches up with Scooby at last. He decides he doesn't want to be in the ghost chasing business any more, and quits the gang. Moving back in with his parents (Mumsy and Dada Doo), he refuses to even speak with any of his old associates, other than telling them he is done and is not coming back.

At a loss, the gang puts the pursuit of Time Slime on hold and starts to interview for a team replacement for Scooby, fielding many anthropomophic dog interviewees. Flim-Flim, predictably, picks the absolute worst candidate: Bernie Gumshire, who is cowardly like Scooby but also dim, lazy and extremely unmotivated. The reformed team resumes the hunt, but are easily captured by Time Slime.

Vincent, observing this disasterous turn through his Crystal Ball, takes a more subtle approach to bring Scooby back into the fold. He visits Scooby and shows him, by use of the Time Staff, the future if things continue the way the are. The world has totally fallen into ruin, Time Slime has absolute rule, and his old friends have either turned evil or insane. This gives Scooby new resolve, and, in a rare form for Scooby, fiercely attacks Time Slime and defeats him singlehandedly. The gang welcomes Scooby back into the fold, whereas Bernie is ambivalent (indeed, maybe even relieved) with his dismissal from the team.

Villains

 * Time Slime
 * Bogel and Weerd

Locations

 * The Lair of Time
 * Mumsy and Dada-Doo's Home

Notes/trivia

 * The episode references It's a Wonderful Life, in which a man gets to see how many things would have gone wrong if he had never been born.
 * At one point, the President of the United States himself urges Scooby to rethink his retirement and rejoin the team. This president is obviously Ronald Reagan (who was president at original airtime). On his desk is a jar of jellybeans -- Reagan was famous for loving Jelly Belly brand Jellybeans.
 * In the Nightmare Future (Slime Time), Daphne and Shaggy (and even Bogle and Weerd) look significantly older, whereas Flim-Flam and Scrappy do not appear to have aged at all.
 * This episode is the first time in the franchise history Scooby-Doo is seen as a baby; he looks exactly like Scrappy-Doo.
 * It bears noting that, at the end of the episode, Scooby fearlessly confronts Time Slime alone, frees his friends, destroys the trap, takes down one of the thirteen ghosts, Bogel and Weerd singlehandledly in seconds. This seems to hint that, aside from Scooby's usual cowardly reactions, he can be extremely competent at battling ghosts when he's motivated.

Home media

 * The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo!: The Complete Series DVD boxset.