What a Night for a Knight

What A Night For A Knight is the the first episode of the first season of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!.

Premise
When Scooby-Doo and Shaggy find an abandoned pick-up truck with a knight's armour in the front seat, the gang deliver it to the museum in place of the professor that delivered it there. However, the Black Knight ghost is said to come alive every full moon. As the gang investigates the Knight, they realise that it is a full moon and the knight has come alive...!

Synopsis
Scooby and Shaggy are walking home from the movies one night and stumble upon a deserted pick-up truck with an empty suit of armor sitting in the driver's seat. Shaggy and Scooby call Fred, Daphne and Velma and they come down to the mysterious truck where they find a plate on a crate in the back of the truck. The plate reads Deliver to Jameson Hyde White: Professor of Archeaology, London, England. They also find a delivery slip reading Deliver to the County Museum.

The gang travels to the museum where they deliver the knight to the museum curator, Mr. Wickles. He explains that when the moon is full, the Black Knight Ghost comes out to wreak havoc. Mr. Wickles also explains that Professor Hyde White has mysteriously disappeared. Scooby finds a strange pair of glasses and the gang heads to the library to search up on the odd spectacles. They read that the spectacles are special glasses used by archeaologists and are from England. They realize these were Professor Hyde White's glasses and something fishy is going on.

The gang returns to the museum at night and break in through an upper window. They split up and look for clues, not knowing that spooky eyes in an Indian effigy are watching them. Scooby, Shaggy and Velma bump into the Black Knight Ghost and have a brief altercation. Scooby runs into the fossil exhibit and begins gnawing on the bone, but is chased by the Knight. He meets up with Shaggy and the two find one of the paintings is missing. He informs the gang, but when they return, the painting is back on the wall. Fred, Daphne, Velma, Shaggy and Scooby follow a trail of paint to a hidden room behind a sarcophagus and find the room full of finished and unfinished paintings. The Knight appears and chases the gang into the relic room, where Scooby and Shaggy hide in a World War biplane. Scooby accidentally flips the power, and the plane roars to life, flying erratically around the room until it finally crashes, taking the zombie down with it. The Knight is unmasked as Mr. Wickles, the curator! He was part of a smuggling ring, he would steal the paintings and sell them, and then paint fakes of the paintings and put them back on the wall (that explained the hidden room, the missing painting and the paint drops on the floor). Mr. Wickles knew that Professor Hyde White would know that the paintings were faked, so he kidnapped him and thought up this Black Knight Ghost ruse. Professor Hyde White is later found tied up in the Indian effigy.

Villains

 * Black Knight/Mr. Wickles

Locations

 * County Museum
 * Public Library

Notes/trivia

 * This was the first episode of the series and the start of the Scooby-Doo franchise.
 * The title card for this episode and the following one are different than the ones in the rest of the series; both show the monster while the rest show the gang running with the title floating above them.
 * "Zoinks!": 4
 * Disguises: Portrait artist
 * Scooby Snacks: 2
 * Though he appears and has dialogue, Fred is never named in this episode.
 * This episode was included in Cartoon Network's Scooby-Doo! Back to School Marathon (August 10-11, 2013).

Comic-book differences
This episode (along with Never Ape an Ape Man) was the first to be adapted in Gold Key Comics' Scooby Doo... Where Are You! #1. It contains the following differences:
 * Wickles is spelt "Wikles".

Animation mistakes and/or technical glitches

 * When Velma loses her glasses, she mistakes the knight for Shaggy and hearing the knight's raspy voice, Velma tries to give the knight cough syrup, thinking it's Shaggy. Shaggy enters and takes the cough syrup. A few scenes later, with no time for Velma to find her glasses, she has her glasses back on.
 * The red crest on the knight's head disappears and reappears a few times during the episode.

Inconstitencies/continuity errors and/or goofs/oddities

 * Mr. Wickles appeared shorter than the Black Knight. Nothing was ever explained of how he made himself look taller.
 * There were two full moons in a row. Then again, the second one could have been a blue moon.
 * When Mr. Wickles was explaining about the legend, the camera moved to the Black Knight, showing its eyes lighting. This wouldn't make sense since Mr. Wickles was the Black Knight.
 * The ladder that Shaggy uses is way too long to fit in the Mystery Machine.
 * Shaggy is known as a great gymnist, however his athletic abilities are never brought up again (even when he and Scooby were dubbed "The World's Greatest Athletes" in the later episode, The Spirit Spooked Sports Show of the next series).
 * How is it possible for a plane inside a museum exhibit to be turned on and flown? Plus, even with the armor protecting him Mr. Wickles would likely have been killed by the plane's impact.
 * It is never revealed what Mr. Wickles was planning to do with Professor Hyde White after kidnapping him.
 * Mr. Wickles hides Professor Hyde White, who is bound and gagged, under a large mask and blanket. The eyes of the mask are shown to move and blink while the Professor is behind it, implying that those are his eyes moving and blinking. However, the eye holes on the mask a much too far apart for the Professor to look through them both at the same time. In addition, while he is bound, he is not actually tied to anything, so he should have been perfectly capable of moving his body get the attention of the kids.
 * It is never explained how Mr. Wickles got into the Black Knight suit at the airport, where it was picked up by the Professor, without anyone noticing.
 * It is also never revealed how he got the Professor from the abandoned car to the County Museum without anyone noticing, though it's possible he simply drove to the Museum in the car with a hidden Professor Hyde White, then simply drove the car back to a convenient spot and left it.

Home media

 * Scooby-Doo: Pesonal Favourites VHS.
 * Scooby-Doo! Scooby-Doo and a Mummy Too VHS.
 * Scooby-Doo's Original Mysteries DVD released March 14 2000.
 * Scooby-Doo's Original Mysteries VHS released June 4, 2002.
 * Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!: The Complete 1st and 2nd Seasons DVD set released March 16, 2004.
 * Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!: Volume 1 - A Monster Catch DVD released January 27, 2009.
 * Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!: The Complete Series DVD set released November 9, 2010.