Scooby-Doo


 * This article is about the original incarnation of Scooby-Doo. For other terms, meanings and incarnations, see Scooby-Doo (disambiguation).

Scoobert "Scooby"-Doo is a Great Dane belonging to Shaggy Rogers, and mascot of Mystery Inc..

Scooby-Doo was born on the Knittingham Puppy Farm (owned by Mrs. Knittingham).

Physical appearance
Scooby is brown from head to toe with several distinctive black spots on his upper body. He is generally a quadruped, but displays bipedal 'human' characteristics occasionally. Scooby also has opposible thumbs and can use his front paws like hands. He has a black nose and wears an off-yellow, diamond shaped-tagged blue collar with an "SD" (his initials) and has four toes on each foot and unlike other dogs, Scooby only has one pad on the sole of each of his feet (so that it was easier to draw in the Scooby-Doo Annuals).

Scooby has a fully prehensile tail he can use to swing from or press buttons. Both his head and tail are malleable and useful as a communication aid or creating a distraction.

Iwao Takamoto later explained that before he designed the character, he first spoke to a Great Dane breeder, who described to him the desirable characteristics of a pedigree dog. Takamoto then drew Scooby as the opposite of this. He said "I decided to go the opposite [way] and gave him a hump back, bowed legs, small chin and such. Even his colour is wrong."[2]

Personality
Scooby-Doo and Shaggy share several personality traits, mostly being scared easily, but their friends (Velma Dinkley, Daphne Blake and Fred Jones) encourage them to go after the costumed villains usually with "Scooby Snacks", a biscuit-like dog treat or cookie snack (usually shaped like a bone or as shown in later versions of the cartoons Scooby's dog tag), though occasionally appealing to Scooby-Doo inherent loyalty and courage to take a more heroic stance.

In all iterations, Scooby has a speech impediment and tends to pronounce most words as if they begin with an "R", though most of the characters are able to understand him perfectly. His catch phrase, usually howled at the end of every episode, is "Scooby-Dooby-Doo!" or "Rooby-Rooby-Roo", sometimes followed by a quirky chuckle.

Family and relatives
Over the course of Scooby-Doo's various spinoffs, many relatives of Scooby were introduced:
 * Scrappy-Doo: Scooby's young nephew (and son of Scooby's sister Ruby-Doo),
 * Scooby-Dum: Scooby's cousin, a gray dog. A Mortimer Snerd-esque dog who longed to be a detective; he was rather dimwitted (he'd keep looking for clues even after the mystery was solved).
 * Scooby-Dee: Scooby's cousin, a white dog. Spoke with a Southern accent, and was an actress, even though she was Scooby's cousin, she acted more like a girlfriend.
 * Yabba-Doo: Scooby's brother, a white dog owned by Deputy Dusty in the American southwest. Unlike Scooby's and Scrappy's, his typical custom catch-phrase at the end is "Yippity-Yabbity-Doooo!!!", and not "Yabba-Dabba-Doo!"
 * Dooby Dooby Doo: Scooby's identical cousin. He is a famous singer and is one of few of Scooby's relatives who had hair.
 * Mumsy-Doo: Scooby's mother.
 * Dada-Doo: Scooby's father.
 * Whoopsy-Doo: Scooby's cousin, a clown. Owned by Norville's uncle, Gaggy Rogers.
 * Ruby-Doo: Scooby's sister, and mother of Scrappy-Doo.
 * Skippy-Doo: Scooby's brother. He is highly intelligent and wears glasses.
 * Howdy-Doo: Scooby's brother. Enjoyed reading supermarket tabloid newspapers. He appears to become a redhead.
 * Horton-Doo: Scooby's uncle. Was interested in monsters and science.
 * Dixie Doo: Scooby's cousin.
 * Grandpa Scooby: Scooby's grandfather.
 * Great-Grandpa Scooby: Scooby's great-grandfather.
 * Yankee Doodle Doo: Ancestor of Scooby who came to Plymouth, Massachusetts aboard the Mayflower with Shaggy's ancestor, McBaggy Rogers.
 * Dandy Doo: Great Grandfather of Scooby Doo. Was rich and owned a mansion.
 * Wooey Doo: Great Uncle of Scooby Doo.

Notes/trivia

 * The name Scooby-Doo comes from the last line of the Frank Sinatra song "Strangers In The Night",[3] although other singers have used the phrase before Sinatra's song was released.
 * Scooby-Doo was once impersonated by former N'Sync star J.C. Chasez in the What's New, Scooby-Doo? episode, A Scooby-Doo Valentine''.
 * He usually says, at least once per episode, "Ruh-roh, Raggy" ("Uh-oh, Shaggy").
 * Scooby's voice is similar to that of the earlier character Astro from The Jetsons, also voiced by Don Messick.
 * According to the novels, Scooby likes peach cobbler(ref needed).

Appearances in other media

 * Scooby-Doo appeared twice in Cartoon Network's The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy as a character who is described as being on the "wrong show," where he speaks very little. He appears in "Reap Walking" and "Keeper of the Reaper", the former was a brief non-speaking cameo while the latter was voiced by Frank Welker.
 * Scooby has appeared in Johnny Bravo in the episodes "Bravo Dooby-Doo" and "'Twas The Night" during the first season voiced both times by Hadley Kay.
 * In an episode of Yin Yang Yo! called "Slumber Party of Doom", Scooby and Shaggy make two cameos. The first being Shaggy complaining about Yin and Yang stealing their montages and Scooby saying, "It sucks!"
 * Scooby-Doo and Shaggy made a cameo appearance in Looney Tunes: Back In Action complaining to Matthew Lillard (who played Shaggy) about his performance in the live-action Scooby-Doo movies.
 * Scooby-Doo appears as a guest in a 1996 video called Kids for Character.
 * Scooby-Doo also appears in an episode of Drawn Together.
 * Scooby-Doo was once impersonated by David Beckham in an animated Scooby-Doo promo from the United Kingdom.
 * Scooby-Doo appears in the Robot Chicken episode "Operation: Rich in Spirit" voiced by Dave Coulier (who previously imitated Scooby's voice in Full House). He is amongst Mystery Inc. members who end up killed by Jason Voorhees except Velma. Seth Green voices him in the episode "Ban on the Fun" when in the segment that parodies the Laff-A-Lympics in the style of the Munich massacre. This time, Scooby did not get killed.
 * In an episode of Robotboy when Robotboy and his 'mother' escape from police with a big speaker, a dog which looks like Scooby hangs on to the speaker and follows them home.
 * In an episode of Batman: The Brave and the Bold. This episode alludes to The New Scooby-Doo Movies where Batman originally starred in. However with some meddling from Bat-Mite not only were the dynamic duo able to fight unlike in the original appearance, but he also removed Shaggy and Scooby's cowardice allowing them to, for the first time, fight the villains toe to toe.

Voice actors
Don Messick originated the character's voice patterns, and provided Scooby-Doo's voice in every Scooby-Doo production from 1969 until 1996, when Messick got a stroke and retired. Scott Innes (also the then-voice of Shaggy) voiced Scooby-Doo in four late 1990s/early 2000s direct-to-video films, and Frank Welker (also the voice of Fred) took over beginning with What's New, Scooby-Doo? in 2002.

In other languages
In Brazil, the actor Orlando Drummond has been the voice of Scooby Doo for 30 years.


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