Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!



Scooby-Doo, Where are You! was the first incarnation of the long-running Hanna-Barbera Saturday morning cartoon Scooby-Doo. It premiered on September 13, 1969 at 10:30 AM EST and ran for two seasons on CBS as a half-hour long show. Twenty-five episodes were produced (seventeen in 1969 - 1970 and eight more in 1970 - 1971).

Overview
For more details on this topic, see Scooby-Doo#Creation and development. Scooby-Doo, Where are You! was the result of CBS and Hanna-Barbera's plans to create a non-violent Saturday morning program which would appease the parent watchgroups that had protested the superhero-based programs of the mid-1960s. Originally titled Mysteries Five, and later Who's S-S-Scared?, Scooby-Doo, Where are You! underwent a number of changes from script to screen (the most notable of which was the removal of a musical group angle borrowed from The Archie Show). However, the basic concept -- four teenagers (Fred, Daphne, Velma, and Shaggy) and a large goofy dog (Scooby-Doo) solving supernatural-related mysteries -- was always in place.

Scooby-Doo creators Joe Ruby and Ken Spears served as the story supervisors on the series. Ruby, Spears, and Bill Lutz wrote all of the scripts for the seventeen first-season Scooby episodes, while Lutz, Larz Bourne, and Tom Dagenais wrote the eight second-season episodes. The plot varied little from episode to episode, running essentially as follows:

The Mystery, Inc. gang turn up in the Mystery Machine, en route to or returning from a regular teenage function--a dance, a rock festival, etc. Their destination is suffering from a "ghost" or "monster" problem. The kids volunteer to investigate the case. The gang splits up to cover more ground, with Fred and Velma finding clues, Daphne finding danger, and Shaggy and Scooby finding food, fun, and the ghost/monster, who gives chase. Scooby and Shaggy in particular love to eat, including dog treats referred to as "Scooby Snacks"(Scooby and Shaggy both eat them). Eventually, enough clues are found to convince the gang that the ghost/monster is a fake, and a trap is set to capture it. The trap invariably fails. Scooby Doo slips, one way or another, and hurtles toward the ghost/monster, who falls down. The ghost/monster is apprehended and unmasked; the person in the ghost or monster suit turns out to be an apparently blameless authority figure who is using the disguise to cover up criminal activity. The offender(s) - after giving the parting shot of "And I would have gotten away with it if it weren't for you meddling kids, and your dog!" - is then taken away to jail, and the gang is allowed to continue on their way to their destination.

Voices
The episode title card from Scooby-Doo, Where are You! episode #5: "Decoy For a Dognapper."As with most Hanna-Barbera shows, Scooby-Doo features an emphasis placed on verbal rather than visual storytelling, and the work of the voice artists was particularly important. Don Messick, the voice of Astro the dog, Dr. Benton Quest, and Boo-Boo Bear--among others--provided the raspy, mumbling voice of Scooby-Doo. Radio dee jay Casey Kasem voiced Shaggy, young actor Frank Welker voiced Fred (which began Welker's long career in voice work), and actress Nicole Jaffe voiced Velma. Indira Stefanianna Christopherson voiced Daphne during the first season, and moved to New York City to marry and start a family before production began on the second season. As a result, Nicole Jaffe's roommate, Heather North, took over the role of Daphne.

Music
Studio musical director Ted Nichols wrote an instrumental theme for the show, which was for the opening credits of and under the title cards for the premiere episode, "What a Night for a Knight". The closing theme of the first show was the now more familiar "Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!" theme song, written by David Mook and Ben Raleigh and recorded by Mook three days before the show's September 13 broadcast premiere. After Nichol's theme was used as both the opening and closing theme of the second broadcast episode, "A Clue for Scooby-Doo", Mook and Raliegh's theme became the permanent opening credits theme, and was also heard as the closing credits theme on all but three episodes: "Hassle in the Castle", "Which Witch is Which", and "A Night of Fright is No Delight", which used the original instrumental theme in syndication in the 1990s. Nichols' original theme is, however, heard under the title card for each episode of both this and the follow-up series, The New Scooby-Doo Movies, and is very prominently used as background score for most Scooby-Doo episodes through 1979.

The second season featured "chase scene" songs produced by La La Productions (which had originally been contracted to create the music for Josie and the Pussycats, the first of many shows made from the same mold as Scooby-Doo). These songs were written by Danny Janssen and Austin Roberts, and were performed by Roberts, who also made a new recording of the "Scooby-Doo, Where are You" theme song for the second season episodes.

Both seasons contained a laugh track, which was standard practice for American cartoon series during the 1960s and 1970s. It was removed for syndication in the 1980s. The laugh track was then reinstated when Cartoon Network began airing the show.

Release and reaction
Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! was a breakaway hit for Hanna-Barbera and CBS, who quickly introduced similar cartoons to accompany Scooby-Doo: Josie and the Pussycats (1970), The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show (1971) (which re-imagined the toddlers from The Flintstones as high-school students), and The Funky Phantom (also 1971).

In 2005, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! came 49th in Channel 4's 100 Greatest Cartoons [1]. As of 2006, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! is also the only classic Hanna-Barbera series that continues to air on the Cartoon Network; the others were gradually moved to Boomerang in the early 2000s. All 25 episodes were released to DVD in March 2004 as Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! The Complete First and Second Season.