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Guess Who's Knott Coming to Dinner is the fifth episode of the first season of The New Scooby-Doo Movies.

Premise

The kids happen upon Moody Manor to ask for directions, but they find Homer Pipsqueak, a detective, on the search for the missing Captain Moody, and they get mistaken for Moody's nieces and nephews.

Synopsis

The gang is heading in the mystery machine down a spooky road, during a thunderstorm. They are trying to get to Pinecrest Lodge, but find an old gate which has a sign hanging over it reading "MOODY MANOR". Velma gets out, and pushes the gates down. The gang heads to the old mansion to ask for directions. The Mystery Machine stops because a tree has fallen about halfway up the drive, and the gang is forced to walk. They don't realize that Don Knotts (as a lumberjack) is following them. He hides behind things and cackles. Then, he sneezes, and his facial disguise comes off, revealing Don Knotts. He quikly puts everything back on, and follows the gang. Scooby happens to look behind, and sees Don Knotts sneezing again, whith the same effect. Scooby then tries to convince the gang, but Don Knotts is gone.

Once they reach the masion, everyone goes in, and the door closes behind them. Don Knotts is in his changing room, and switches to a Butler outfit, Featherstone. He comes out of a panel in the wall and mistakes them for coming to see Captain Moody, a man in a portrait hanging over the fireplace. Featherstone reveals the Captain Moody is not there. But Featherstone rushes off to get the captain's good friend, Phineas. They proceed to try and find a secret exit. Don Knotts changes into a Phineas costume. Scooby hits a secret lever in a room, and a bookshelf opens to reveal a secret passage.

The passage is very dark and spooky, and a spider scares Shaggy and Scooby. Everyone runs out of there, but comes to a dead end. The floor opens up and they fall through a trapdoor, leaving them in the room where they started. Phineas comes out of the same panel in the wall, shouting orders. Phineas mistakes them all, including Scooby, for Captain Moody's nieces and nephews. He then leads them to dinner, where nobody eats anything because they speculate that it is poison (except for scooby). They say they are too full, and Phineas calls the maid to take them to their rooms. Don Knotts (Phineas) changes into his maid costume, and comes out of the same panel Phineas and Featherstone did. The gang thinks they are all related.

Fred, Shaggy, and Scooby walk into their room where the maid is leaving. Daphne argues with Velma about turning the lights off, and then the power goes out. Luckily, Shaggy finds a candle and then gets scared by clock. Shaggy and Scooby decide to go look for some food. Velma and Daphne follow them, but they don't see each other. Eventually, they run into each other, and Velma and Daphne race back to their room. Shaggy and Scooby make themselves very large sandwiches. They get scared by Don Knotts (disguised as Captain Moody's ghost) and run back to their rooms.

The ghost appears in their room, and Fred, Shaggy, and Scooby all race out of there. They go into the girls' room, where they also are scared by the ghost. The ghost switches back and forth between ghost and Don Knotts. This scene has the classic door chase scene. They all run into a room where they blockade the door. Fred is at the bookshelf when it turns around, revealing the ghost. Fred comes back around, which wipes the hat off the ghost (Don Knotts) and Don runs. Freddy rings for the maid, and Don Knotts hastily puts on the Featherstone costume. He then returns, wearing a little of both costumes.They all realize that he's faking it.

Don Knotts rips off the wig, and pretends to be a Private Eye named Homer Pipsqueak. He tells he got a phone call from Captain Moody this morning and rushed there. He couldn't find Captain Moody, who is missing. He tries to get the gang to admit that they're his nieces and nephews. He splits them all up into groups, and he trains Scooby to be a bloodhound. Shaggy goes to check the old mine on the hill in the back. He finds the ghost, who he thinks is just Mr. Pipsqueak. He later comes along and finds Don Knotts and Scooby, and then he realizes that the ghost is an actual ghost.

Everyone suspects something is going on at the mill. Everyone goes down there, and they find Captain Moody in a minecart. The drop the ghosts into a seperate one, and rescue Captain Moody. The ghosts turn out to be the captain's nephews, who arrived a day early.

The gang and Homer Pipsqueak (Don Knotts) join Captain Moody for dinner later that night. They ask him for the directions they came there for, but he is unable to give it to them.

Characters

Main characters:

Supporting characters:

Villains:

Other characters:

Locations

Objects

  • TBA

Vehicles

Suspects

Suspect Motive/reason
The gang Homer Pipsqueak mistook them for Moody's relatives.

Culprits

Culprit Motive/reason
Captain Moody's nephews as the Ghost of Captain Moody To get their inheritance.

Cast

Don Messick Scooby-Doo
Captain Moody
Casey Kasem Shaggy Rogers
Ghost of Captain Moody
Frank Welker Fred Jones
Heather North Daphne Blake
Nicole Jaffe Velma Dinkley
Don Knotts Homer Pipsqueak

Full credits

The following credits are how they are seen on-screen (or as close as possible).


Notes/trivia

  • Don Knotts guest stars for the first time in this episode, whether or not it's actually him. His second and last appearance is in The Spooky Fog of Juneberry, where he actually does play himself.
  • Knotts passed away on February 24, 2006. Aside from his two appearances on The New Scooby-Doo Movies, he also lent his voice to the 2002 video game Scooby-Doo! Night of 100 Frights.
  • When this episode was rerun in syndication and on cable, a two-minute sequence was cut after Knotts makes himself up as Phineas where the gang is trying to find a secret passage, and then after sneezing from a small pile of dust, Scooby ends up in the fireplace facing up the flue, noticing a way out and trying to convince the others that it's a secret passage. Said reruns of this episode would go from Knotts admiring his Phineas getup to Scooby already climbing up inside the chimney. This scene is restored on home video and streaming releases of the episode.

Cultural references

  • The episode title is a pun on the 1967 film Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?, starring Sidney Poitier, Katherine Hepburn, and Spencer Tracy (in his final film role).

Animation mistakes and/or technical glitches

  • The gang entered the gateway twice already, then later the tires of the Mystery Machine, seem going.
  • When the Mystery Machine is shown driving through the winds from an aerial view, it seems to be much longer than usual.
  • At the establishing shot of the mansion before we see Shaggy and Scooby get out of bed to go to the kitchen, the light in their room is flickering off and on, even though the power had already presumably gone out from the storm.
  • Daphne's mouth moves, but Velma's voice is heard after Velma steps on a loose board on their way to the kitchen.

Inconsistencies/continuity errors and/or goofs/oddities

  • While it's clear that Knotts guest stars in this episode to the audience (his name is even introduced in the title card, as all celebrity guests are), what's unclear is whether or not he's playing himself or look-a-like, Homer Pipsqueak. His surname is used as a play on words in the episode's title, and at the beginning of the episode, Scooby thinks he sees Knotts in the bushes, but no one believes him and when Homer reveals his true identity, only Scooby thinks it's Knotts, but is quickly corrected when the detective only gives his name as Homer Pipsqueak. Interestingly enough, Knotts's caricature in The Spooky Fog of Juneberry was also a law enforcement officer.
  • Captain Moody's nieces (and one remaining nephew) didn't show up to the feast.
  • When Shaggy and Scooby are chased back to their bedroom in Moody Manor by the Ghost of Captain Moody, Scooby closes and locks the door. After he realizes Shaggy is still in the hallway, he opens it back up, to which Shaggy shuts it and jumps into bed. When the camera returns to Scooby at the door, the door is somehow wide open again.
  • The gang run inside the closet in Daphne and Velma's room to hide. When they realize the Ghost is in the closet, they all run out, except Daphne. When the Ghost of Captain Moody floats out, the camera shows the whole gang, including Daphne, a moment later, cowering by the door, although Daphne never actually left the closet.

In other languages

Language Name Meaning
Greek Μάντεψε Ποιος Δεν Θα Έρθει γαι Δείπνο Guess Who's Not Coming to Dinner
Hungarian Ki érkezik vacsorára? Who's coming to dinner?

Home media

Quotes

Daphne: I like how it's furnished-early Frankenstein.


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The Frickert Fracas The New Scooby-Doo Movies
Season 1
A Good Medium is Rare
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