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Pompeii and Circumstance

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Pompeii and Circumstance is the thirteenth episode of the first season of What's New, Scooby-Doo?

Premise[]

While visiting Italy, Mystery Inc. battles an ancient zombie gladiator who appears to be responsible for causing volcano eruptions.

Synopsis[]

In the historic city of Pompeii, tourists are terrorized by a zombie gladiator riding on a horse-drawn chariot. Meanwhile, Mystery Inc. tours the various cities in Italy, but discovers in Florence that the country is being modernized by the Scungimondo Corporation, a construction company building on areas without historic artifacts; lands with artifacts are protected by Italian law. While travelling throughout the rest of Italy, they discover that, due to the cancellation of their train ride, they are unable to reach Naples. Due to a miscommunication caused by Fred's poor Italian, they ride on a garbage boat to Pompeii. They hear from the captain, Guzman, that the city is haunted by a zombie gladiator.

Upon their arrival in Pompeii, Mystery Inc. tours the destroyed city guided by Alexandra Viggi. At night when the gladiator is purported to appear, they attempt to tour the city, but are stopped by security guard Ugo DiRinaldi, who claims Pompeii is closed to the public. However, as the city cannot be closed, they ignore his warnings and enter Pompeii to investigate. They follow cheering noises to the coliseum, only to find the coliseum completely empty except for the zombie gladiator and the ghost emperor Caesar Saladicus, who orders the gladiator to attack them. They are chased out of the coliseum and on a motorboat to the island of Capri, where they escape on a funicular.

The next day, Mystery Inc. travels to Naples and rent mopeds. However, they witness Mount Vesuvius, a long-dormant volcano, begin to erupt. Believing the volcano to be related to the gladiator attacks, they decide to return to Pompeii (noting Ugo's cervical brace) and set a trap for the monster. However, when the gladiator appears, it simply jumps over the net, completely avoiding the trap. Mystery Inc. is chased off a road, off the edge of a cliff, and into the sea, only being rescued by Guzman's garbage boat. They deem the captain suspicious upon finding a valuable candelabrum among the trash.

After returning to Naples and renting a car to replace the mopeds that fell into the sea, they go to the erupting Mount Vesuvius to investigate the eruption. They scale the volcano with Viggi's help, but she refuses to take them to the volcano's mouth, leaving them with a warning of the dangers there. Against her advice, they continue to the mouth, where they discover a generator hooked to the volcano. They discover valuable items in the volcano's mouth, finding the candelabrum nearby. They witness Guzman arrive at the scene and dump a truck containing more valuables into the volcano's mouth.

Shaggy attempts to disguise himself as the gladiator to confront Guzman, but he and Mystery Inc. are attacked by the real gladiator. Fred quickly tackles and subdues the monster, knocking it unconscious. However, the lava in the volcano begins to rise with an eruption imminent, and only the gladiator knew how to control the machine regulating the volcano. To prevent a potentially-catastrophic eruption, Daphne kicks the generator, stopping the machine. They then call Viggi, who arrives with police officer Fabbricini to arrest the culprits.

The gladiator turned out to be DiRinaldi. The vice president of the Scungimondo Corporation, DiRinaldi wanted to grow his company, but Italian law prevented him from building on lands with historic artifacts. In order to acquire the land for construction, he regularly dumped artefacts from across Italy and dumped them into the volcano's mouth, disguising himself as a gladiator to scare others away from his operations. During the motorboat chase to Capri, Ugo sustained a whiplash injury from stopping the vehicle suddenly, explaining his use of the neck brace the following day. An accomplice in the crime, Guzman disguised himself as Emperor Saladicus to assist him in his crimes. After the two perpetrators are handed over to the police, Mystery Inc. returns to Naples to eat at an outdoor cafe.

Characters[]

Main characters:

Supporting characters:

Villains:

Other characters:

Locations[]

Objects[]

Vehicles[]

  • Chariot
  • Mopeds
  • Maserati

Suspects[]

Suspect Motive/reason
Alexandra Viggi She refused to bring the gang to the top of the volcano.
Ugo DiRinaldi He warned the gang that things can get very scary in the ruins.
Captain Guzman He had suspicious artifacts on his barge.

Culprits[]

Culprit Motive/reason
Ugo DiRinaldi as the gladiator
Captain Guzman as Caesar Saladicus 		Illegally excavating and dumping artifacts into Mount Vesuvius, so there could be more land for Scungimondo to build on.

Cast[]

Frank Welker Scooby-Doo
Fred Jones
Casey Kasem Shaggy Rogers
Mindy Cohn Velma Dinkley
Grey DeLisle Daphne Blake
Waitress
Mark Hamill Captain Guzman
Emperor Caesar Saladicus
Daran Norris Ugo DiRinaldi
Shopkeeper
Zombie Gladiator
Tara Strong Alexandra Viggi

Songs[]

Song Credits Performed by Character performance by
"Hai Capito" Written by Rich Dickerson and Gigi Meroni Luciano Palermi, Raffaella Camera, and Rich Dickerson N/A

Notes/trivia[]

Miscellaneous[]

Cultural references[]

  • The episode name is a parody of the expression "pomp and circumstance," meaning formal activities or ceremonies.
  • Daphne has a credit card named HNB, an allusion to Hanna-Barbera.
  • Scooby-Doo and Shaggy having an accidental kiss as the result of eating spaghetti from the same plate is a reference to the film Lady and the Tramp.

Animation mistakes and/or technical glitches[]

  • Scooby isn't wearing his goggles when holding the two Scooby Snax boxes, and his scarf is also teal.

Inconsistencies/continuity errors and/or goofs/oddities[]

  • The map of Italy labelled with the locations Perugia and Sorrento misspell them as "Perugla" and "Sorrenlo", respectively.
  • Velma claims that the closest point to the island of Capri is Naples. This is, however, incorrect, as the closest town is, in reality, Sorrento.
  • During the imminent eruption, the lava is seen pouring over the top of the volcano. However, after the eruption is averted, the lava recedes back into the volcano, apparently having never poured out of the mouth.
  • After Daphne goes in another direction while in the Colosseum, her purse disappears, which would have been handy to explain where she suddenly got the headscarf and sunglasses from. It is possible she had money that was not from her credit card that she used to buy them (presumably quickly) after they brought the convertible.
  • Scooby says ouch when he does not get his nose pinched.
  • Guzman's motives for helping Ugo are not explained.
  • Apparently it did not occur to either Captain Guzman or Ugo that they could make much more money by selling the artifacts excavated than the buildings.
  • At the end, when Velma translates Fred's Italian phrase as "where's the bathroom?", she is partially incorrect; "where's the bathroom?" in Italian is "dov'è il bagno", the phrase Fred said, "dov'è il gabinetto", means "where's the toilet?".

In other languages[]

Language Name Meaning
French Le gladiateur de Pompéi The Gladiator of Pompeii
Greek Το Τέρας της Πομπηίας
Περιπέτειες στην Πομπηία 		The Monster of Pompeii
Adventures in Pompeii
Italian Un Viaggio A Pompei A Trip To Pompeii
Norwegian Gladiatoren i Pompeii The gladiator in Pompeii
Polish Heca w Pompejach Fun in Pompeii
Spanish (Latin America) Pompeya y Circunstancia Pompeii and Circumstance

Home media[]

Quotes[]

Fred: We were told that Pompeii might not be so safe lately. Lots of pandemonium and mayhem.
Alexandra: Oh, it's just a charming local rumour.
Shaggy: Which is more charming? The pandemonium or the mayhem?

External links[]


Previous episode: Series: Next episode:
Lights! Camera! Mayhem! What's New, Scooby-Doo?
Season 1 		The Unnatural
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