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Spooky Space Kook (episode)

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This article is about the episode. For the character, see Spooky Space Kook. For other uses, see Spooky Space Kook (disambiguation).

Spooky Space Kook is the fifteenth episode of the first season of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!

Premise[]

The gang investigate an airfield supposedly haunted by a ghostly alien with a cackling, shrieking laugh.

Synopsis[]

A mysterious aircraft appears and lands behind some trees, then a mysterious, glowing ghost in a spacesuit walks down the road, stops, and unleashes a maniacal laugh.

Copilots trapped with the Spooky Space Kook

Scooby, Shaggy and the gang are driving down an old country road and are running out of gas and have to stop soon. They park at an old farmhouse and talk to an old farmer who at first mistakes the gang for reporters. The gang explain their situation and the man says that the reporters have been bothering him because a spooky spacecraft and an alien has been haunting an abandoned airfield adjacent to the farm.

After getting gas, Fred, Daphne, Velma, Shaggy and Scooby realize they have a mystery on their hands, and they follow the spacecraft to the abandoned airfield, where they found more of the glowing footprints leading through the gate which blew open from the wind. While tracking the glowing footprints, Shaggy and Scooby decided to stay behind, only to get frightened the space ghost's spooky laugh, causing them to run after Fred and the girls. They find a shed with a strange whirring sound coming from inside it and more of the glowing footprints leading into the shed. When the gang decide to look inside the shed, Shaggy suggests they peek through the window first. As he peeks through the window, Shaggy sees Scooby through it and wonders how he got in, but it was just Scooby's reflection in the window. When Velma asks Shaggy what he sees, Shaggy says he can't anything, and the window's too filthy to see through. When Fred opens the shed door, the gang find that the footprints just stopped at the door. Looking inside the shed, they found the source of the whirring noise; a generator that's been running recently. Just then, the ghostly spacecraft touched down outside, and the gang split up to investigate it.

While searching their part of the airfield, Scooby and Shaggy have a run-in with the space ghost, but they managed to escape him. Meanwhile, Fred and the girls search the machine shop for clues where Daphne found fresh grease, and Fred gets caught by a hook and is dangling in the air. He tells Daphne and Velma to find Shaggy and Scooby. Meanwhile, Shaggy and Scooby go into the parachute loft where they get scared by a test dummy and hid into a pile of parachute and end up scaring each other after covering themselves with parachutes and mistake themselves as ghosts. Running out of the building, they pass Daphne and Velma who recognize Scooby's paws from underneath one of the parachute sheets. Velma whistles at the duo who were relieved to see the girls. When Shaggy asked where Fred is, the girls told them that he's hanging by the machine shop hook. They rescue him just as the ghost arrives, prompting the kids to flee.

Shaggy and Scooby arrive at the mess hall where they find fresh food, but the ghost comes again and chases them away. Fred, Daphne, and Velma found a copy of the Gazette newspaper hidden in a barrel. The paper had fingerprints on it that glowed just like the ghost's footprints, leading them to the conclusion that the ghost was reading the paper. Daphne pointed out that one of the cover stories had been circled, which turned out to be a report about the unexplained appearances of the ghost's spaceship around the airfield. Velma also noted an important clue: the paper was only one day old.

Meanwhile, Shaggy and Scooby get chased by the ghost into the supply department shed. Shaggy locks the door and Scooby throws the key out of the window, but they noticed another door and barricade it with a table, but the ghost opens the door which opens the other way. When Shaggy asks Scooby to give him the key to unlock the first door, Scooby tells him he threw the key out the window. The duo jumps out of the window, grabbed the key, jumped back into the shed, unlocked the door and escaped the ghost.

While Fred, Daphne, and Velma were searching for Shaggy and Scooby, they see strange shadows on the side of a hanger and ran off, but the shadows were Shaggy and Scooby's caused by a flaming torch Shaggy was holding. Just then, the ghost's shadow appears on the side of the hanger, causing Shaggy and Scooby to run off after the rest of the gang, and they reunite at the motor pool. The gang find an old jeep that's been running recently, but Daphne points out it's got four flat tires. However, Fred and Shaggy looked under the jeep and found an extra set of wheels. Suddenly, the jeep started up and drove away by itself, and then the ghost appears along with an army of space alien ghosts that also appear, causing the gang to run away. Shaggy and Scooby climbed into the control tower and found a movie projector and tape recorder with a microphone. Using a bugle, Scooby alerts Fred and the girls through the loudspeaker about the clue he and Shaggy found in the tower. But the ghost got to the tower first, and Shaggy and Scooby escape using a parachute.

Just then, the farmer arrived at the airport with the sheriff. He explains to the gang that he got worried about them and saw the Mystery Machine parked at the gate and phoned the sheriff who explains it's time they get to the bottom of the mystery. At that moment, Velma sees the ghost running away, and they ran after him. The ghost goes into the wind tunnel by accident. Fred sees this and turns it on blowing the costume off. Shaggy tells Fred to turn it off as the man's tired of being a space ghost. A joke as the man is out of breath from holding onto a ladder against the powerful wind. The crook happens to be the old farmer's neighbor, Henry Bascomb.

Shaggy and Scooby show everyone the projector and tape recorder in the control tower. The ghostly spaceship was just a projection from a movie and the spooky laugh was just a sped-up soundtrack that was played over the loudspeaker on the tape recorder, Bascomb was wearing rubber gloves and boots dipped in phosphorous that made the strange glowing footprints and fingerprints, the army of space ghosts at the motor pool were just stuffed dummies, and the ghost jeep was ran by remote control. When Fred asks why, the sheriff and the farmer answer that Bascomb got wind that the Air Force was planning on reopening the airfield. In an attempt to pick up the land cheap, he disguised himself as the space ghost to scare everyone off. When the farmer asks the gang if they were scared like everyone else, Shaggy answers, "Aw, nah, solving mysteries is our hobby. It takes a lot to scare us." At this, Fred decides to poke at them and plays the spooky laugh track which scares Shaggy and Scooby, with everyone laughing and Scooby afterwards saying "Aww! Scooby Doo!"

Characters[]

Main characters:

Supporting characters:

Villains:

Other characters:

  • Chicken (only appearance)(no lines)
  • Worm (only appearance)(no lines)
  • Sheriff (only appearance)

Locations[]

  • Farm
  • Airfield
    • Shed
    • Shop
    • Parachute loft
    • Mess hall
    • Supply department
    • Tower
    • Motor pool

Objects[]

Vehicles[]

Suspects[]

Suspect Motive/Reason
Farmer He threatened the gang with his shotgun and warned them about the Spooky Space Kook.

Culprits[]

Culprit Motive/Reason
Henry Bascomb as the Spooky Space Kook To scare people away from the airfield so he could buy the land cheap.

Cast[]

Don Messick Scooby-Doo
Spooky Space Kook
Henry Bascomb
Casey Kasem Shaggy Rogers
Sheriff
Frank Welker Fred Jones
Stefanianna Christopherson Daphne Blake
Nicole Jaffe Velma Dinkley
Hal Smith Farmer

Full credits[]

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

Notes/Trivia[]

  • This is the last episode to air in 1969 and the 1960s decade as a whole.
  • A snippet of the aircraft's sound track is used in both seasons' opening and closing sequences, and originally came from the 1953 science-fiction movie The War of the Worlds.
  • The "Spooky Space Kook" is not the monster's official name; it just comes from the name of the episode.
  • This is the first episode of the Scooby-Doo franchise where the criminal is dressed as an alien.
  • On the table, while Shaggy makes his sandwich, there's a ketchup bottle with a Heinz-like label.
  • While "Gazette" is hardly an original name, it's the first newspaper in the series to be given something identifiable.
  • Fred, Velma and Daphne are scared by the shadows of Shaggy and Scooby in this episode, whereas it is usually Shaggy and Scooby who get scared of shadows.
  • Fred agrees the gang should flee, something not usually seen in other episodes as Shaggy and Scooby are usually the only ones who flee when they see monsters.
  • Although aired as the 15th episode, this was produced as the 14th episode.
  • While Shaggy is usually fairly dim (especially in the original series) he correctly identifies two clues: the fresh food in the fridge as well as realizing the significance of the projector and microphone in the radio tower.
  • When the Spooky Space Kook uses the lever that activates the hook to grab Fred by his belt, we can see his blue collared shirt underneath his white sweater. From the top view close to the ceiling, his shirt is seen tucked in.
  • The first moon landing happened exactly five months prior to this episode being released. This event may have inspired the design of the ghost.
  • While likely not intentional, several moon landing conspiracy theories seem to be referenced in random scenes during this episode including: the sound of an engine (not) being present, men on wires (Fred), camera projection to fake space travel, the astronaut depicted as the villain, and even the silly nonsensical scene with the key perhaps representing perceived impossible filming methods while all inside the lunar lander.
  • The plane that Scooby releases the life raft in is a B-17 Flying Fortress, a heavy bomber used in World War II.

Miscellaneous[]

Adaptations[]

Animation mistakes and/or technical glitches[]

  • The farmer's sclera are white for a change, except when he leans forward to take a closer look at the glowing footprints and again when Fred says how they weren't made by chickens.
  • After Daphne asks the farmer about the "haunted flying saucer," a small part of his shotgun flashes silver.
  • When Scooby wails about being got by "it", his eyebrows flicker between brown and black.
  • When Daphne says the gate is locked and wonders how the gang will get in, her headband disappears briefly before returning in the next frame.
  • When Scooby runs to catch the peanuts after Shaggy throws them, the two wobble in place in sync with Scooby's running animation.
  • Before Scooby releases the life raft, the bottom half of Shaggy's shirt is the color of his pants which then returns to the normal green color after a few seconds.
    Scoobys Missing Head

    Scooby's Missing Head

  • When Shaggy and Scooby jump off the air tower, one frame lacks Shaggy's eyes and Scooby's head and tail. However, all three missing parts return in the next frame.
  • In the scene where the gang just let Fred down after he was suspended by a machine hook, his left hand is noticeably missing in the first shot.
  • Daphne says her line: "Sheriff, look, he's getting away." It's her voice, but Velma's mouth moving.
  • When Shaggy and Scooby enter the mess hall, the door is broken and swaying on the side. When they leave, the door is perfectly intact.
  • At the beginning of the episode, there are only three people sitting in the front seat of the Mystery Machine due to Shaggy making food in the back. The extra space is handled by positioning Velma where Shaggy normally sits, leaving an awkward gap between her and Daphne.
  • When Shaggy moans "Oh, what'll we do now?" before the gang splits up, the frontal close-up view of him is shifted upwards so that the top part of his head is cut off.

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

  • Shaggy calls the syrup bottle, Double Dutch Chocolate Syrup, but the label simply says "Syrup".
  • Apparently all the livestock the farmer has is one chicken.
  • When Fred finds the newspaper article hidden in a barrel, Daphne says to look at an article that has been circled. When the paper is in view, there is no circle.
  • Perhaps the biggest oddity of this episode is the existence of all the functional equipment on the abandoned air field. Regardless of the field being public or military, wouldn't every piece of working equipment be stripped when they shut the field down? Unless they were keeping some of the equipment functioning for when the airfield reopens for jet aircraft as the Sheriff mentions at the end of the episode.
  • The "Automatic Dish Washer" label is wrong on two accounts. One, dishwashers are automatic to begin with, and two, dishwasher is misspelt as "Dish Washer."
  • It seems strange that what appears to be a WWII era aircraft would have an automatic inflating life raft in the cockpit where accidental deployment would interfere with operating the aeroplane.
  • Shaggy somehow magically gets the key to the supply department.
  • Shaggy and Scooby jump outside through the window to get the key to unlock the door from the Supply Department so that they can escape the room. If they had been thinking clearly, they didn't need to go back inside as they had already escaped (although this was definitely done for comedic purposes)/
  • The farmer cared enough to call a sheriff, but either he took his time doing it or the sheriff was taking his own.

In other languages[]

Language Name Meaning
Spanish (Latin America) El fantasma del aeropuerto abandonado The Ghost of the Abandoned Airport
Greek Ο Εξωγήινος The Alien
Hungarian Fejünk felett a földönkívüli The Extraterrestrial is Above Us
Italian Uno strano oggetto spaziale A Strange Space Object
Polish Kosmiczne straszydło Space Bogeyman

Home media[]

Quotes[]

Fred: I feel like a side of beef.


Shaggy: Oh no! Here comes that cackling, creepy space ghost again!


Henry Bascomb: And I'da done it, too, if you kids hadn't have come along.


Shaggy: Trying to make a clean getaway huh, Scooby? (Shaggy laughs)

External links[]


Previous episode: Series: Next episode:
Go Away Ghost Ship Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!
Season 1 		A Night of Fright is No Delight
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