Theater of Doom

Theater of Doom
Details
Episode #	215
Air date	August 17, 2012 (Cartoon Network)
Written by	Joe Flaherty Paul Rugg
Directed by	Curt Geda
Chronology
Previous episode	Heart of Evil
Next episode	Aliens Among Us

Theater of Doom is the fifteenth episode of the second season of Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, and the forty-first overall.

Premise

The gang help Vincent Van Ghoul with a play of Crystal Cove's history, which is being haunted by a specter. Meanwhile, Pericles instructs Brad and Judy to steal the Planispheric Disk back from the gang.

Synopsis

Mr. LeFranc is on a stage talking to the Crystal Cove Haunted Historical Society about how the town was once saved by Friar Serra and his donkey Porto. Doogle McGuiness is there to play the Friar in the play. As the director introduces the concept of the play, he shows how they have a box with the original Friar in it. The Friar apparently comes to life and attacks them.

The next night, Daphne, along with Shaggy and Scooby, help sneak Fred and Nova in her house. While they're doing that, Shaggy receives a text from Van Ghoul who laments the destruction of the play and talks them into helping. They meet George Avocados who now has to work as a janitor.

Pericles talks to Brad and Judy and tells them they must get the disk back from the gang.

Van Ghoul talks to the gang and convinces them to do the play in the absence of the intended cast. Velma goes off to research Friar Serra and runs into his mummy. Velma runs away from it and almost gets caught when the mummy grabs her. Van Ghoul talks to the mayor who tells him that Valdesh Helgenjew will be here to see the play. The gang looks around for clues and finds a trail of some sort of material in the basement and runs into Doogle who warns them away. They then see the mummy again who warns them not to tell the story because it might awaken Nibiru. The gang prepares for the play anyway and they put on the play as scheduled. The mummy appears and chases Shaggy. After the chase, they find out it was Avocados who was trying to find a diamond once stolen by his father. They then find out Avocados was the SECOND mummy of Serra.

The gang returns to the basement after the play to find the mummy of Serra waiting for them. This time the Mummy comes to life and tells them the truth of how the old Crystal Cove sank into the sea. It was his donkey Porto who did it. When Serra's group had encountered the conquistador, he told them about the curse and left behind two disk pieces before running away. Serra's mystery solving group tried to figure out the mystery of what the disk was but became obsessed with it instead of solving the mystery. Eventually the dark power of the disk caused Porto to go mad and set explosive charges that caused part of the town to sink into the sea. Porto was eaten by alligators when he tried to leave town with one of the disk pieces, which was then retrieved by Serra to be placed in a wheel of cheese and sent away. Serra continues, stating the imminence of Nibiru and that everything the young Mystery Inc. is currently experiencing has transpired in the past. Adding that the animal mascot of each preceeding mystery-solving group serves as the genesis of each terrible event, Serra points to Scooby and issues one last warning before crumbling to dust: that the dog dies!

The young Mystery Inc. are speechless while Scooby understandably panics about his supposed fate.

Characters

Main characters:

• Mystery Incorporated
  • Scooby-Doo
  • Shaggy Rogers
  • Fred Jones, Jr.
  • Daphne Blake
  • Velma Dinkley

Supporting characters:

• Vincent Van Ghoul
• Mayor Janet Nettles
• Doogle McGuiness ^{(final appearance)}

Villains:

• Mummy of Friar Serra ^{(only appearance)(George Avocados's disguise)}
• Professor Pericles
• Brad Chiles
• Judy Reeves
• George Avocados
• Friar Gabriello Serra ^(ghost)
• Porto ^{(no lines)(flashback only)}

Other characters:

• Blaine LeFranc ^{(first appearance)}
• Nova ^{(no lines)}
• George Avocados's boss ^{(only appearance)}
• Valdesh Helgenjew ^{(only appearance)}
• Audience ^{(only appearance)(no lines)}
  • Sally's husband
  • Tiffany's mother ^{(no lines)}
• Theodore Avocados ^(mentioned)
• Fraternitas Mysterium ^{(no lines)(flashback only)}

Locations

• Crystal Cove
  • Haunted Historical Society theater
  • Blake Mansion
  • Crystal Cove City Hall
  • Destroido Corp.
    • Mr. E's lair

Objects

• Diamond stolen by Theodore Avocados
• TNT ^{(flashback only)}

Vehicles

• The Mystery Machine

Suspects

Culprit	Motive/reason
Doogle McGuiness	He was sneaking around in the basement, and warned the gang away.
Blaine LeFranc	Nobody saw him after the mummy first appeared.
Valdesh Helgenjew	He is an old rival of Vincent Van Ghoul.

Culprits

Culprit	Motive/reason
George Avocados as the Mummy of Friar Serra	To find the missing diamond stolen by his father.

Cast

Frank Welker	Scooby-Doo Fred Jones, Jr. Valdesh Helgenjew
Matthew Lillard	Shaggy Rogers
Grey DeLisle	Daphne Blake Earthworm
Mindy Cohn	Velma Dinkley
Maurice LaMarche	Vincent Van Ghoul George Avocados's boss
Lewis Black	Mr. E
Udo Kier	Professor Pericles
Tim Matheson	Brad Chiles
Tia Carrere	Judy Reeves
Kate Higgins	Mayor Janet Nettles
James Arnold Taylor	George Avocados Mummy of Friar Serra Friar Gabriello Serra
Jeff Bennett	Doogle McGuiness Blaine LeFranc

Continuity

• This episode reveals that the diamond stolen by Theodore Avocados was never recovered, in spite of what Mayor Jones said in The Secret of the Ghost Rig, that its recovery would make up for the revenue stream lost because of the exposure of the Ghost Truck as a fake. He could have been lying for his own political advantage.
• The heckler's taunt during the play gives evidence that Crystal Cove is on the Pacific coast.
• Friar Serra's statement of "Heed the warning of the alligators" is a reference to the hotel sign in Gatorsburg, when some of the letters lit up reading "The dog dies!" in The Creeping Creatures.
• The disk piece hidden in the cheese was found there over a century later. (The Hodag of Horror)

Notes/trivia

• This episode was aired in Latin America and Brazil on February 11, 2013.
• This episode was aired in France on April 15 on Cartoon Network France.
• This is the second appearance of Doogle McGuiness after Grim Judgment, and he was also a suspect in that episode too.
• Velma trips and loses her glasses when chased by the mummy, but only has time to exclaim "My glasses!" before finding them.
• When Cartoon Network had the series listed on their site, they referred to it as Theater of the Doomed, which video sites such as Amazon and iTunes still do.

Cultural references

• The opening sequence of the play featuring Van Ghoul's narration to music is a parody of Michael Jackson's "Thriller" which features a similar narration by Vincent Price (upon whom Van Ghoul is based).

Animation mistakes and/or technical glitches

• Van Ghoul's name was misspelled "Van Ghool" on the banner announcing the play.

Inconsistencies/continuity errors and/or goofs/oddities

• According to Velma's tour speech in Beware the Beast from Below, a garrison of Spanish conquistadors vanished from the coast in 1630, and the missionary town vanished into the sea in 1765. How could monks whose lives were contemporary with the latter event meet a conquistador from the former, when the two events were separated by more than 130 years?
• The pieces of the Planispheric Disk that appear in the flashback both have "U" shapes marked on them, but one of the pieces with a "U" shape was found in the galleon in the mountains, not underwater in the ruined city.
• In the recap it showed the gang discover Abigail Gluck's corpse from The Midnight Zone where she whispered 'Nibiru.' In the actual episode, she was voiced by Mindy Sterling, but in this recap the voice was much deeper and sounded more robotic and obviously not voiced by the same person.
• The flashback shows Porto with barrels marked "TNT," an anachronism since that explosive was not invented until long after his time. (Gunpowder kegs could have been used.)
• Doogle McGuiness was miscredited as "Doogle McGinnis."
• Friar Serra was credited as "Mummy Friar Serra," making it hard to tell if it was giving credit for George's disguise, the real ghost, or, more likely, both.

In other languages

Language	Name	Meaning
French	Malédiction sur les planches	Curse on the Boards
Greek	Το Θέατρο του Ολέθρου	The Theater of Disaster
Hungarian	Dráma a színházban	Drama in the Theatre
Italian	Il Teatro Maledetto	The Cursed Theater
Spanish (Latin America)	El Teatro de la Perdición	Theater of Doom
Polish	Teatr zagłady	The Theater of Dead

Home media

• Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated: Season Two, Part 2 - Spooky Stampede DVD set released ny Warner Home Video on June 18, 2013.
• Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated: The Complete Season 2 DVD set released by Warner Home Video on October 7, 2014.
• Scooby-Doo! Mystères associés: L'intégrale de la saison 2 (Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated: The entirety of season 2) DVD set released by Warner Home Video on September 10, 2013.

Quotes

Previous episode:	Series:	Next episode:
Heart of Evil	Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated Season 2	Aliens Among Us