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Vampire Bats and Scaredy Cats

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Vampire Bats and Scaredy Cats is the first of four segments of Scooby's All Star Laff-a-Lympics. It was later repackaged as the second episode of the second season of The Scooby-Doo Show, and the eighteenth episode overall of the series.

Premise[]

The gang go to visit Daphne's friend, Lisa, for her birthday, which is at a very old hotel that Lisa would inherit on the day after her eighteenth birthday. Velma says that it is believed that there are vampires on the island, but she herself thinks it is nonsense. But when a real vampire shows up and Lisa is turned into a vampire herself, the vampire legend becomes very believable.

Synopsis[]

The gang, along with Scooby Dum, head to Great Skull Island to meet Daphne's friend Lisa, who is about to inherit her family's hotel. Before they arrive, Velma notes that Skull Island is rumored to be home to vampires. As soon as they arrive, the ferry captain asked them to take a box to the hotel for one of the guests. As Shaggy and Fred carry it, they drop it, revealing the package to be a coffin. Scooby Dum opens it and a bat flies out.

They arrive at the hotel, and give the coffin to Mr. Dracul, who needed it for an undertaker's convention. They meet Lisa and her uncle, Leon, and decide to turn in for the night. While they sleep, Daphne awakens and sees a vampire standing in front of her bed. She calls for help and everyone arrives causing the vampire to flee. They begin searching for clues, when Scooby Dum discovers a ventilating duct, explaining how the vampire got into the room. Shaggy, Scooby, and Dum crawl inside to search, while Fred, Velma and Daphne tell Lisa what has been going on. The phone then rings, and Daphne answers it, hearing only a high pitched bell. Meanwhile, Shaggy, Scooby and Dum search the room, and the vampire then appears and begins to chase them.

After escaping, the gang reunites and discover a dog whistle on the floor, a clue. Uncle Leon then arrives and reveals to Lisa that her grandfather was actually a vampire, who was determined to turn Lisa into one. The gang begins to split up and look for clues. Fred thinks the vampire is hiding in one of the coffins so he, Velma and Daphne go to investigate the coffins, Shaggy, Scooby and Dum stay to guard Lisa, they barricade the door with furniture, Lisa answers the phone, hears the high pitched bell, and turns into a vampire. She begins to chase them along with the vampire, who Shaggy has now dubbed "Gramps the Vamp". They escape and find Fred, Velma and Daphne who search all the coffins, they have found a paper titled "Exo 6 Desmo". Shaggy and the Scoobys then see Gramps the Vamp lead Lisa into a coffin and hide in one. They inform Fred and the girls about the situation and Velma smacks Lisa's face a few times. This causes Lisa to wake up, and she doesn't remember what happened after the bell rang.

They then devise a scheme to trap Gramps the Vamp. They succeed (but not in the way they intended), and the vampire turns out to be Uncle Leon. His motive was to get the inheritance of the hotel away from Lisa. He invented the story of Lisa's grandfather being a vampire, and somehow unknowingly hypnotized her, with the bell from his watch being a post-hypnotic trigger that would make her think she was a vampire. That way, she would be put in a mental institution, and the hotel would be given to him. The paper found by the gang was an order from Uncle Leon to "Exo", the local exotic petshop on the mainland, for 6 "desmo", vampire bats (whose Latin family name is Desmodontidae). He used the silent whistle to call the bats.

The next day, Lisa wants to reward the gang for helping her--Shaggy humbly tries turning it down, since Lisa's a friend of theirs. But Shaggy and Scooby quickly come around when it turns out that the reward is a large amount of hamburgers. Scooby then acts like he's been hypnotized, and scarfs it all down, leaving none left for poor Shaggy.

Characters[]

Main characters:

Supporting characters:

Villains:

Other characters:

Locations[]

Objects[]

Vehicles[]

Suspects[]

Suspect Motive/reason
Desk clerk Strange manner.
Mr. Dracul Had an overly meaningful name and wanted a coffin (where vampires live).
Leon Vanaugh He told Lisa that her grandfather was really a vampire.

Culprits[]

Culprit Motive/reason
Leon Vanaugh as Gramps the Vamp To stop his niece from taking over running the hotel.

Clues[]

  • The Coffin: The mystery begins when the gang is asked to deliver a coffin to Lisa's hotel on Great Skull Island. Inside, they accidentally release a bat, foreshadowing the vampire theme.
  • Ventilation Duct: After a vampire attacks Daphne and Velma, Scooby-Dum discovers a ventilation duct, suggesting how the creature entered the locked room.
  • Dog Whistle: Shaggy and the Scooby-Doo's find a dog whistle in a dusty room, which later proves significant.
  • "Exo 6 Desmo" Note: Fred, Velma, and Daphne find a torn piece of paper with these words. Velma realizes "Desmo" is part of the Latin name for vampire bats (Desmodontidae), and "Exo" refers to an exotic pet shop. This indicates someone purchased vampire bats.
  • Tinkling Bells: Daphne and Lisa both hear tinkling bells over the phone. This is a post-hypnotic trigger used to make Lisa think she's a vampire.
  • The Grandfather's Story: Uncle Leon tells a fabricated story about Lisa's grandfather being a vampire to mislead the gang.

Cast[]

Don Messick Scooby-Doo
Ferry captain
Casey Kasem Shaggy Rogers
Mr. Dracul
Police officer
Frank Welker Fred Jones
Desk clerk
Heather North Daphne Blake
Pat Stevens Velma Dinkley
Janet Waldo Lisa Vanaugh
Alan Oppenheimer Scooby-Dum
John Stephenson Leon Vanaugh
Gramps the Vamp

Notes/trivia[]

  • This was the first Scooby-Doo Show episode to use a title card (pictured above). The title card would be reused (albeit with the artwork redrawn) in season 3, then re-used for most of the Scrappy-Doo era.
  • "Skull Island" is the traditional name of King Kong's home. This is the second of three known times that the gang has visited a place called "Skull Island". The first was in the Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! episode Go Away Ghost Ship, while the second was in a later The Scooby-Doo Show episode The Creepy Case of Old Iron Face.
  • The VHS release of Scooby-Doo's Spookiest Tales features an alternate, possibly work-in-progress cut of this episode with many differences:
    • The title card is missing, probably because the two episodes that this one airs in-between have no title card at all.
    • Character animation is generally rougher, with many shots in the finished cut completely redrawn to stay closer to model guidelines, with several unique medium shots and closeups replaced with stock assets. Many shots are also framed differently.
    • When Scooby-Dum photographs Great Skull Island, he merely chuckles upon snapping. In the finished version, he says "Smile!" before snapping, and his shot uses the camera's flash.
    • After Fred says, "Next stop: Lisa's hotel!", the Mystery Machine's driving animation is more smooth, and the vampire materializes from its exhaust accompanied by a spacey sound. In the finished cut, the Mystery Machine has more crude animation, there is no exhaust smoke, and the camera merely zooms out to show the vampire.
    • Different sound effects were used for Scooby-Dum's reactions as he and Scooby-Doo try to load the coffin into the Mystery Machine.
    • Mr. Dracul has a softer voice, being portrayed by Frank Welker, instead of Casey Kasem.
    • When Shaggy and Dracul carry the coffin, the transition from light to dark is rougher.
    • After Velma says to Daphne "I've locked the door and the windows, so nothing can get in here", the two immediately rush into their beds without explanation. In the finished cut, an exterior shot of window's shutters slamming shut in the wind is inserted.
    • When Shaggy and Scooby crash into the girls' room, only the crash is heard before the shot immediately changes to a medium shot of Fred and Velma. In the finished version, the two are shown sliding down the closet door before the medium shot.
    • Velma's "And that RAT was real enough..." was corrected to "And that BAT was real enough" in the finished version, through noticeable audio manipulation instead of a separate take.
    • When Daphne answers the phone, she says "Hello? Hello? Is anybody there? Hello?". In the finished cut, only the first and last "Hello?"s are kept.
    • The scene where Shaggy and the Scoobys are blocking the door from the vampire (as Lisa gets her post-hypnotic trigger phone call), the door is to the left. In the finished version, the shot is flipped so that the door is on the right, and decal in the background is changed.
    • After the vampire finds Shaggy and Scooby in the wardrobe, there is an additional "Help!" from Shaggy that is not retained in the finished version.
    • When Shaggy and the Scoobys are hiding from the vampire in the ballroom, the blue carpet disappears in some backgrounds. In the finished version, the carpet is kept throughout to maintain continuity with previous shots.
    • When the Scoobys trap the vampire in the coffin at the pool, he merely sinks. In the finished version, he continues to bob up and down.
  • The copy of the episode available on iTunes and other online services omits the title card, but otherwise is the regular version of the episode.
  • The episode title was misprinted as "Vampires, Bats and Scaredy Cats" on the back cover of the Headless Horseman of Halloween VHS.
  • Mr. Dracul is named after the iconic monster from Bram Stoker's horror novel, Dracula.
    • "Dracul" (a westernization of the Slavic "drakul", which roughly translates to "son of evil") is also the unofficial nickname of historical Romanian figure Prince Vlad Tepes, also known as "Vlad the Impaler" due to the gruesome way he used long spears to torture and kill his prisoners, mostly Turkish-Ottoman Empire soldiers.
  • Oddly enough there is an actual annual convention for Undertakers and Morticians held by the NFDMA (National Funeral Directors & Mortician Association) which was founded in 1924.

Miscellaneous[]

Animation mistakes and/or technical glitches[]

  • When the gang first dock upon reaching shore, they can all be seen in the Mystery Machine, but when the ferry captain approaches Fred, he is the only one in the van.
  • In the scene in which Shaggy discovers a room filled with coffins, Scooby-Dum's collar is blue in one scene before being red again in the next scene.
  • When Scooby Doo catches Scooby-Dum, the former's front left paw is incorrectly colored gray like the latter's.
  • When Scooby Doo pretends to be hypnotized and puts the three stacks of burgers in his mouth, the middle plate appears to be floating above the cart.
  • After Shaggy yells for help a moment later, the scene cuts to the rest of the gang, who act as if he is still yelling, but the audio has cut out and the gang is reacting to nothing.

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

  • After Shaggy says, "Zoinks! It's old pointy teeth!" and Scooby-Dum jumps into the vampire's arms, Shaggy's mouth moves again, but there is no sound.
  • Fred calls Scooby-Doo and Scooby-Dum brothers, saying to Shaggy, "You and the Scooby brothers stay and guard Lisa. Fred later says to Shaggy and the Scooby cousins: "You two stay here and look for more clues."
  • When Lisa turns into a vampire and Scooby-Dum sees her, Shaggy and Scooby are pushing the bed to the left, but when Scooby-Dum runs to them, they are seen on the right.
  • When Shaggy and the Scoobys push the bed, it has a frame, but when they are seen pushing it against the door the frame is gone.
  • Shaggy and the Scoobys barricade the door with a desk, a bed side table, a chair and a TV, but when they are pushing the bed against the door the furniture is different.
  • Right after the vampire attacks Daphne and Velma in their bedroom, Shaggy and Scooby run towards the door intending to barge into the room. Velma was the whole time wearing a pair of white fluff slippers, but oddly she appears barefoot for a single moment when she opens the door to allow Shaggy and Scooby into the room.
  • Daphne's nightgown has no sleeves, showing her bare arms, but when Fred examines the room curtain, the nightgown has long sleeves.
  • When the gang was about to set their trap, the vampire called for Lisa through the vent which kick-started the gang's plan in a hurry. However, for some reason the audio had cut out again and only Scooby reacting to the sound was seen and then suddenly Fred declared that the vampire is coming.
  • The two moments Lisa turned into a vampire (in the present and flashback) are different:
    • Present: When Lisa picks up the phone, she heard the bell ring and when she hung up the phone, she was already seen as a vampire with a scary face and vampire teeth.
    • Flashback: When Lisa picked up the phone, she hears the bell ring and when she hung up the phone, her face was still normal; then she opened a drawer, took out a pair of vampire teeth and put them in her mouth, to which then the camera did a close-up of Lisa, followed by her putting in the teeth; it's there that her face becomes scary.
  • When Gramps The Vamp leads Lisa to the coffin room, she is in her regular clothes, but in the next shot, she is in her nightgown. Then, in a closeup shot, she is in her regular clothes again.

In other languages[]

Language Name Meaning
French Vampires, Chauve-souris et Chats noirs Vampires, Bats, and Black Cats
Brazilian Portuguese Vampiros, Morcegos e Outros Bichos Vampires, Bats and Other Animals
German Zu Gast auf der großen Schädel-Insel A Guest on the Great Skull Island
Italian Scooby-Doo contro vampiri e pipistrelli Scooby-Doo Against Vampires and Bats
Polish Wampiry, nietoperze i tchórze Vampires, Bats, and Cowards

Home media[]

Quotes[]

Daphne: There isn't even anybody at the front desk.
Shaggy: Like maybe the coffin is for the desk clerk!


Shaggy: (pulling a lampshade off Scooby's head) I was right about Dracul, his coffin's a day bed.


Shaggy: (bat flying) Stay away! I gave at the blood bank!


Gramps the Vamp: It's time for you to rest, my dear.
Lisa: (hazily) Yes... Grandfather.


Gramps the Vamp: I WANT BLOOD!!!
Shaggy: You wouldn't like mine! It's yellow!


Shaggy: Count me out, I'm allergic to coffins.
Velma: Yeah, he breaks out in yellow streaks.


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