Scooby Doo
first aired on CBS and can be traced back to Fred Silverman in 1969 who
was the head of Daytime Programming for CBS. Silverman was looking for a
show that would lead the network away from the superhero cycle and take
them into an area of comedy and adventure. The combination of Carleton
E. Morse's 1940's popular radio program I Love a Mystery, in which three
detectives roamed the world solving crimes and mysteries, and the
1959-1963 television sitcom The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, about a
scatterbrained teenager and his friends, was the look Silverman was
after.
Silverman's quest was brought before Hanna-Barbera who assigned writers
Ken Spears and Joe Ruby to create the characters, plots, and many of the
story lines. The show actually started out revolving around four teenage
detectives who traveled the country in a van, called the Mystery
Machine, solving mysteries in dangerous situations. A Great Dane
accompanied the foursome, but was not a promient character. The show was
first known as Mysteries Five and later changed to Who's Scared? The
show was then presented to the top CBS management and president Frank
Stanton as a new Saturday morning cartoon for the fall of 1969.
There was one problem: the artwork was very frightening which led
Stanton to reject the show. Silverman immediately flew back to Los
Angeles that night. While listening to the earphones on the flight back,
Silverman was relaxing to Frank Sinatra singing Strangers in the Night.
The phrase 'Scooby-dooby-doo' struck Silverman so much that he went back
and said 'We'll call the show Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? and we'll make
the dog the star of the show.' And with those words Scooby-Doo was
created with the other characters supporting him.
The new show was now more comical then mysterious. Don Messick became
Scooby with his trademark laugh and scratchy voice. Top-Forty DJ Casey
Kasem became Shaggy, who was always in a constant state of panic and
hunger, and also served as Scooby's partner. Frank Welker became blond
Freddy, Nicole Jaffe became brainy and bespectacled Velma, and Heather
North was the voice of the trouble-prone, sexy, Daphne.
There were other voices that supported the main crew. One worth
mentioning is David Coulier, who is the star of America's Funniest
People and Full House (not to be confused with Bob Saget). The teenage
Coulier made a voice tape that told a story and mailed it to Hanna-Barbera
on a Friday. The next Monday Hanna-Barbera called Coulier and said,
"We have work for you on Scooby-Doo." Coulier was only 18
years old!
The original Scooby Doo series enjoyed wide popularity from the time of
its premiere in September of 1969. The original Scooby Theme Song has an
interesting story behind it....this is how the Scooby Doo Theme
originated:
According to Larry Marks, Ben Raleigh was one of the writers of the
original theme. Ben had written some early rock and roll songs from Tin
Pan Alley. Larry was a music executive and studio singer. When they
first played the song for him - Larry suggested they add the line Scooby
Dooby Do - here are you -because they needed some words for that line!
Although the song was written ahead of time- it was recorded on the
Wednesday --just a few days before the first ever episode aired on the
Saturday! Larry Marks sang both the original theme and all of the
background parts! --Pam Marks, Larry's wife
By 1972 CBS decided that a change in the format should arrive which gave
birth to the Scooby Doo movies incorporating the voices of such guest
stars as Phyllis Diller, Tim Conway, Jonathan Winters, Don Knotts, the
Addams family, and Laurel and Hardy. After seven years with CBS, Scooby
Doo moved to ABC to start the Scooby-Doo/Dynomutt Hour which saw the
rise of the two canine characters Scooby-Dum and Scooby-Dear. The
following year saw the first two-hour Saturday morning cartoon show in
the network history, the highly successful Scooby's All-Star
Laff-a-lympics. In 1978 more episodes of Scooby-Doo were added to a
smaller version of Laff-a-lympics which was renamed to Scooby's
All-Stars. 1979 was the year of Scooby Doo's first television special,
Scooby goes to Hollywood which combined slapstick and parody with a
sprinkling of music. 1979 was also the year Scrappy-Doo was introduced
(and thats all I will say about that pain in the...I mean character).
The eighties showed various combinations of Scooby Doo and his friends
that continued to entertain children and adults of all ages. Why is
Scooby-Doo so popular? Don Messick (the voice of Scooby Doo) sums it up
real well....."I've loved Scooby from the inception, and so has
everyone else. I think it's because he embraces a lot of human foibles.
He's not the perfect dog. In fact you might say he's a coward. Yet with
everything he does, he seems to land on his four feet. He comes out of
every situation unscathed. I think the audience - kids and more mature
people as well - can identify with Scooby's character and a lot of his
imperfections."
We would like to thank and acknowledge Shannon Hughes of “A Tribute
To Scooby-Doo” for letting us use the above history.
 | Scooby
Doo made his comic book debut in 1970 in Gold Key Comics and was a
consistent popular comic book character for almost ten years.
|
| Scooby
Doo is one of the longest running animation series in television
history. Since 1969, Scooby Doo has starred in at least 19 different
cartoon series, and in over 310 episodes.
|
| Scooby
Doo, one of Cartoon Network’s top rated shows, was viewed more
than 23 times per week in 2000. Scooby Doo was also voted “kids’
favorite cartoon character” on Cartoon Network.
|
Scooby Doo is
now available as a Nintendo 64 video game titled, “Scooby Doo! Classic
Creep Capers”. |
|
