Scooby Doo - Where Are You?

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Fred Silverman the Head of CBS Daytime Broadcasting was looking for a new show to fill the space and lead cartoons in a new direction away from the same boring stories of heros saving the world. He wanted a combination of a popular 40's radio show 'I Love A Mystery' in which three detectives travel the World solving mysteries and the 1959 - 1963 show 'The Many Loves Of Dobie Gillis' about a teenager and his friends.
This idea was brought to Hanna - Barbara who then assigned the writers Joe Ruby and Ken Spears to develop characters and storylines. The story began as four teenagers travelling the country with a Great Dane in a Van, known as the Mystery Machine. They would solve dangerous mysteries with the Dog - who was not a main character as Scooby Doo is now. It was to be called 'Mysterious Five' and it then changed to 'Who's Scared?'.

It was shown to the bosses at CBS and President Frank Stanton for a Saturday Morning show to be shown in Autumn 1969, but was rejected due to it being to scary for daytime television. Silverman was flying back to Los Angeles and heard Frank Sinatras 'Strangers In The Night' and the line "Scooby - Dooby - Doo". This prompted Silverman to rethink the show and he decided it should be called 'Scooby Doo, Where Are You?' and the Dog will become the star of the Show. Scooby Doo was created and the other characters became his support.
The new show was now more comical and less scary but still mysterious. Don Messick became the World famous Scooby Doo voice with Radio DJ Casey Kasem becoming the voice of Shaggy. Frank Welker became Fred , Nicola Jaffe became Velma and Daphne was Heather North and Stephanianna Christopherson.

There were other voices who played people such as villains and there were famous guests as the show became famous, one such name is Dave Coullier who sent a tape in and was accepted straight away.
The theme tune was recored the Wednesday before the show was due to be aired on Saturday in 1969. It was written by Larry Marks (Singer) and Ben Raleigh (Musician). Larry suggested they added 'Scooby Dooby Doo - Where Are you?' to fill space.
By 1972, CBS decided there was a need to change the format of the show. This created 'Scooby Doo Movies' with famous characters like The Addams Family and Laurel and Hardy. After seven years Scooby Doo moved from CBS to ABC and the start of 'Scooby Doo/Dynomutt Hour' and the new character of Scooby Dum, "Clues? Dum - Dum - Dum - Dum!"

The next year a two hour cartoon show - 'The Scooby All Star Laff - A - Lympics'. This program was highly successful. Another Series of the 'The Scooby All Star Laff - A - Lympics' was produced in 1978 but scaled down, called 'Scoobys All Stars'.
In 1979, there was a Scooby Doo television special, 'Scooby Doo Goes To Hollywood'. It was a comedy and featured more music.

1979 was also the year when the most hated cartoon character of all time was introduced - Scrappy Doo !

The eighties continued to produce new shows with Scooby Doo and some of his friends. These programs all entertained people of all ages, youg children to adults.
Scooby Doo is so popular ...
"I've loved Scooby Doo right from the inception, and so has everyone else! I think it is beacuse he embraces a lot of human foibles. He's not the perfect dog, in fact he could be considered 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 as well can identify with Scoobys character and a lot of his imperfections."

Don Messick

The 'Scooby Doo, Where Are You?' show first aired on Saturday Morning 13th September 1969 on the CBS Network.

Credit to : Shannon Hughes

SCOOBY DOO and all other related characters are copyright of Hanna-Barbara 2000. I make no claims to any pictures contained within this site except original design and text 2006.

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