THE Cartoon/Animation thread (Discussion)

Okay as promised an in-depth look at Scooby Doo-Where Are You?


Scooby-Doo is an American 'animated franchise', comprising many animated television series produced from 1969 to the present day. Chief writers were Joe Ruby and Ken Spears who created the original series, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, for Hanna-Barbera Productions in 1969. This Saturday-morning cartoon series featured four teenagers—Fred Jones, Daphne Blake, Velma Dinkley, and Norville "Shaggy" Rogers-and their talking brown Great Dane named Scooby-Doo, who solved mysteries involving supposedly supernatural creatures through a series of antics and mishaps. Shaggy was the total 'chicken' and would explain 'zoinks!' whenever something spooky happened. Fred would make up a trap but inevitably it would be Shaggy and Scooby who tripped it by accident and end up being trapped themselves. I often got the impression that Shaggy was rather sweet on Velma though this was never explored fully but Fred & Daphne were definitely girl and boy friend although Daphne came from a rather richer background than Fred.

The name for Scooby allegedly came from producer Fred Silverman listening to Frank Sinatra one day and his Strangers In the Night song, which had the refrain 'dooby dooby doo' - changed the wording and bingo Scooby Doo was born, although he had been in another carnation as Too Much the great dane, named originally by Ruby and Spears. Most of its appeal came from the opening title tune of the same name and it also had some episodes with the gang chasing the villain to music, which I found rather off-putting along with the needless canned laughter. At the end of each episode the villain would always say "And I would have got away with it too, without those/you meddling kids!"

The voices:
Fred(Frank Welker)
Velma(Nicole Jaffe, Pat Stevens and Maria Frumkin-in that order)
Daphne(Stephania Christopherson the original 1969 voice but then she married and gave up voices so Heather North was brought in to play her)
Shaggy-(Casey Kasem who was also a DJ on a radio station)
Scooby-stalwart voice man Don Messick)
Scrappy Doo (Lennie Weinrib then later Don Messick again)

Following the success of the original series, Hanna-Barbera introduced different versions of Scooby-Doo featuring different variations on the show's supernatural theme, and include characters such as Scooby's cousin Scooby-Dum and nephew Scrappy-Doo(the Spawn of Evil as some fans called him) in addition to or instead of some of the original characters.

Scooby Doo and the gang would also re-appear in different cartoons series as well. They next appeared in The New Scooby Doo Movies which featured famous characters from film, television and music such as Sandy Duncan, Don Knotts(comic actor), Jonathan Winters(comedian) and Laurel & Hardy(but not the original voices). It also had Dick van Dyke, The Three Stooges(again not the original voices) The Partridge Kids(i.e one older and the younger members but not David Cassidy) and Sonny & Cher(both original voices used). These were feature-length cartoons but sometimes with canned laughter added. Notably there were three BATMAN related episodes which featured Adam West reprising his role and voice but Casey Kasem provided Robin's voice(and Shaggy's). After that there were a few shorts made mostly shown in 3's and then the gang re-appeared again in Scooby's All-Star Laff-a-Lympics. This featured Scooby Doo as the team captain of the imaginatively-titled Scooby-Doobys(mostly heroic types like Dynomutt, Dog Wonder and the Blue Falcon) against The Yogi Yahooeys and the villains of the piece who would use any methods to cheat their way to victory, The Really Rottens(featuring Muttley but this time coloured light-blue and called Mumbly!)

Moving along later we then got the weird 'The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo' in 1985 which featured Daphne, Shaggy, Scooby, Scrappy, and new characters Flim-Flam (voiced by Susan Blu) and Vincent Van Ghoul (based upon and voiced by Vincent Price) traveling the globe to capture "thirteen of the most terrifying ghosts upon the face of the earth." The premise being that Scooby inadvertently opend a 'chest of demons' and it was now his job to return them to the chest. Van Ghoul would give them clues to help them and a kid called Flim-Flam(another name for a con-artist) would help and hinder their efforts. However their trials were hindered by two annoying ghosts Bogle and Weird who were determined to stop them returning the demons to the chest.

A Pup Named Scooby-Doo was the next time Hanna-Barbera reincarnated the original Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! cast as school kids for a new series titled A Pup Named Scooby-Doo, in 1988. A Pup Named Scooby-Doo was against the normal version and included an episode where Scooby-Doo's parents show up and reveal his real name to be "Scoobert". At the same time, the series returned to its original idea where the 'meddling kids' unmasked human villains in costume, as opposed to the supernatural monsters of the early to mid-1980s. The series also established "Coolsville" as the name of the gang's hometown.

Live-action films
A feature-length live-action film version of Scooby-Doo was released by Warner Bros. Pictures on 14 June, 2002. Directed by Raja Gosnell, the film starred Freddie Prinze Jr. as Fred, Sarah Michelle Gellar as Daphne, Matthew Lillard as Shaggy, and Linda Cardellini as Velma. Scooby-Doo, voiced by Neil Fanning, was created on-screen by computer-generated special effects. Scooby-Doo was a financially successful release, making over $130m dollars.

A sequel, Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed, followed in March 2004 with the same cast and director. Scooby-Doo 2 earned $84m dollars at the U.S. box office. A third film was planned, but later scrapped following Warner Bros.' disappointment at the returns from Scooby-Doo 2.

Scooby and the gang have also been in a feature length LEGO animated film 'Scooby Doo-Haunted Hollywood' in the 2000's and still remains to this day as one of the most popular characters in cartoon animation. He has even entered into faux cockney-rhyming slang as in 'I haven't a Scooby(Doo)- haven't a clue' when someone is asked to explain something. Now that's fame!
Sources: Wikipedia, Google and my memory.
Phew! right next up very soon will be Scooby's All-Star Laff-a-Lympics.

^ Excellent.

Just a bit of added trvia regarding the voice talent. Frank Welker,Casey Kasem and as mentioned previously Don Messick all went on to provide voices for characters in The Transformers.

Come on people get involved, this is your thread you can't just leave it to me and rpj316 -get typing, tell us your fav cartoons/animation etc.

Slight change soon I am going to be looking at cell animation and in particular the old school(not the reboot) of that classic 80's cartoon series....DANGERMOUSE! da da, da, da, da, da, da-da BOOM!!

“One thousand years ago,superstition and sword ruled the world.It was a time of darkness.It was a world of fear,it was the age of gargoyles.Stone by day,warriors by night.We were betrayed by the humans we had sworn to protect,frozen in stone by a magic spell for a thousand years.Now,here in Manhattan,the spell is broken and we live again!
We are the defenders of the night.We are Gargoyles."

The interesting premise of the Gothic animation created by Greg Weisman that many said rivalled Batman : The Animated Series in both style and to be.Featuring a voice cast that boasted Jonathan Frakes,Marina Sirtis,Keith David,Avery Brooks and Ed Asner to name a few,the remnants of the ancient clan were awoken after their stone images were purchased by a billionaire and relocated a top of his skyscraper in New York,a police officer named Eliza Maza learned of their secret and helped them in their battle with new enemy, Xanatos.
Despite its critical acclaim the show was cancelled after three seasons(78 episodes).Airing from 1994 to 1997.

Great stuff mate. I think I remember seeing that cartoon I am pretty sure it was during a Saturday morning children's programme but I can't recall which one, definitely not Saturday Superstore or Going Live-might have been well after that.

Yeah I think it was on during the week as well at one point but I can't recall if it was on the BBC or ITV.

All 78 episodes can be found on that cartoon website wco.tv it is a goldmine of old and new stuff, mostly good for really old stuff of Hanna-Barbera, Disney and anime.

I was lucky enough to buy them years ago on vhs then dvd from Forbidden Planet,you're right though.That website is a goldmine.

I went to Forbidden Planet in London once, it was a hell of a place, I think I bought some magazines that mentioned Thunderbirds or other Gerry Anderson productions as they would regularly have articles and pictures in them.
I shall be doing Dangermouse this weekend. I was watching I Love 1981 recently and they showed what Dangermouse was supposed to look like-nothing like he ended up.