Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated/Headscratchers

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • The Sheriff and Mayor clearly recognize the locket that Daphne found as being something connected to the larger mystery of Crystal Cove. Why did the Sheriff not take the opportunity to seize it as "evidence"?
    • Speculation going into episode 2: The Mayor's take upon seeing the locket could lead into him tying into the "Mister E" in an attempt to scare the gang out of solving the mysteries?
    • Revealing Coverup: If they had taken it, the group would have known it was important and tried to get it back/ investigate it. As the episode showed, they are not above doing illegal things to solve a mystery. Maybe they'd hope the gang would just discard it, thinking it was unimportant.
  • Crystal Cove's tourism. Why on earth would they build their entire tourist attractions around mysteries, which the 'police' don't solve? And might I ask, if so, do they not investigate mysteries with MURDERS involved?
    • I don't recall any mysteries with murders involved yet. We have no idea if they were trying to find the people abducted by the man crab, or if they were trying to cure the people attacked by the slime monster, but no one died from the ghost trucker. If you've got a lot of mysterious creatures in your town, it makes perfect sense to build an industry around it. It's not like they've actually refused to arrest anybody.
      • True, but you'd think that they'd at least make a bigger effort on solving them, even if their only help comes from a group of teens.
        • I said that before I saw "Song of Mystery." From a realistic standpoint, the way the town treated that was reprehensible and inexcusable. Chalk it up to Rule of Funny, I guess.
        • Also real life towns uses famous crimes as tourists attractions. So this isn't really that far fetched.
  • The Police is ran and paid by the government, not to mention how there is a branch that actually investigates crooked officers (such as our beloved sheriff). Point is... Why do the police there even care about the town not solving the mysteries, the citizen still have to pay the tax, and thus the police officers get paid. And also, WHY hasn't the Crystal Cove Police Department been fired and replaced?
    • They probably take care of the sort of stuff the Mystery Inc. crew wouldn't be able to handle, as in...well...stuff you're not going to find mentioned on a kids show.
      • Murders, non-paranormal thefts, petty larceny, vandalism, domestic violence, traffic law violations, fights... there's a whole lot of stuff that doesn't involve the paranormal or teenage vigilantes.
    • Okay, so apparently the Sheriff doesn't even know who his boss is. He thinks it's the mayor... Did he even GO to school?
      • Technically, so long as Mayor Jones pays his taxes, he is the sheriff's boss (or at least one of them).
        • Which is why Fred is getting special treatment? Or why his other bosses are being ignored?
          • Fred's "special treament" isn't exactly unrealistic. I recall a customer shared with me an anecdote from his time in law enforcement in Alaska. A time or two, he'd been chewed out because some trouble-maker he'd arrested happened to be of the same blood as a politician. As for the "other bosses", the whole town seems to favor the tourism dollars brought in by the "monsters" in their city, sooo...he's kind of doing what they want by turning a (mostly) blind eye. That, and there's the Rule of Funny to consider.
  • Why didn't the Scary Gnome paralyze Shaggy as well?
    • He was dressed as a pirate, duh.
      • Exactly. So why didn't he paralyze Shaggy?
    • Perhaps, he didn't want to paralyze Shaggy in the woods where no one might find him and simply planned on paralyzing him later after dragging him back to the fair.
    • Maybe he couldn't? From an outside standpoint, we know it happened because the subplot would be left hanging, but from an inside, it may have had to do with how much of the toxin he had in total or if he even had any of it on him at the time. Since it was close to the end of the fair, he may have had nothing left since the goal was to implicate his wife, and one or two pirates left isn't really going to stop that after attacking a full theater full.
    • It's probably that he had just ran out of the toxin and grabbed him so he could paralyze him later. Perhaps as a way to lay the false trail further on his wife.
  • The motive of the guy behind the Man Crab makes no sense whatsoever. He wanted to get back at this guy for stealing his formula for bottled water, but when asked why he didn't just sue the guy, he said that would take too long. & building a sophisticated robotic man crab suit & digging an elaborate system of tunnels took HOW long?
  • At the end of The Shrieking Madness, the gang goes back to their van. Which really shouldn't have been there because they were all dropped off by their parents.
    • Wait, didn't the previous Vampire episode (The Secret Serum) end at Darrow College? At the end of that, when the gang went there separate ways, that meant no one went back home in the van!! They went home by other means and since their parents dropped them off the van has been sitting in the parking lot the whole time.
  • All the adults of Crystal Cove want to keep the money rolling in, so they resist solving every mystery in order to attract more tourists. ...The town has a TALKING DOG. The other dog we see doesn't talk, Velma has to give an entire lecture to justify a talking parrot. Clearly this isn't usual. Sell tickets to sit and have a chat with Scooby, and you can just pay him in food.
    • With Scooby's appetite?
    • Considering that Crystal Cove has an asylum specifically for dangerous animals, a talking dog probably isn't that out of the ordinary.
  • Just what are the ingredients of Scooby Snacks that makes them appealing to both man and beast? That's always bugged me.
    • Strangley, Scooby Snacks haven't even been mentioned in this series yet. But if you really want to know, Shaggy goes over his recipe when he invents them in the live-action The Mystery Begins movie.
    • Wrong show, this one doesn't really have Scooby Snacks. But if you have dogs, you'll know they love human food.
    • Scooby snacks have showed up a couple times now. And Shaggy is the only human who seems to like them. Generally speaking, no other human even tries to eat Scooby Snacks -- it's jut part of Shaggy's bond with Scooby and their mutual Big Eater status.
  • This exchange:

Sheriff Stone: "Fred, Fred, Fred. If you weren't my boss's son, I would not hesitate to make you disappear. Forever."
Fred: "I believe you."

    • Almost everywhere in the United States of America, Sheriffs are elected county officials. The only place in the USA a sheriff is answerable to a mayor is in New York City. Is it a clue?
    • Or is it Creator Provincialism?
    • It should be noted that this wouldn't be the first time a writer Did Not Do the Research. And, you know, this particular case is actually pretty much kosher. So NYC is technically the only city in the US where the Sheriff answers to the mayor. In this universe, maybe it's NYC and this dinky little town. Heck, with all the monsters that show up, it actually makes sense that this would happen. Maybe originally the police department was too scared to investigate a case involving a monster, which pissed off the Mayor enough to just straight up ORDER the sheriff to get his ass in gear or he'd be out of the job, even if he technically didn't have the authority to do so. The sheriff complied, even if he didn't have to. After that, enough precidence had been set for that sort of thing to be alright with the public (and that Mayor no doubt got major points for doing that after the monster was demasked, with the sheriff looking very stupid as well). With the sheriff's office decredited and the mayor's office empowered, the mayor became the sheriff's boss directly. Fridge Brilliance is your friend.
      • Foreshadowing, perhaps? Episode 26 reveals that Fred is not the Mayor's actual son...
  • In one episode, a girl's alibi is that the gang sent her father to jail. The girl looks very little in her flashback. As this series is a prequel or a Continuity Reboot, why on Earth would they remember something which I think was from an older Scooby-Doo show? At very least, this is a Mind Screw.
    • Oh and the story wasn't true, I know, but then why did the gang believe it as though they remembered it?
    • It's called a Continuity Nod.
    • This bugs me for a different reason. She was a young girl in the flashback of the gang(as teens) catching The Creeper, in the present day she is the same age as the gang who are still teens, lolwut?
      • Because the story was fake.
        • If the story was indeed that Alice May was a little girl when those meddling kids arrested her father and she'd waited years to take revenge, then it's just a huge What an Idiot! moment for the gang for not realizing that this could not be possible since they haven't aged that much from when they allegedly caught the Creeper. I'm imagining that Alice May was laughing her ass off on the inside the whole time because they were seriously falling for it. And the poor suckers still don't catch on the next time they encounter her, too!
      • I took the Creeper nod as this: They actually DID stop the Creeper, but it was maybe two or three years ago at best. It's heavily implied in the pilot that the gang has long since made a habit of solving mysteries. Heck, maybe the further nods in said pilot (the ones Thelma lists off in her parents "museum") were also foiled by those meddling kids (or their predecessors...now THAT'D be a fun twist).
  • How did Mr. E get the notes into Shaggy's bag of Nature Slivers?
    • Either he had to sneak up on Shaggy and Scooby and drop two notes into a bag of chips Shaggy had opened and was eating (without him noticing anything), or they had to be put into the bag before it was sealed.
    • It helps that Mr. E's message delivery guy is the CEO of the company that makes the chips.
  • Why does only-child Fred have a bunk bed in his room? (First seen in "Beware the Beast from Below").
    • Did he once have a brother? Maybe one who was killed by his traps?
      • A lot of only children have bunk beds for different reasons. mostly if a friend stays over. Or maybe he just wanted more room on the floor for his traps and figured bunk beds were the way to go.
        • A bunk-bed takes up just as much floor space as a regular one. But I could buy the bed itself as a trap, like, "I'll put a dummy in the lower bunk and sleep in the upper one. Then, if someone comes to attack me in my sleep, a trigger will make the upper bunk fall on the lower one, trapping the bad guy!"
          • Adding to that, Fred figured that if he couldn't have a smaller bed to have more trap space, he'd just go with a bed he could easily turn into a trap instead.
  • Professor Raffalo said he staged his "disappearance" by sticking himself to the ceiling. How exactly did that work?
    • It must have been staged for the benefit of the janitor, and Raffalo should have expected to be found stuck to the ceiling by him, and taken to the hospital. That's not a disappearance and it would have interfered with his future activities as the Slime Mutant.
    • If he wasn't found, and just ate himself free, much of the value of his alibi attack would have been lost.
  • Given that, in Mystery Inc continuity, Vincent Van Ghoul is a horror actor who needs to tinkle (and Ep 19 was seemingly his first meeting with Shaggy & Scooby)... how did the gang meet Flim-Flam (seen as a statue in 20)?
    • This is a whole new continuity. Flim-Flam's story may be entirely different.
  • Something about episode seventeen just bugs me: The Darrows supposedly lived many years in the buried mansion before only Danny was left. How did they survive? What did they eat? It wouldn't bother me so much if it wasn't for Danny being alive after 75 years and still being somewhat athletic. He would need some kind of food down there to still be so fast.
    • Rats.
      • It a Squicky What Happened to the Mouse moment, Danny never DOES say what happened to his family's bodies.
    • Well he did have a headquarters set up and was spying on the original Mystery Incorporated after they snooped around the ruins, so he could very well could have done raids on the surface at some point, and since he was so out of touch with reality and time he probably didn't notice any modern conveniences or what not.
  • How is it a bunch of geeks dressed up as biker orcs was able to completely trounce and run off a real biker gang? Scare tactics might explain it, if the bikers had seemed at all intimidated. But a Latex Perfection mask does not enable you to throw someone bodily through a glass door. And if the logic is that somehow dressing up like orcs made them stronger like orcs, then in that world cosplayers are the world's single most powerful fighting force. ;)
    • It's standard in the Scooby universe than Muscles Are Meaningless. Either everyone who puts on a monster costume is stronger than they look, or Clothes Make the Superman and disguises magically confer strength and fighting ability.
    • These are geeks maybe they turned their costumes into a sort of Powered Armor to help look the part?
    • So being geeky means you can't be strong?
      • Did you see the flashback look at the Wild Brood out of their costumes? None of them were psychically shown to have the muscle to do that, not even the evil one.
      • It is possible for someone who is not terribly muscular to use a stronger opponent's force against them. If the Wild Brood were charged by the bikers, they could use that momentum to deftly toss them out the windows.
  • Why didn't the kids recognize the CEO they spoke to in episode 20 as the "associate of Mr. E" from episode 16? He was unmasked and stood fairly close to them on the earlier occasion. Shaggy and Scooby dived into the free samples of Dummy Gummies, so they don't count, but what about Velma?
    • They did recognize him. When he shows up again in episode 26 they know him by name and know he works with Mr. E. There was no on-screen scene where they discussed this between episode 20 and 26, but it probably happened off-screen.
  • Why didn't Daphne get a to-go box in episode 19? The mansion was probably far away enough for her to at least fight her hunger off a little while.
    • They had finally gotten their table after a two hour wait. There was no food ordered yet.
  • Why does Pericles want the treasure so badly? He's a bird! He can't spend it and even if he could what would he buy?
    • Maybe there's something in particular he wants from the treasure. That or he wants to be the shadow controlling the whole world through money, connections and bribes. Sounds like him...
    • Let's not forget that he'd probably find something appealing about outsmarting all those humans out there; if only it weren't for that dog he can't quite figure out, his life would be gravy pie.
    • There's also the fact that we really don't know what the nature of the treasure is yet. It could be a lot more than just gold. Ed Machine did mention that Pericles finding the treasure could mean "the end of Crystal Cove".
    • If a parrot can talk he can probably spend money. And while he may not especially need riches to get everything he needs, the same is true of anybody who's rich. He could buy a big house, a voice-activated TV, fancy food ...
  • If Mayor Jones wanted Pericles out of the way so much why didn't he just kill him?
    • He still had a difficult puzzle to solve to find the treasure. Possibly he thought the bird could be persuaded to talk and give him more clues, given enough time in solitary confinement to become desperate.
    • Actually the episode itself had an explanation: He pinned the disappearance of the original Mystery Incorporated on Pericles and making it so even if Pericles did decide to tell the truth about the mayor to anyone, they would think Pericles was lying in order to get out of his prison sentence.
  • Given the revelations of episode 26, why was Mayor Jones brooding over that picture?
    • Maybe he heard Fred coming and it was an act. His over-reaction to being startled suggests he really wasn't.
      • Maybe its regret?
  • I had heard rumours that Flim-Flam and Weerd and Bogel were supposed to make a cameo (on a fan forum) but is this really true? Where would it fit into the show? Or is this just someone's Fanfic presented as reality?
    • I never heard of the rumor but Weerd and Bogel could work as human henchmen for Pericles or some other bad guy.
      • Flim-Flam and Scrappy did make cameos... of the Take That variety: both as statues in the museum, with Flim-Flam apparently is serving 25-life for fraud of some kind, and Scrappy... well...

Fred: "We promised we would never speak of that. Never, ever."

  • Why is there speculation on one Scooby-Doo fansite about Fred's underwear? Is it really even necessary to speculate on this?
  • From the Season 2 premiere we're given the Baby-Clown, a huge fat clown looking thing that drives around blowing up buildings and neighborhoods with bombs that look like milk bottles and at one point actually demands money from city hall or else he'll cause more damage, essentially making him a terrorist. So what does the new mayor do? Get the police or the national guard? Of course not. Instead she summons 4 teenagers and a talking dog known for solving mysteries and building traps. Can someone explain what kind of sense that makes?
    • Well, Crystal Cove's police force was essentially paralyzed by the attacks, as evidenced by him blowing up all their cars in the teaser. As for the national guard, well, think of how that call would go. "We need you to come in to stop a giant man baby clown from blowing up the town." "Is this some kind of sick joke?"
      • Its a bit like someone calling in Sherlock Holmes because they know Inspector Lestrade is sub-par. The regular police don't know how to handle "mysteries" whereas Mystery Inc. have made a living out of this for quite a while.
  • Another minor one from the season 2 premiere but why does Velma take it personally that the gang left her? Shaggy and Scooby were involuntarily send away and Freddy left to find his parents, but she acts like they only left to spite her.
    • Well, perhaps it was still too soon for her to think rationally, so perhaps she was just stewing in denial over the whole Angel business.
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