Scooby-Doo (animation)/Headscratchers

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Scooby Doo

  • Why don't they just grab the monster's face and pull off the mask the first time it shows up?
    • The screeching psychopath wearing a monster mask chasing after them in the dark, sure he may not actually be a monster, but does that automatically make the screeching psychopath wearing a mask chasing them in the darkness less terrifying for them?
    • I really doubt the monster would stay still for that.
      • It would've been really hilarious if they did this to the "monster" in the diving suit though. Hehehe...
  • Why do they even believe in monsters, anyway? As far as I know, they usually only encountered crooked land developers.
    • Yeah, but by the time they started getting Genre Savvy about that, the monsters started becoming real.
    • Um, am I the only one who doesn't think they were EVER real? It's just that the only people left in the cast were either cowards or a kid, and were hence more interested in escaping than unmasking (I only recall one of these "real monster" episodes, but as I recall they just escaped from it without proving it one way or the other).
    • In the Zombie Island movie, they try unmasking one of the zombies and fail...
    • In the classic series "Scooby Doo, Where Are You?" (the original Scooby Doo series) Fred, Velma, and Daphne did not believe in ghosts and monsters. Shaggy and Scooby apparently did—not so strange because there are a lot of people today who believe in ghosts and monsters (I think more than half of Americans believe in ghosts), despite how much evidence to the contrary there is. But it seems to me to make even MORE sense to run from a criminal wearing a mask than it would to run from a ghost. (Note that in the original series there were no ghosts and monsters, it was always a hoax. I always think that the later adaptations in which the ghosts and monsters turn out to be real have really deviated from the rules of the original Scooby Dooniverse.)
      • Just what "evidence to the contary" is there to show ghosts dont exist? You might be able to prove that a particular incident thought to be a ghost, wasnt, but how do you prove that ghosts, as a concept, arent real?
      • They did once go against a legitimately dangerous foe that they had thought was a normal man. But it turned out to be an android. Not supernatural, but certainly turned out to be more fantastic than what the gang had originally surmised.
      • Of course, since you just unironically uttered the words "Scooby Dooniverse," This Troper is suddenly greatly inclined to disregard everything you just said.
    • As far I remember, in every episode of classic series there was at last one scene when Scooby and Shaggy encountered REAL ghost, but they had never noticed it. Once they even found magic book, didn't believe in it and casted spell that turned them into demons and they were laughing how spell was silly. Then they had casted spell that turned them normal before they saw themselves.
  • Why the elaborate traps? Shouldn't four healthy teenagers and a gigantic dog be able to take down an old man in a rubber suit just by tackling him? Scrappy had the right idea, grow some cojones, Mystery Inc.
    • Because it's a kids show and that is violent. Plus they never know that they aren't real ghosts, they don't become genre savy until the monsters start becoming real.
    • They should guess after the first four or five times.
    • Even if the villain's human, he's still a potentially armed and dangerous criminal. They really don't want to go tackling a "ghost" that's actually a knife-wielding psycho or packing heat. Whatever the culprit is, it's just safer to get him tied up and call the cops.
    • Because half the time(which we aren't shown) the monsters are real,and the gang are part of an Ancient Conspiracy to cover up the supernatural
  • Why don't the crooked land developers ever realize that pretending to be The Ghost of Phantom Swamp isn't going to scare people away, it's going to draw in curious teenagers and talking dogs from all over?
    • They all got the same idea from the one really bad infomercial. I saw it a while ago, I think it was on channel 37.
  • How can the Doo family line talk? None of the other animals in the show can speak or do the kind of anthropomorphic stuff that Scooby, Scrappy, and the rest of the Doo clan can do. Did some kind of experiment happen with them during the puppy farm they were born at? Are they spawn of some kind of Noble Demon hellhound? What?
    • They're descended from Rex the Wonder Dog, who is, in turn descended from the dog in Wuthering Heights, who was present at the Wold Newton Meteor strike, thereby imbuing the lineage with extraordinary qualities. See here for further details. (See what happens when you ask silly questions? You get silly answers.)
      • Mad Writter wants to say That covers a possible universe—but not the true universe of Scooby-Doo universe.
  • Why didn't Mystery Inc. just let Scrappy fight the ghost and let him get his ass handed to him? It'd get him to shut up, that's fer sure.
    • Because nothing kills the carefree party atmosphere quite like a dead puppy. Alternatively, they knew what he'd be absolutely insufferable if he actually managed to win.
    • The second explanation makes more sense than the first one. Certainly I would party harder if Scrappy's corpse were in the vicinity. Alternately, since he's Scooby's nephew (or something) Scooby probably didn't want to deal with his mother//father.
    • Yeah chances are the reason Scooby seems to tolerate Scrappy so much is more than likely due to his parents.
  • Who is funding the Scooby gang? Even at pre-1973 gas prices, they spend an awful lot of time driving around in that van, eating pizza, consuming Scooby snacks, and so forth, and we never see them collect any reward for solving their mysteries....
    • Aren't they teenagers? What are they doing on the road anyway?
      • The original Fred and Shaggy were draft dodgers.(no,it didn't actually say so in the series)
    • Hey, in America, if you're over 16, you can get your driver's license. Fred looked about 40, so no harm done. And they were called Mystery, Inc., after all: who says they weren't running some sort of ghost/land developer protection racket?
    • They are shown in the movie to be somewhat famous, maybe they do the Derek Acorah thing and just do a lot of TV appearances.
    • I think the Word of God somewhere said Daphne's dad was an Eccentric Millionaire.
    • Makes sense, since Daphne became "the rich one" in A Pup Named Scooby-Doo.
    • Yes, it is mentioned in one of the episodes that they are effectively being bankrolled by Daphne's dad (he bought them the van, for example). This also might explain why Daphne is part of the group.
    • Perhaps they're selling all the, um, "Scooby Snacks" that Shaggy and Scooby aren't, um, ingesting?
    • There were a couple episodes where they got jobs. I can totally remember one episode where they got a job on a building site, and Scooby got to help Shaggy screw in these red hot bolts into these girders at like twenty stories up. Apparently safety wasn't all that important.
    • Many of the episodes I watch (why?) have justification. Winning a contest, going on a school sponsored event, just going down the road to a convention to meet an old friend... Of course, in the movies, they made mad green by busting ghosts. Which makes it all the more odd that people still -try-.
    • Mystery Inc. is supposed to be some kind of detective agency, so they probably bill people for their services sometimes. Remember, the kids don't always just dump into a mystery; They are often invited over and asked to investigate one.
    • Incorrect. It's been stated in at least one of the movies (Zombie Island)) that when they aren't working on their usual mystery solving fare, they hold down real jobs. Daphne's been a reporter(With Fred as her cameraman), Velma's gone from a librarian to a scientist at NASA, and Scooby and Shaggy tend to end up trying to barely hold down odd jobs such as airport security.
      • How does all of this make the previous comment incorrect? Who's to say they can't be making money on Mystery Inc. as well as the jobs you mention?
        • Those were post-Mystery Inc., anyway.
    • Obviously, they pimp Daphne at truck stops.
      • That would explain why they keep her around.
  • A question that doesn't just apply to this show. Why don't any of the villains simply break out a firearm and leave the situation for the Crime Scene Cleaners to deal with?
    • Because the villains are idiots and because that would be "too violent" for a kids show.
    • Because theres a big mental lead between land developement scamming and cold-blooded murder?
      • Land Development scamming = Business man. Business man to cold-blooded murderer is less jumping to conclusions and more taking a step an the conclusion being there.
    • Because that would inevitably draw the police's attention.
      • Also, how many Ghosts/Fish Monsters/Yeti go around shooting people? If their idea is to scare them away, that implies these people are Harmless Villains who don't have it in them to kill. Who knows? Perhaps those who "do" try to kill only make it seem so in order to amp up the scares. Then again, they might have to go for a kill that is "natural" to the monster they're impersonating to keep their cover.
    • In one episode, a villain chained Velma to the old log sawing machine, clearly intending on cutting her in half. So why didn't this villain, who clearly intended to kill a hero, just use a gun?
      • Because he didn't have a gun?
      • They probably spent their whole supply budget on costumes, dry ice, and treasure maps.
      • The real reason was Scooby ws created in 1969 in the wake of a Moral Guardian victory over violence in cartoons (asee Speed Racer with it's exploding cars for a good example). Scooby was intetionally created to be an exciting, yet non violent, cartoon.


  • Why exactly haven't the kids aged, changed their fashion sense, their slang, etc. since the late Sixties?
    • Because all of that is part of their characters.
      • Casey Kasem hasn't aged, why should Shaggy?
    • Its lampshaded in What's New Scooby Doo? and A Pup Named Scooby Doo
    • Because they're retro.
      • Because they are clones,sent by the conspiracy,to deal with supernatural threats.Note:Original Mystery Machine had CIA grade surveillence equipment in the back.
    • They DID change their outfits (as was highlighted in Scooby Doo and the Cyber Chase where the kids meet virtual younger versions of themselves wearing their old clothes).
    • They're hipsters.
  • What's in those Scooby Snacks? It can't be marijuana, since ingesting it doesn't affect people that quickly.
  • How are the crooked real estate guys, bankers, etc so strong? Most old people can't lift and throw downed trees.
    • Powered Armour
    • Or an Unreliable Narrator
    • If they thought ahead, maybe they keep movie props around. They would look like trees and stuff, but be light enough to carry and throw (plus, they wouldn't hurt anyone if they did actually hit).
  • Right. In one episode Velma explains that she worked out who the culprit was because the 'ghost' had been supposedly sabotaging amusement park rides, but the rides turned out to actually be safe - they were just altered to look sabotaged. And apparently this means that this one person has to be guilty. My problem with this is that Velma is essentially implying that if any of the other suspects wanted to look like they were sabotaging something, they'd actually sabotage it. So she thinks that every suspect who turned out to be innocent is a sociopath, basically. And no-one takes offence at this.
    • Also from that episode: How can a ride "look" sabotaged? The ghost cut the string on a parasail, FFS! They're riding a giant glider that's suddenly become attached to nothing! There is no possible way that the ghost could've known exactly where the thing would land, and therefore she should NOT have been cleared of reckless endangerment.
    • That bothered me a lot too. Oh well, at least the culprit's mom will punish her severely.
    • I thought the reason she thought that was because she was the only person in the park who COULD sabotage the rides to still be safe since she was the person who designed all of the safety precautions for the ride. It's not that the other suspects wanted to kill people, but that they didn't know how not to. But the explanation did bother me too. There was no way Freddy, Daphne, and Velma were not in any danger falling down toward the spinning blades of death on the sky diving simulator.
  • Why don't they set up the trap for the monster before they go to all the trouble of splitting up and looking for clues? That way, it wouldn't appear and chase them in the middle of their search.
    • Because they'd probably have a lawsuit slapped on them if they couldn't prove a crime was being committed and that the guy in the suit was the one doing it before they went around trapping people.
  • How do they decide which criminals get off scot-free? In "What's New Scooby-Doo?" I seem to remeber one or two getting off the hook, because they apparently didn't commit any crimes. What about the miner 49-er? He just ran around and growled and tried to keep an oil discovery secret and yet he still went to jail.
    • Causing humans to believe they are in danger is a crime, I believe.
    • Reckless Endangerment, yep!
    • It probably depends on whether anyone's willing to press charges. In most cases, the villains were malacious enough and the victims harrassed enough that they're only too happy to call the cops, but every now and then, it's a lighthearted and personal enough situation that once the truth comes out, everyone involved is willing to laugh it off.
  • Many times, the inventions/costume used to scare away people from the treasure is worth far, far more then the treasure itself. I'm thinking of that semi-new episode with the animatronic dragon that did loads of stuff, including running. It could massacre a boatload of enemies on the battlefield.
    • Maybe the person didn't want to sell the dragon to the military because he dislikes war.
    • I remember another episode where the bad guy had a whole army of little robot tiki guys. Even assuming that he didnt want sell them to the military, there are other people to sell to. Or at least other places to find work with that kind of intelligence and engineering skill.
    • Yeah, villains who don't just sell their inventions instead of using them to commit crimes is a trope in itself. Every now and then the gang's pointed out that the villain could have easily made money legitimately, much to the crook's chagrin as they're being taken away by the police.
  • Almost every time in the Direct-To-Video movies, the guy posing as the monster has some sort of mechanical frame built into the costume to help him maintain the image. How is it, then, that during the chase scene, they get hurt as if every part of the costume is their own flesh and blood?
    • Perhaps they want to keep the illusion that there's no protective mechanical frame surrounding them by faking pain? Of course there's always the other answer.
  • Why does Scooby have a speech impediment, but Scrappy talks absolutely normal?
    • Scooby's a lot older than Scrappy, whose balls have yet to drop.
    • Brain damage from too many Scooby Snacks.
    • Scrappy's parent got the good genes.
    • The dominant, superior genes.
    • Improvements in genetic engineering/spellcasting technique.
  • The thing that really bugs me is that Daphne and Freddy are obviously attracted to each other and yet they still haven't kissed! I mean every trope has happened to them and they still tease us!
    • I'm pretty sure they did in at least one of the movies.
      • Daphne kisses Fred on the cheek in Scooby Doo and the Cyber Chase.
    • Also, there's that fairly infamous line, "Daphne and I will check out the bedroom."
  • How come that Fred, Daphne and Velma are outright impolite or even rude with Shaggy and Scooby, and the formers never complain? Every time they try to avoid a most probable danger or discuss the planning of a trap, are usually snapped back with a "No, and now do it!". Are willing slaves?
    • If they lack the backbone to stand up to a middle aged Harmless Villain in mask and costume, what makes you think they have the courage to stand up to the friends with whom they travel across the country in close proximity?
    • Probably because Shaggy and Scooby are always trying to weasel out of helping with the job despite being perfectly capable of helping, and the others are intimate enough to call them on that with variations of "Enough with the excuses already!". Fred, Velma and Daphne are cooperative enough that this isn't needed when they ask each other for help.
  • Did they de-age in "What's New Scooby Doo?"? They called them teenagers. If you go buy the Johnny Bravo crossover they've always been from the early 20th century but..
    • Meddling Kids?
      • The Meddling Kids line has been lamshaded by Fred on at least a few occasions (With This Troper half remembering him remarking that he's in his early twenties? 24? It was a long time ago.) So they may or may not be de-aged. Then again, they really never gave them a precise age to begin with...
      • There's some serious Comic Book Time going on with Scooby Doo, but I'd divide it up like this. Scooby Doo Where Are You and the DVD movies take place in the same continuity, with the original series showing them as teenagers and the movies showing them in their twenties. What's New Scooby Doo is in its own continuity as a modern-day remake of Where Are You, with the gang as 21st century teenagers but otherwise having the same mystery-solving adventures. Mystery Incorporated is more of a reimagining that uses the Where Are You mysteries as a Broad Strokes backstory for Crystal Cove. So they're teenagers in all three shows, but adults in the animated movies.
  • What are Scooby Snacks supposed to be, cookies or dog biscuits?
    • Yes.
    • Dog cookies. I am more intrigued by the fact that Scooby apparently has his own brand of snacks.
      • Rebranded vanilla waifers. Seriously. I saw them on the store shelves.. :)
      • Well its been referred to many times that Scooby was indeed named AFTER the snacks he loves so much...
  • Where is Ruby Doo, anyway? We see her in a flashback when she gives birth to Scrappy, and then never again. It's a shame, because I find the idea of Scrappy being a total mama's boy in private...actually kind of, dare I say, sweet.
    • She later appeared in "A Pup" alongside Scooby's other siblings Howdy & Skippy Doo.
  • Velma's hair. It looks red in every animated adaptation but it's apparently brown? Which is it?
    • It's both. Her hair was brown to begin with but after a coloring mistake they changed it to red and it stuck.
    • It looks red to you? I find that odd, and always saw it as either brown or Hair Color Dissonance.
  • How come Scooby and Shaggy never catch on to the fact that the "monsters" are just guys in costumes? After the two millionth mystery, you'd think they'd grow some balls (or at least a few functioning brain cells) by now.
    • Because one is a drug addict and the other is a dog that lives with a drug addict. How much can you possibly expect them to accomplish with crime scene investigations?
    • The more recent adaptations, such as the film and Mystery Inc., have the whole team experienced enough to expect guys in masks.
  • Did Scooby ever have dark fur, a deep voice, and a red collar like his doppelganger in Cyber Chase? I've seen almost every SD media and never seen that. I suppose it was to make them easy to tell apart.
    • Bingo. Unlike the rest of Mystery Inc, Scooby's design has been absolutely unchanged for 40 years. I mean...he's a dog with a collar. Not much can be done, really, without drastically changing the character.
      • Give him a new collar? Even then a lot of people would complain since it's so iconic.
  • Scooby is eight - seven years old, right? He shows no signs of old age or even being older then the dog equivalent of twenty five. He's a Great Dane, which have short life expectancies, plus he's unhealthy which adds to that.
    • All that running-from-monsters is surprisingly-good exercise.
      • I suppose so, if his arteries aren't half clogged and his sugar up. But even then he seems young in appearance. His fur is perfectly fine for example, no grey.
        • Raw eggs as a main ingredient in Scooby Snacks?
    • Also, he's not a Great Dane, he's a bloodhound. No, he doesn't really look like one, but that's what he's supposed to be.
      • Oh, Scooby is a Great Dane, all right. He was first a sheepdog named Too Much, but they had to change him since the Archie Show (also on CBS) already had a sheepdog (Jughead's pet Hot Dog), One of the artists at Hanna-Barbera raised Great Danes as a hobby, so they made the dog a Great Dane. (An episode of 13 Ghosts certifies this uncontestably.)
  • Why do the villains always say "I would have gotten away with it if it weren't for you blasted meddling kids!" when Mystery Inc. are clearly adults?
    • Most of the villains are pretty old guys, so as far as they are concerned, even young adults like the gang count as "kids".
    • Aren't they teenagers, though? I suppose most teenagers consider it condescending to be called "kids", but most adults don't care about that.
  • Much of the time the monster turns out to be a trespasser who's protecting the mansion's hidden treasure, but every so often, it's the owner of the house, or a direct relative that the owner is close to. But even when the suspect owns the property and makes no attempt to harm the Gang (outside of a little scare), they still get arrested by the sheriff. Uh... why? And for that matter, why is the gang never arrested for trespassing, too?
    • That's not entirely true. There was the Headless Ghost episode in which the owner is trying to find something hidden on his property. After he's unmasked, the gang offer to help him, and find another person with an ax who is also trying to find said treasure. He's arrested for trespassing, but doesn't press charges on the gang cause they're helping him. It's been a while, but I'm fairly certain this is still true for other episodes in the original series where someone explicitly asked them to come or thanked them for their efforts.
  • In Chill Out, Scooby-Doo! Scooby and Shaggy end up hanging from a weather balloon high in the sky. The balloon deflates and they end up plummeting towards the ground and into the snow at the bottom of a cavern. Let me say this again: they fall from the clouds, land in the bottom of a cavern, and they are completely unharmed. I understand that this is a cartoon, but they should at least acknowldege that falling from that height would hurt!
  • The Doo family were somewhat talking dogs. So why was the existance of monsters so far-fetched?.
    • They've wavered on whether most people can understand Scooby; some of the movies suggest that Shaggy's usually the only one, with the rest of the gang just knowing Scooby well enough to get the gist of it (Scooby's wild gestures probably help). Some of Scooby's family could more talk more clearly in the '70s shows, like you said, but some of them owned their own homes, drove cars, had jobs and lived like humans. They come from an especially odd, Reverse Cerebus Syndrome period of the franchise that didn't exist during the original show, and has probably fallen back into Canon Discontinuity or Broad Strokes for the more recent ones.
  • Why do no authorities in the country start getting suspicious about Mystery Inc.? They show up at just the right time to solve what is, on the face of it, an utterly ridiculous crime. And other than the (clearly deranged) villain's confession, the only evidence presented to the police is what the gang have found out. "That's right officer, this man has dressed up as a witch and his accomplice as a zombie and they go around a swamp using a pontoon to try and find an old sunken armoured car that they robbed years ago. Also they have an incredibly elaborate system of wires and smoke bombs that allows them to convince anyone nearby that they are, in fact, a real witch and a zombie." and the police go "Yup, that sounds legit" and haul the villains away and the gang just drive off. What the hell, cops?
    • The police aren't dragging the villains off for immediate sentencing, they're just arresting them for trespassing (which, regardless of anything else, the crooks are definitely doing) along with suspicion of all the other accusations. We can assume a more thorough police investigation happened offscreen, and it backed up everything the Scoobies said. When the police quip about how "where he's going he won't have to [insert snarky callback to the villain's scheme here] for a long time", they're just making offhand conversation (and assuring viewers too young for the subtleties of the legal system that yes, the bad guy goes to jail now).
      • Just looking at the latest season, we have a group of counterfeiters and a guy who almost killed off a policeman because of erratic driving. I think that's enough to send someone to prison, regardless of their ghost disguises.
  • How did the ghosts become "real" in the 1980-1983 series, and an episode of The New Scooby-Doo Mysteries? Is that Seasonal Rot, or something else?
  • In the episode "Bedlam in the Big Top", there are two things that have always made me scratch my head: 1st, when the hypnotist put himself in a trance, how was he lucid enough to give himself a hypnotic command and 2nd, assuming it's possible for him to be both hypnotized and lucid enough to issue a command at the same time, why would he continue going through with the command. Shouldn't a villain smart enough to pull off a plan like this also be smart of not to issue a hypnotic command that he knows will affect him?
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