"Google search engine! Where are you? We got some work to do now!" From behind the scenes secrets to the reasoning behind certain characteristics, here are 10 interesting facts about Hanna-Barbera's cash cow franchise.
#10: Scooby Sinatra
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| Legends look for inspiration from legends! |
Believe it or not, Scooby's name came from the Frank Sinatra Song "Strangers in the Night". TV executive Fred Silverman heard the phrase "scooby doobie doo" during a flight home one night and liked it enough to make it the dog's name.
#9: Vegetarian Shaggy
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| They're certainly doing the environment a favor! |
For much of the show's early run Shaggy was a vegetarian because his then voice actor, the late great Casey Kasem, was a vegan and a critic of factory farming. He temporarily quit voicing the character in the 90s because he was asked to voice Shaggy in a Burger King commercial.
#8: Scooby and The Doos
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| A mystery solving band? That would've been pretty cool! |
Like many other shows, this show went through multiple changes during development. One idea the showrunners had was for the main group to be a traveling band called the Mysterious Five. In addition to 5 teens this version of the Mystery Gang would've had a bongo playing sheepdog called Too Much.
#7: My Glasses!
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| Word to the wise: Get a chain or lanyard for your glasses! |
Velma's catchphrase "My Glasses! I can't see without my glasses!" came from an incident that happened during the production of the original show. Her voice actress at the time, Nicole Jaffe, was nearsighted just like Velma. One day she uttered a variation of the famous line after losing her glasses and everyone liked it so much they made Velma losing her glasses a running gag.
#6: Fred and Shaggy
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| Rare footage of Fred splitting up with someone other than Daphne. |
Frank Welker and Casey Kasem are well known for their roles as Fred and Shaggy respectively, but initially they wanted the opposite roles. Frank wanted Shaggy's role because he was always the straight man and wanted to voice a comedic character. Casey meanwhile wanted to voice Fred because he claimed he wasn't a comedic actor.
#5: From one series to another
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| Jinkies, this franchise goes back further than we thought! |
The creators and writers of Scooby-Doo confirmed that the four human leads of the show were based on the main characters of The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, a live action sitcom that ran from 1959 to 1963. The series also draws inspiration from The Archie Show and a book series called The Famous Five.
#4: Scooby out of focus Doo
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| Rooby Roo! |
Originally Scooby-Doo wasn't the main character, but rather just an extra the creators threw in to make the show more interesting. Over time, his antics made him not only the star of the show, but also one of the most iconic characters in cartoon history.
#3: Rehashes everywhere
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| Scooby did the multiverse thing before that concept became popular! |
Back in the 70s, Hanna-Barbera has made several shows that were basically clones. Some of these had entities besides dogs following the group of teens (for example, Speed Buggy and Funky Phantom had a sentient vehicle and a ghost respectively) or make changes to the group as a whole (Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kids is basically the original show's band concept realized), but they were pretty much the same show again and again.
#2: Let's split up, gang!
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| Fortunately, future writers warmed up to these two. |
In the original show whenever the gang would split up to look for clues, we'd almost always follow Scooby, Shaggy and Velma. This is because the writers of that show thought they were boring and wanted to focus on the other three since they thought they were more interesting.
#1: More versions than you can count
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| Unless you've been living under a rock, there's no way you haven't seen this! |
Starting all the way back in 1969, Scooby-Doo is one of the longest running cartoons in the world. As for the television cartoon, there are 12 different iterations as of 2025, ranging from reboots to spinoffs to sequel series.
Like zoinks, that was a lot of knowledge to take in! If you know something I didn't or feel I messed something up, drop a little thing in the comment section. Thanks for reading and may the Scooby Snacks be with you!
