After accepting an invitation from actor Malcolm McDowell, the gang find themselves traveling through time on a pedal-powered carousel. Dangers lurk on every side. Can the group ever get safely home?
This episode includes examples of the following tropes:
- Attack! Attack... Retreat! Retreat!: During the Scooby-Dooby Doors sequence, the Chrono-beast chases the gang into one of the portals, only to flee back out when they come after it riding a Tyrannosaurus rex.
- Bad Future: When Malcolm McDowell invents a time machine, he takes the gang into two separate futures, one of which includes an army of giant spider robots patrolling a Lost World-like setting, and one terrorized by an evil robot Scooby-Doo. Neither are real, just the result of an elaborate green screen movie soundstage.
- Beam-O-War: Future Scooby and Shag-Borg fire beams at each other, which meet each other midway.
- Detective Patsy: Malcom invites Mystery Inc to see his time machine, because if he could fool them, he could fool anyone. When he gives the You Meddling Kids line, he adds "Who, like an idiot, I called here!"
- Foreshadowing:
- The food on Malcolm's table and in the future all tastes the same. It's fake food made of marzipan.
- The Future Velma who calls her present self uses Liverpool slang. Velma eventually realizes that this indicates she was a fake created by Malcolm McDowell, who grew up in the area.
- Velma can always get a Wifi signal, no matter when they go. That's because the "future" is a sound stage.
- Clock Roaches: Malcolm claims the Chrono-Beast has been following him since he created the time machine and that it lives in the time vortex. He turns out to be the Chrono-Beast.
- Ret-Gone: Not to a person, for once. Shaggy and Scooby promise to be best friends whenever, no matter what, which undoes the feud between Supreme Leader Dooby Doo and Shag-Borg.
- Scooby-Dooby Doors: The episode's inevitable chase scene through a series of door involves time portals.
- Shout-Out:
- When Scooby-Doo and Shaggy spot a Giant Banana in the future, they say the following:
Shaggy: Come on, Scoob, I think it's time we went-Scooby-Doo: Snack to the Future!- During Malcolm's Motive Rant, he explains that he was trying to get Mystery Inc's endorsement on his time-travel theme park experience, and he compares it to another theme park with dinosaurs.
