The gang come to see their friend, country star Jerry Reed, reopen an old country music hall, only to find the hall haunted, mysterious music playing, and Jerry nowhere to be seen. Even after finding the musician of the hour, they'll still need to put on their own performance to ensure the opening goes ahead as expected.
This episode includes examples of the following tropes:
- Cassandra Truth: Daphne and Jerry are skeptical about Shaggy's story about the Phantom in the prop room, strangely enough given the experiences both of them have been having in the music hall.
- Cordon Bleugh Chef: Shaggy and Scooby get sausage/anchovy/pepperoni pizza with hot sauce and ice cream. Velma snarks that one day his stomach will quit in protest over his unusual diet.
- Disguised in Drag: Bertha, the cleaning lady at the music hall, was actually a man who called himself βThe Phantom.β
- Everyone Knows Morse: Jerry, citing army experience, manages to figure out the morse code Fred is using to call for help after he and Daphne fall down a trap door. However, when Velma asks him to say something in return, he says that he only learned how to receive the code, not how to send it.
- Fair-Weather Friend: Jerry isn't impressed when Shaggy and Scooby refuse to help him get back his guitar before the performance because they're scared of the ghost. Velma and Daphne join in the shaming.
- Interclass Friendship: The gang already knows Jerry personally prior to the events of the episode. He seems to be particularly close to Velma, given that he calls her "honey", but he's still close enough to the others that he believes they'll help him after the ghost steals his guitar.
- Mephistopheles: A statue of Mephisto pops out of the theater stage floor to frighten Fred and Daphne. Fred immediately recognizes it from Faust.
- Murderous Mannequin: The monsters are a pair of living Davy Crockett and Viking mannequins.
- Mythology Gag:
- "Pretty Mary Sunlight", the song Jerry has to sing for the opening, appeared in a "song-and-chase" sequence in the last episode of the original series, "Don't Fool with a Phantom."
- At the end, Shaggy and Scooby sing a snippet of Reed's song "When You're Hot, You're Hot."
- One-Song Bard: Jerry Reed sings "Pretty Mary Sunlight" over and over, though that is the song he's supposed to play at the opening, so he's justified in wanting some practice.
- Pop-Culture Pun Episode Title: The title sounds a lot like The Phantom of the Opera.
- Security Cling:
- Shaggy and Scooby grab ahold of each other when they discover the "Phantom's" note.
- When the lights go out, Daphne clings to Fred.
- Spanner in the Works: Jerry is this β twice. First, thanks to him, the music hall would be opening a week before the Phantom and Ben Bing expected (they were planning to rob a bank before the opening). Then, they got him locked up in a room under the stage β but he had invited the gang to come to the music hall, thus causing the culprits even more headaches.
- Watch Where You're Going!: Scooby and Shaggy get spooked by a tiger costume being moved around on a hook. In the fuss, they run into each other and knock each other down.
