Recap / Whats New Scooby Doo S 2 E 5 A Scooby Doo Halloween

After the gang solves another mystery, they go to Banning Junction to visit Velma's family for Halloween, but they meet ghostly scarecrows who try to ruin the festivities. The gang attempts to save the town before the ghost of Hank Banning appears.

This episode includes examples of the following tropes:

• Balloon Belly: Shaggy and Scooby each get one after gorging themselves on Halloween candy.
• Beat:
  Marcy: Yup, I’m 18, able to legally [beat] vote!
• Bedsheet Ghost: Scooby dresses up as one to scare Shaggy in the cornfield.
• Bunny Ears Picture Prank: Scooby maneuvers two of the pumpkin-headed scarecrows into position to have their picture taken with Shaggy, who's dressed as a werewolf. When he hands them the photo afterward before he and Shaggy run off, the picture shows Shaggy giving them both rabbit ears.
• The Cameo: KISS, much to Shaggy’s excitement
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Daphne does not like seeing Marcy get close to Fred, and this ends up being one of the reasons she names her as a suspect.
• Company Cross References: Curtis dresses up as Hong Kong Phooey, another Hanna-Barbera animated anthropomorphic dog who fights crime.
• Dramatic Thunder: Thunder crashes and lightning strikes when Velma’s aunt and uncle finish telling the legend of Hank Banning.
• Dressing as the Enemy: Shaggy and Scooby dress as the scarecrow robots to follow them to their next destination.
• Excessive Evil Eyeshadow: This is one of the many reasons Daphne doesn’t trust Marcy.
  Daphne: I knew it! Anyone who wears that much eye shadow is bad news!
• Farmer's Daughter: Velma's cousin Marcy is one of these, but without the Boyfriend-Blocking Dad.
• Fictional Fan, Real Celebrity: Shaggy is a big fan of KISS, and knowing that they're attending the festivities is one of the reasons he's so eager to go. Shaggy wants Paul Stanley to sign his forehead.
• Green-Eyed Monster: There are several reasons why Daphne doesn’t like Marcy, the chief of them being her apparent romantic interest in Fred.
• Halloween Episode: The gang visits Velma’s aunt and uncle in Banning Junction for Halloween.
• Hate at First Sight: When she meets Marcy for the first time, Daphne immediately starts to dislike her the moment she acts catty towards her. Flirting with Fred in front of her certainly didn't help matters. Daphne doesn't even hesitate to name Marcy as a suspect because of this, and she takes a lot of satisfaction when she's exposed and gets sentenced to community service.
• Instant Wristwatch: Scooby and Shaggy are only shown wearing wrist watches when it comes time for them to check their countdown to Halloween.
• Instantly Proven Wrong: When Daphne questions Marcy's whereabouts before she met the gang at the town square, Marcy tells her she was working her part-time job at the mall and shows everyone the security footage to prove it. Daphne doesn't believe the girl in the footage is Marcy (even though they do look very much alike) and claims that could be anyone, only for a guy outside the camera's field of vision to call out Marcy's name and the girl in question turns her head in response, leaving a gaping Daphne to look down in embarrassment, and Marcy to smirk triumphantly.
• It's All My Fault: After Marcy explains her reasons for trying to ruin Halloween, her parents blame themselves for putting the holiday over their daughter's birthday.
• Karma Houdini: Downplayed. Once Marcy is exposed as the culprit, she is sentenced to community service since nobody got hurt in her scheme and what she did wasn't technically illegal, which is basically a slap on the wrist.
• Luck-Based Search Technique: Shaggy and Scooby discover that the burns in the cornfield actually form a picture of a jack-o-lantern because they climbed up a water tower to chase a cat that stole their caramel apple.
• Malicious Misnaming: Marcy purposely calls Daphne different names throughout the episode, including “Daisy” and “Debbie.”
• Mythology Gag: Shaggy's costume is a werewolf, making him resemble his appearance in Scooby-Doo! and the Reluctant Werewolf. The same episode includes a Laugh Track, which was used in every episode of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!.
• Perennially Overshadowed Birthday: It is revealed that Marcy's Birthday is on Halloween, but it is overshadowed by her parents' annual Halloween party. She decides to frighten everyone in revenge. After explaining her motive upon being unmasked, her parents feel guilty putting the holiday over their own daughter.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: The cat outside the window that Scooby barks at hisses at him and then its eyes glow red.
  • The cat is seen for a final time at the end of the episode as it disappears and only its red eyes remain.
• Right Behind Me: Shaggy is mocking Ages’ creepy warning about the Ghost of Hank Banning when she shows up right behind him.
  Shaggy: She’s right behind me, isn’t she?
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: Daphne suspects Velma's cousin Marcy to be the culprit behind the attacks of the Scarecrows and the Ghost of Hank Banning (mainly because she dislikes Marcy for acting catty towards her and getting too close to Fred) but offers no reason beyond "women's intuition". When Daphne questions her whereabouts before the gang at the town square, Marcy tells her she was working at her part-time job at the mall and shows them the security footage to prove it, with Daphne embarrassing herself when she declares that's not Marcy and gets proven wrong immediately. Marcy is unmasked as the culprit at the end of the episode, but only because Velma deduced it was her after remembering that Marcy's birthday is on the same day as Halloween^note It turns out Marcy hated Halloween for always overshadowing her birthday every year and she was trying to ruin it by scaring everyone so she wouldn't have to play second fiddle to it ever again., as well as recognizing the glove she found at the water tower from the security footage, meaning that Daphne was only right due to sheer luck. She even believed Marcy wasn't the girl from the security footage until Velma corrected her.
• Scary Scarecrows: The monsters include a handful of these, with pumpkin heads, which show up to terrorize the guests at the big Halloween celebration. They're actually robots.
• Shout-Out: There's a The Wizard of Oz reference as a person dressed as the Cowardly Lion tells Shaggy (in disguise as one of the scarecrows), "Carl, I thought we told you to meet us by the snack table. Honestly, sometimes it's like you don't even have a brain." In the background are the Tin Man and Dorothy.
  • Scooby and Shaggy disguising themselves as robot scarecrows and marching in line with them may be a further reference to the film.
• Torches and Pitchforks: The townspeople of Banning Junction greet the gang with pitchforks and lanterns while calling them “cowardly trespassers.” It turns out they were expecting whoever has been vandalizing their cornfields.
  Shaggy: Hi, nice to meet ya and all your pointy farm tools.
• Uncanny Family Resemblance: Velma looks like her cousin Marcy's parents, especially in contrast to Marcy herself, ironically.
• Urban Legend: Velma’s Aunt Meg and Uncle Evan fill the group in on the legend of Hank Banning, the town’s founder and mayor who went crazy. He was voted out of office for this and put a curse on the town when he died on Halloween night.
• Watch the Paint Job: Fred is at first fascinated at riding in the back of the Mystery Machine while Shaggy drives, being a new experience for him, but when Shaggy ends up driving over bumps on the road he gets more and more nervous until he demands they get into the back seat and let him drive. Fred treating the Mystery Machine like a pet leads Daphne and Velma to give a cringeworthy glance at each other.
  Fred: YOU'RE KILLING MY MYSERY MACHINE!!

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