While standing by to support Shaggy as he defends his title as the International Putt-Putt champion, the rest of the gang anticipates a peaceful interlude, only for one of the course decorations, a gigantic clown, to come to life and go on a rampage, cancelling the competition. Velma, thanks to childhood coulrophobia, goes to pieces while Shaggy, determined to continue the tournament, takes up the slack.
This episode includes examples of the following tropes:
- Afraid of Clowns: Velma is too scared to solve the mystery because it involves a robot clown and she's afraid of clowns. However, unlike most examples, it's not because of the makeup — she's afraid of them because one shredded some of her books when she was a kid.
- Art Shift: When the gang first sees the clown, the art style suddenly shifts to a giant homage to A Pup Named Scooby-Doo as Velma flashes back to the incident that caused her coulrophobia.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: The gigantic metallic clown. Also counts as a villainous example of a Humongous Mecha when it turns out that the thing is a giant robot.
- Heroism Incentive: Spoofed. While Scooby's stays the same, Velma points out that she's nowhere near desperate enough to be bribed with a Scooby snack. She gets her own variation in the form of an Encyclopedia set on CD.
- Mini-Golf Episode: Shaggy competes in a tournament at "Putt-Putt Paradise", a mini-golf course haunted by a clown-shaped course obstacle that seemingly comes to life and attacks the mini-golfers.
- Monster Clown: A giant, mechanical clown with a high-pitched cackle attacks a mini-golf course. This is more of a problem than usual because Velma has a phobia of clowns.
- My New Gift Is Lame: Played with in a flashback when Velma gets an encyclopedia set for her birthday. Velma, being a Cute Bookworm, is the type of person who would love something like that as a gift (and the viewers know that), however the clown hired for her birthday party didn't realize that and ran them through a woodchipper to make confetti. This resulted in Velma having a lifelong phobia of clowns.
- Mythology Gag: The flashback scene of Velma's childhood birthday party features the gang designed in the style of A Pup Named Scooby-Doo. It explains her fear of clowns — the clown hired for her party destroyed her prize gift, a set of encyclopedias, and it made Velma run off crying.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: A celebrity golf champion named Cougar Forest is a reference to Tiger Woods.
- Not Himself: Shaggy becomes brave, if only because he didn't want a monster stopping him from winning the mini-golf tournament. Velma goes off cowering with Scooby as her childhood fear of clowns comes to the surface. Rather than a perfect swap, though, Shaggy acts more like a second Fred (much to his annoyance) instead of taking over Velma's spot. Though they revert to their old selves, along with Velma facing her fears.
- The Power of Friendship: Velma spends most of the episode trying desperately to avoid the clown and has to be bribed into acting as bait with a new (CD-ROM) set of encyclopedias. However, when it swallows Shaggy, her rage at the monster messing with her friend overwhelms her fear and she downs it with two smacks of a putter.
- Swapped Roles: Shaggy and Velma, with Shaggy being uncharacteristically fearless and laser-focused on solving the mystery so he can get back to stomping losers at the mini-golf tournament as quickly as possible, while Velma's phobia of clowns means she's the one running and hiding from the monster with Scooby.
- Worf Had the Flu: Velma is revealed to have a crippling phobia of clowns, which takes her out of action against the giant clown the gang is facing.
- Wrong Assumption: In the flashback, upon seeing the encyclopedias Velma got as a birthday present, the clown hired for her party assumes My New Gift Is Lame is in effect and shreds them. Unfortunately, since Velma's a Cute Bookworm who was ecstatic to get the encyclopedias, all this does is give her a lifelong fear of clowns.
- You Meddling Kids: Referenced in a passing gag as the groundskeeper notices Fred, Daphne, and Velma looking at the covered-up golf decoration. He grumpily calls them "kids" and demands to know if they're meddling.
