Scooby Doo / Tropes A to M

• Abandoned Mine: The Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! episode "Mine Your Own Business". While trying to determine the identity of the scary Miner 49er, the gang explores a spooky old mine.
• Absurdly Ineffective Barricade: Many episodes involve the gang building a barricade, only to discover the door opens outward as opposed to inward. Or that the monster was helping them build the barricade...
• Accidental Athlete:
  • Happens twice to Shaggy. In "The Spirited Spooked Sports Show" (1973 episode) and "Spooky Games" (2012 special), he becomes an athletic runner who runs fastest when he's scared.
  • In "Ghastly Goals," Scooby becomes part of the Brazilian soccer team as he tries to retrieve a soccer ball endowed with a formula that makes it bounce stronger from a beast called an Eshu.
• Actor Allusion:
  • In an episode of What's New, Scooby-Doo?, when Daphne meets someone hired to impersonate her, she complains she is being played by an extra and asks whether Sarah Michelle Gellar was busy. Sarah Michelle Gellar of course played Daphne in the live action film.
    • That same episode, when the fake Scooby gang is unmasked, each member except Scooby is suspiciously similar to the characters' actual voice actors.
  • In Chill Out, Scooby-Doo!, Shaggy (played by Casey Kasem) happens upon an abandoned radio house atop a mountain. He asks Scooby if he'd like to hear his "DJ impression". When Scooby says yes, Shaggy clears his throat and does an "impersonation" of...Casey Kasem.
  • One episode of Mystery Incorporated involved Shaggy and Scooby having dinner with Vincent Van Ghoul (an obvious Ink-Suit Actor expy of Vincent Price, who had played him in The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo but passed away not long after). Several of Van Ghoul's quirks seen in the episode were ones Price was known to have, including a love of gourmet cooking.
• Adaptation Dye-Job: In "The Mystery Begins" and "Curse of the Lake Monster," the normally blond Fred is a brunet.
• Adaptational Villainy: Scrappy-Doo in the live-action movie and Mudsy in Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated.
• Affectionate Parody:
  • Night of the Living Doo, a parody of The New Scooby-Doo Movies which aired on Halloween in 2001.
  • Bravo Dooby Doo, an extremely on-target spoof where Johnny Bravo crossed paths with Mystery Inc.
  • The Scooby-Doo Project, a series of interstitials from 1999 spoofing "The Blair Witch Project". Daphne even appeared as a member of the Hanna-Barbera tribe in Cartoon Network's "Staylongers" (spoof of "Survivor") interstitials.
  • A not-so-affectionate parody: "Ring-a-Ding, Where Are You?", one of the shows to which Mighty Mouse gets juxtaposed in the 1988 episode Don't Touch That Dial from his Bakshi-produced TV show.
    Mighty Mouse: Gosh ... I feel my I.Q. dropping by the minute!
  • The first live-action movie probably fits this trope as well, being more a spoof of the franchise than a straight-up adaptation. Apparently the first draft of the movie was more obviously a parody, in the vein of the Brady Bunch movie, with more adult humor and straight-up mockery of the classic Scooby tropes. The final movie was a lot Lighter and Softer and family-friendly, but retained a notable parodic edge.
  • The Dasien story "Girl of Goo, Where Are You?" also qualifies. Along with all the Scooby-Doo tropes, the story's villain resembles the one from "Nowhere to Hyde", and framed portraits of Don Knotts and Meadowlark Lemon appear in the background of one panel.
• Aliens Steal Cable: Crystal does this in the Alien Invaders movie.
• Alternate Continuity: The 1995 Archie Comics series is this, according to this interview.
• Alternative Foreign Theme Song: The Japanese version has this as its theme song.
• Always Someone Better: In Scooby-Doo! Spooky Games with Steve Looker.
• Amusement Park: Sometimes they are pleasant, and sometimes...
• Amusement Park of Doom: Every incarnation has at least one of these. One of the earlier examples had a runaway robot mess with the controls. The 13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo, had one of the titular villains run one of these.
• An Arc: The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo and Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated.
• Animals Lack Attributes: Scooby is a boy. Really.
• Animated Actors: In the 1979 prime-time special Scooby Goes Hollywood, Scooby and Shaggy get sick of their secondary roles in a formula-driven Saturday morning show, and attempt to sell a network executive on giving them a prime-time series of their own. (They pitch a number of pilot shows, all parodies of then-popular series, such as Charlie's Angels, Happy Days and The Love Boat.)
  • The special Scooby Doo, Where Are You Now! shows the gang each at their auditions for their roles in the show back in 1969. The Great Gazoo was even in the audition as was Jabberjaw (in spite of the fact he wouldn't be created for another seven years).
• Anthropomorphic Shift:
  • Scooby himself was suffering this by the mid-80s. He was seen walking on two legs all the time (it didn't help that his four legged design was not changed) and he was becoming somewhat less of a Speech-Impaired Animal. It seems to have been reversed beginning with A Pup Named Scooby-Doo where he became more of a quadruped again.
  • When Scooby runs in the early series, his legs don't follow a normal dog's running pattern. Each pair of legs go alternately in a circular motion. The only episode showing him running like a normal dog was "Decoy for a Dognapper," as he and the freed kidnapped dogs run after their captor.
• Anti-Sneeze Finger: The gang do this to Scooby-Doo in almost every incarnation.
• Artifact of Doom: The Chest of Demons from The 13 Ghosts.
• Artistic License – Chemistry: In the second live-action movie, Scooby freezes the Tar Monster with a fire extinguisher.
• Artistic License – Religion: Witch's Ghost treats witches and Wicca as two separate schools of magic, meaning one character claims his ancestor was a Wiccan who was burned at the stake 300 years before the religion was founded (granted, said character was lying and she really was a witch), and one of the Hex Girls is "one-sixteenth Wiccan".
• Bad Future: From The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, "It's a Wonderful Scoob." Without Scooby around, the world falls to the ghosts, Daphne is a broken slave to the Time-Slime ghost, Scrappy and Flim-Flam have become his loyal servants, and Shaggy is a lone rebel that has gone crazy, adamantly believing that Scooby will return and save them.
• Balloon Belly: Shaggy and Scooby occasionally. Notable examples include their feast in The Witch's Ghost, in which they leave a diner almost unable to walk, their stomachs having gotten so huge; Mystery Incorporated puts a twist on this by depicting Scooby and Shaggy attempting to eat most of the food in Crystal Cove, and become grotesquely obese, initially unable to walk.
• Bat Scare: Most versions of the opening credits.
• Be as Unhelpful as Possible: Inverted - the most helpful character usually turns out to be the culprit. He is often the first character you see apart from the gang.
• Bedlah Babe:
  • In an episode of The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo called "When You Witch Upon a Star", Scooby, Shaggy, Daphne, and Scrappy dressed themselves up as harem girls.
  • Scooby-Doo in Arabian Nights: The harem girls in the Young Caliph's palace are examples of this. They seem to lounge about all day in the palace rather than do any actual dancing.
  • In an episode of the What's New, Scooby-Doo? episode called "Mummy Scares Best", a waitress is shown walking dressed like that as Mademoiselle Chantal is presenting Daphne and Velma as bellydancers.
    • In another episode called "E-Scream", somewhere you can see a woman dressed like that.
  • Velma dresses up as a harem girl for a costume party in Scooby Doo! Pirates Ahoy!.
• The Bermuda Triangle: There are a few instances.
• Beautiful All Along: Rarely, Velma will lose the frumpy outfit and thick glasses to reveal she actually can be quite pretty. She's also pretty well-endowed, even though she downplays it with her oversized orange sweater.
• Berserk Button:
  • Scooby is quite possibly the most cowardly animal in existence, but if Shaggy is in danger, he'll find the courage — and become a badass to boot.
  • If Scooby-Doo! in Where's My Mummy? is any indication, Scooby is also pretty fond of Velma.
• Bespectacled Cutie: Velma has definite moments of this, particularly in A Pup Named Scooby Doo and the movie SCOOB!
• Big Bad Wannabe: Bogel and Weerd so desperately want to be among the 13 ghosts from The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo.
• Big Damn Heroes: In the 13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo episode, "It's A Wonderful Scoob," Scooby Doo takes out the villain, destroys his lair, and boot Bogle and Weerd to the curb. In seconds. And without a trace of fear (he was actually pretty angry).
• The Big Damn Kiss: In the crossover with Supernatural, Velma lays one on Sam.
• Big Damn Movie: The supernatural will inevitably turn out to be real in a Scooby-Doo movie, but the basic formula is usually the same.
  • Where's My Mummy? had a "Scooby-Doo" Hoax, albeit a very elaborate one put on by Velma, an archaeologist, and an Ardeth Bay expy. Velma would explain that she didn't let the others in on the hoax because it was dangerous and she didn't want anybody to get hurt.
  • Monsters Unleashed, Legend of the Vampire and Monster of Mexico also all ended with a more conventional Scooby-Doo Hoax.
  • Halfway through, Curse of the Lake Monster looks like a "Scooby-Doo" Hoax, until the actual ghost of a witch takes Velma's body as a host and creates her minions of lake monsters. This is the second feature-length movie, animated or live, centering on Velma.
  • Frankencreepy makes it three.
• Big Eater: Shaggy, Scooby and occasionally Scrappy. If Fred wants to find the monster, Shaggy will volunteer to investigate the kitchen, and prepare a large snack for himself and Scooby — until the monster comes to interrupt the meal.
• Big Friendly Dog: Scooby is a full-grown Great Dane and has never been vicious to anything, ever. Unless you count sandwiches.
• Big Shadow, Little Creature: An interesting variation occurs in "Mine Your Own Business," when the ghostly Miner '49ers runs for it when he sees and hears what appears to be a train approaching... only for it to really be Shaggy imitating a train horn and chugging, and Scooby going down the tracks with a flashlight and speaker Shaggy's train noises are coming out of.
• Black Belt in Origami: In "Mystery Mask Mix-Up", Shaggy tries to bluff a Chinese ghost by saying, "I know judo, chop suey and Chinese checkers!"
• The Blank: "The No-Face Zombie Chase Case"
• Blind Without 'Em: Velma was always losing her glasses in the original series. (A common gag on the show: Whenever she loses her glasses, the Monster of the Week is the one who hands them back to her, and she doesn't realize how close he is until she puts them on.) Nicole Jaffe, the actress who originally played Velma, admitted in an interview that at the initial taping of the show, she accidentally dropped her glasses. She then exclaimed something the writers adapted into her catchphrase: "My glasses! I can't see without them!"
• Bookcase Passage: Plenty of these.
• Bootstrapped Theme: "The New Scooby Doo Movies'" theme didn't originally take off - in fact, the show directly after it didn't reference it at all. But then the "Scooby and Scrappy Doo Show" used it, and from that point on it was the running theme of the series for ten years.
• Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: From Scooby-Doo! Spooky Games:
  Shaggy: Why can't tracks ever lead somewhere good? Like a beach.
  Scooby: Or a picnic.
  Both: Or a beach picnic!
• Broad Strokes: As per the company that created them, Scooby's history evolves this way. At times continuity is important and sometimes it's not.
• Brooklyn Rage: In Scrappy's earliest appearances he had a definite Brooklyn accent, courtesy of Lennie Weinrib, to go along with his boisterous personality. Justified that he grew up in New York. This was abandoned when Don Messick became his voice actor.
• Bumbling Henchman Duo: Bogel and Weerd from The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, a pair of bumbling ghost minions who bounce their services from demon to demon, but consistently mess up.
• The Cameo: The CW special Scooby Doo, Where Are You Now! features testimonials from real celebrities such as Iain Armitage (Young Sheldon), animation historian Jerry Beck and Weird Al Yankovic as well as cartoon figures Jabberjaw, the Great Gazoo, Jonny Quest, the Great Grape Ape, Speed Buggy and the Powerpuff Girls.
  • Ronald Reagan, U.S. president from 1981 to 1989, appears in caricature (voice of Fred Travalena) in the 13 Ghosts episode "It's A Wonderful Scoob."
• Canine Confusion: Scooby's character was deliberately designed to be the antithesis of the ideal Great Dane, both in looks and attitude. In addition, his tail is somewhat catlike.
• Captain Colorbeard:
  • Redbeard in "Go Away, Ghost Ship." He makes a second appearance in 1972's "The Ghostly Creep from the Deep," but in that story, he and his pirate crew are all ghost white and the voice is different (John Stephenson in "Ghost Ship," Lennie Weinrib in "Ghostly Creep").
  • One of the TV movies has a variant with a white stripe in his beard: Captain Skunkbeard.
• Captain Obvious: Mystery Inc. will often point out things that are happening or just happened that should already be obvious to the viewer.
• Character Catchphrase: Lampshaded in Scooby-Doo and the Samurai Sword, when the team finds out that the normal episode formula had turned into an Evil Plan, all of the characters say their catchphrases, ending with Fred:
  Fred: "Um, uh...aw, darn it, I still don't have a catchphrase!"^note He has said, "Creepers!" on occasion, and later DTV films have him say "Hold the phone!"
• Character Name and the Noun Phrase: Most of the Direct to Video movies are Scooby-Doo and the ____________.
• Charm Person: Nicara from The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • From The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, Flim-Flam was selling a concoction known as "Lots of Luck Joy Juice" when we first see him. One of the ingredients was Wolfsbane, and a splash of it was enough to cure the werewolf villagers that put the gang into a corner.
  • In "Happy Birthday Scooby-Doo" Scrappy is shown making rubber (Which Scooby mistook for cake) Later Scooby is falling, and later it's used when Scrappy uses it to help the rest of Mystery Inc. save Scooby's life.
• Chinese Vampire: Two jiangshi pursue Daphne in "Mystery Mask Mix-Up."
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome:
  • In the show's fifth incarnation, Fred, Daphne and Velma would disappear. Daphne would return in the sixth with a career and Fred and Velma guest starred in the seventh explaining their disappearance.
  • Scrappy himself disappeared from the ninth incarnation as it was set before he was ever born.
• Cluster F-Bomb: This charming bumper for Cartoon Network.
• Cobweb of Disuse: In "What the Hex is Going On?", the old Kingston Mansion has these in the background (corners, connecting furniture to walls). Also present in the Vasquez Castle (notably on the portrait) in "Hassle in the Castle".
• Coffin Contraband: Subversion from The Scooby-Doo Show, Doctor Coffin is smuggling gold as fake dead bodies with wigs and sheets with gold acting as making the body shape.
• Cold Open: Ever since the series' earliest incarnations, episodes typically begin by introducing the setting and a couple supporting characters (or innocent bystanders) who then get attacked by the Monster of the Week, before cutting the gang arriving on the scene. Since What's New, Scooby-Doo?, these scenes have consistently been moved to before the opening credits.
• Combat Pragmatist: Surprisingly enough, Scrappy was this occasionally, taking advantage of his strength and small size to knock his opponent off balance, and "The Night Ghoul Of Wonderworld" and "The Ghoul, The Bat, and The Ugly" both involve him tricking the villain into a spot (A clock gear and a revolving door respectively) where he could spin them dizzy and incapacitate them.
• Comic-Book Adaptation:
  • Scooby has been in comic books since December 1969, published by Gold Key/Western Publishing, Charlton, Marvel, Harvey (reprints from Charlton), Archie Comics and the current publisher DC Comics. The first ten issues of the Gold Key run of Scooby Doo comics featured either truncated or very loose adaptations of TV episodes. Two episodes were made into comic stories twice: "A Clue For Scooby Doo" (Gold Key, DC) and "Spooky Space Kook" (Gold Key, Archie Comics). The first Marvel Comics issue featured a truncated adaptation of the 1976 episode "The Ghost Of The Bad Humor Man."
  • Zig-zagged: The pilot episode of Scooby & Scrappy-Doo ("The Scarab Lives!") was loosely based on the first story of Scooby-Doo Mystery Comics #24 (Gold Key/April 1974, "Mark Of The Blue Scarab").
  • Starting in October 2010, the DC comic began billing itself as Scooby Doo, Where Are You!, the first time the comic has been billed as such since October 1976.
  • Gold Key, known for taking continuity liberties, started making the gang ghost breakers for hire starting with issue #14. If this continuity is to be followed as any sort of canon, then issue #21 has the gang with the following Zodiac signs: Scooby—Aries, Fred—Pisces, Shaggy—Leo, Velma—Virgo, Daphne—Gemini. Charlton's stories are best left undiscussed.
  • Gold Key stories distilled from TV episodes:
    • #1 - "What a Night For a Knight," "Never Ape An Ape Man."
    • #2 - "Phantom Of The Castle" (from "Hassle in the Castle"). With original story "The Galleon Ghost."
    • #3 - "One Spook Too Many" (from "The Backstage Rage"). With original story "Tricky Treats" plus an untitled one-page strip.
    • #4 - "The Ghostly Sea Diver" (from "A Clue For Scooby Doo"), "Spooky Space Kook."
    • #5 - "The Swamp Witch" (from "Which Witch is Which?"), "That's Snow Ghost."
    • #6 - "The Ghost of Redbeard" (from "Go Away Ghost Ship"; reprinted in issue #26). With original story "The Hand in the Wall."
    • #7 - "Somebody's Mummy" (from "Scooby Doo and a Mummy, Too").
    • #8 - "Night For a Fright" (from "A Night of Fright is No Delight").
    • #9 - "The Phantom Clown" (from "Bedlam in the Big Top").
    • #10 - "The Ghosts of Grimstone Castle" (very loosely from "A Gaggle of Galloping Ghosts"). With a story featuring original Western Publishing character Professor Phumble.
• Comic-Book Time: The gang were all teenagers and Scooby was a fully grown great dane with the franchise launched in 1969. By the time of, say, Scooby-Doo! and the Reluctant Werewolf in 1988, Shaggy should be a middle aged man and Scooby should be long dead, but neither has aged a day. Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island offered the first indication that time was passing at all for the characters, with everyone appearing a few years older after the Time Skip that follows the prologue, but said prologue still shows everyone at their original ages well into the mid-1990s. In two decades of subsequent direct-to-video films, they've never aged again. Even if you don't accept the gang already having Scooby when they were kids into the timeline, he's still a very old dog.
• The Comically Serious: Vincent Van Ghoul from The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo.
• The Con: Once lampshaded with, "...98% of our mysteries turn out to be real estate scams."
• Conspicuously Light Patch:
  • When the spot on the floor that the gang is standing on suddenly turns a lighter color, you know that they're about to fall down a trapdoor.
  • When anything is colored differently than the other things in the scene (and isn't supposed to be), be it lighter or darker, someone will inevitably grab it or use it in some other way.
• Continuity Nod:
  • What's New Scooby Doo? featured a batch of these during its run. One even to A Pup Named Scooby-Doo.
  • The monster in the first movie is The Scrappy himself, wanting revenge for the team dumping him at the start of the movie. In the second film, most of the monsters are classic 'Doo bad guys, as is the real villain.
  • The Mysteries Incorporated series starts off with museum exhibits of several of the same villains the second film mentioned. Which can be somewhat confusing to people who watched the premiere, which was preceded by the second film.
• Continuity Reboot: Scooby-Doo!: The Mystery Begins deletes everything A Pup Named Scooby-Doo set in the continuity other than it taking place in Coolsville.
• Convection, Schmonvection: In Aloha, Scooby-Doo, and probably others.
• Conveyor Belt o' Doom:
  • A memorable one (That's Snow Ghost) had Velma tied to a log heading for a large circular saw.
  • Lampshaded by Shaggy in "Don't Fool With a Phantom" as he and Scooby are placed on one by the Wax Phantom:
    Shaggy: "Not the old ride-on-the-conveyor-belt-into-the-wax routine. Oh, no. Like, that went out with the silent movies, Phantom, old pal."
• Conviction by Contradiction: One What's New episode has the culprits turn out to be a man and woman pretending to be Sickeningly Sweethearts to secretly pass information to each other. After the unmasking, Velma says that the first thing that tipped her off was they were too lovey-dovey to be newlyweds as they claimed.
• Cool Old Guy: Vincent Van Ghoul from The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo.
• Cool Uncle: Scrappy thinks of Scooby this way, despite Scooby's cowardice.
• Cousin Oliver: Scrappy-Doo, Scooby-Dum, Flim Flam
• Crazy-Prepared: In What's New, Scooby-Doo?, Fred has made enough "special modifications" to the Mystery Machine to put Han Solo to shame, including modifying it to transform into a submarine and fitting it with a roof airbag which conveniently enables Shaggy to save Velma when she falls off a highrise movie set in "Lights, Camera, Mayhem". The submarine turned out to be a clue that The Game Never Stopped.
• Creepy Old-Fashioned Diving Suit: The ghost of Captain Cutler is an old-fashioned light-green deep sea diving suit covered by glowing seaweed, said to be the returning ghost of a dead captain. As the Mystery Gang discovered, it was just a man who had faked his own death so he could pretend to be a ghost and steal the yachts of the region, but his uniqueness and importance as one of the first monsters that appeared in the series ensured he got several appearances and cameos throughout the franchise.
• Crossover: Scooby's had a long history of these.
  • The New Scooby-Doo Movies in itself was designed specifically to be a Scooby crossover show. In it they interacted with other Hanna Barbera shows such as Josie and the Pussycats, the original animated The Harlem Globetrotters, Speed Buggy and Jeannie.
  • Along with animated versions of The Addams Family, The Three Stooges and Batman all before each had regular shows made by Hanna-Barbera in animated form.
  • In a mix, Hanna-Barbera had already made a Laurel and Hardy cartoon in the 60s, but it was drawn more like the The Huckleberry Hound Show era. In this episode, they are drawn more in the 70s Scooby style, but with the same voice actors.
  • Besides these the show features other celebrity guest stars including:
    • Don Knotts was in an episode parodying 'The Andy Griffith Show'' and an episode where he was a goofy Barney Fife like detective.
    • Not to mention Don Adams of Get Smart playing an exterminator in the house of a parody Lon Chaney.
    • Don't forget to see the faboulous Dick Van Dyke and Hurry hurry hurry!
  • Scooby would cross over directly with Dynomutt in three episodes of Dynomutt, Dog Wonder.
  • Scooby lead one of the three teams in Laff-A-Lympics.
  • The Scooby-Doo Direct-to-Video Film Series has recently begun returning to these roots.
  • An episode of Batman: The Brave and the Bold, "Bat-Mite Presents: Batman's Strangest Cases!" features a segment, drawn and animated in the same style as the New Scooby-Doo Movies episodes, with the gang meeting up with Batman and Robin, as well as "Weird Al" Yankovic. It aired in America on April Fools' Day 2011.
  • Issue #9 of the Marvel Scooby-Doo comic book had a guest appearance by Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels. Dynomutt and Blue Falcon join the gang in a story in the giant special Yogi Bear's Easter Parade. The two superheroes are also main components of the DVD feature Scooby Doo: Mask of the Blue Falcon.
  • The CW series Supernatural goes animated in the 3/29/18 episode and crosses over with Scooby Doo.
  • The second episode of Scooby-Doo and Guess Who? crosses over with The Funky Phantom and Speed Buggy again.
  • The theatrical feature Scoob (which actually went to TV On Demand services due to the COVID-19 pandemic) has characters from the Hanna-Barbera universe join Scooby and the gang in stopping the plans of Dick Dastardly.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass:
  • In one episode with a clown that hypnotizes people (Bedlam In The Big Top), Shaggy and Scooby remember what the clown did, so when he tries it on them again, they use mirrors to deflect the spell back at him, thus incapacitating him. That and when they pilot a bulldozer to tackle Steve in Alien Invaders.
  • There's the mini-golf episode from "What's New, Scooby-Doo?" where Shaggy took the reins to try to solve the mystery for the majority of the episode . In that same episode ("A Terrifying Round With A Menacing Metallic Clown"), Velma goes off cowering with Scooby as her secret fear comes to the surface—she's frightened of clowns.
    • The comic book adaptation of "Bedlam In The Big Top" (Gold Key #9, Dec. 1971, retitled "The Phantom Clown") retroactively subverts this—Velma is the hero of the story as she hypnotizes the clown with his own gold coin.
  • Shaggy and Scooby-Doo are secretly ninjas. In situations where they can't be the whimpering cowards, they pull amazing feats. In Scooby-Doo in Where's My Mummy?, they leapt from falling platform to falling platform to keep from plummeting to their dooms. Scooby-Doo and the Samurai Sword also counts towards this.
  • Scooby himself is a full grown great dane, one of the largest breeds of dog in the world.
• Cute Is Evil: In the movie, Scrappy.
• Cut Lex Luthor a Check: The franchise as a whole is rife with episodes where the villain of the day would've made more money legally trying to monetize their inventions in a more conventional way instead of using them to scare people away.
• Cute Monster Girl: In Ghoul School, Shaggy, Scooby and Scrappy become gym teachers for a bunch of them.
• Cut Short: Scooby-Doo and his friends never did catch all 13 ghosts from The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo. Technically, only 11 ghosts were shown being caught at all (though later releases Retcon the ship captain from "Ship of Ghouls" into being another, bringing it up to twelve) — and no ghosts were captured in the pilot. The DVD feature Scooby-Doo and the Curse of the 13th Ghost finally identified the last ghost... who isn't caught, since the film's villain turns out to be an impostor, while it's implied that the actual thirteenth ghost had since pulled a Heel–Face Turn.
• Cynical Mentor: Vincent Van Ghoul from The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo.
• Damsel in Distress: In the two shows with The Three Stooges, scripter Norman Maurer seemed to like getting Velma in a nice mess. In Ghastly Ghost Town, a mysterious figure sends her down into the mine shaft, while in The Ghost of the Red Baron, she is sent airborne in a bi-plane she doesn't know how to operate.
• Darker and Edgier:
  • Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island and Scooby-Doo and the Witch's Ghost are the darkest of the animated films. Cartoon Network made an awesome promo for Scooby-Doo On Zombie Island when they aired it on their animated movie spot. It only used the most thrilling scenes and was set to climactic Ominous Latin Chanting (possibly O Fortuna). Never before did Scooby-Doo seem so intense.
  • Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, although not much. It's definitely not cynical, but the universe as a whole is a little less idealistic, and the jokes, characters and events are more mature.
• Dark Is Not Evil:
  • The Hex Girls, a spooky-themed rock band that shows up occasionally in 90's-and-later versions (the direct-to-video movies, What's New, and Mystery Inc).
  • The Goblin King (Voiced by Tim Curry) may be the ruler of all things Halloween, but he's also a fair (though strict) ruler and he cares deeply for his fairy daughter.
  • This is the twist of Scooby Doo on Zombie Island the creepy rotting zombies aren't evil, they are trying to warn the visitors of the island so they won't end up like them.
• Deadline News: In the second live-action movie.
• Deadpan Snarker:
  • Velma. Especially in later incarnations. She had a choice line in "The San Franpsycho" after the gang is in a motorboat escaping from sharks:
    Velma: We're gonna make it! (a shark takes a giant bite of the boat's aft) Ah, irony...we meet yet again.
  • Vincent Van Ghoul, nearly all the time.
  • Scooby in the Gold Key comics stories written by Mark Evanier. This, referring to Shaggy, in issue #24:
  Scooby: (thought balloon) That boy's so dumb, he gets a cut rate from mind readers.
• Delicious Distraction: Scooby Snacks.
• Desert Skull: In "Mine Your Own Business", there's one of these (with overly ornate horns) atop the sign for the Gold City Guest Ranch.
• Detectives Follow Footprints: Used constantly.
• Did I Just Say That Out Loud?:
  • Usually Shaggy after he makes a comment about the qualification that what they're chasing is a ghost.
  • Velma, of all people in the episode Scooby Doo Meets Dick Van Dyke as she, Fred and Dick see Daphne having fun on a bump-'em cart:
  Velma: Hmph, Women. (realizes what she said) What am I saying?! I'm one of them!
• Didn't Think This Through: Lampshaded by Daphne in ''Scooby Doo And The Beach Beastie," as she, Velma and Fred attempt to attack a giant water monster with lighted torches. The monster simply douses the torches with its fingers.
• Distressed Dude: Shaggy and Scooby have ended up Bound and Gagged on a few occasions.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Shaggy and Scooby seem to constantly have the "munchies".
• Dork in a Sweater: Velma is typically seen in sweaters and Nerd Glasses. She's also the brain of the gang and solves most of the mysteries.
• The Drag-Along: Scooby and Shaggy, sometimes literally kicking and screaming.
• Dramatic Unmask: Each episode traditionally ends with the "monster" being unmasked to reveal an ordinary human criminal.
• Drive-In Theater: One appears in Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf.
• Eagle-Eye Detection: Usually done by Velma.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: To all who became acquainted with the series via a post-1990 production, it may be startling to watch how undeveloped the characters of Velma, Daphne and Fred seem to be in any cartoons made in 60's or 70s.
• Easily Forgiven: "What's New, Scooby-Doo?" occasionally had the culprit be let off the hook if they had arguably sympathetic reasons or if nobody got hurt, even if by their actions the monster would have very nearly killed someone. "Roller Ghoster Ride" is a good example of this, involving among other things Fred, Daphne and Velma almost getting diced up by a giant fan thanks to the monster's sabotage, along with tons of dangerous situations coming from sabotaging amusement park rides which would've ended up fatal if not for dumb luck or quick thinking, with no real consequences for the culprit.
• Edible Ammunition: The gang is investigating a haunted candy factory (could be worse places to work, right?) when the Green Globs locks Scooby, Shaggy, and the factory's owner, Cass Elliot, in a storeroom. Fortunately, Cass finds a mechanical jawbreaker dispenser, and fixes it to shoot jawbreakers at the door until they batter it down.
• Either/Or Title: Several episodes throughout had unused Either-Or Titles. Among them:
  • Scooby-Doo Meets the Addams Family (Wednesday Is Missing)
  • Sandy Duncan's Jekyll and Hyde (Scooby Doo Meets Sandy Duncan)
  • Scooby-Doo Meets Laurel & Hardy (The Ghost of Bigfoot)
  • The Caped Crusader Caper (The Sighing Flute...er, Flying Suit)
  • Scooby-Doo Meets Jeannie (Mystery in Persia)
  • Scooby-Doo Meets Dick Van Dyke (The Haunted Carnival)
  • Who Was That Cat Creature I Saw You With Last Night? (Make a Beeline Away from That Feline)
  • Terror, Thy Name Is Zombo (Roller Ghoster Ride)
• Embarrassing First Name: Is anyone surprised that Shaggy never references his given name, Norville?
• Enlightened Antagonist: Parodied with the Guru from the Almost Live from Big Puce DC comics story. He is a corrupt mystic with supernatural powers who can create astral projections (basically hologram-like images) when he meditates. He was paid to use his power to create the image of a ghost, which is why the gang initially believed that the ghost was real (since it was neither a man in a costume nor a hologram).
• "Everybody Laughs" Ending: "Scooby-Dooby-Doo!" (cue group laughter)
• Every Pizza Is Pepperoni: Whenever the gang eats pizza, it is always pepperoni.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Most crooks are mostly after treasure, scaring people away from the land and other such plans, trying their best to not actually hurt the Gang or the people in their path even if they can be rather petty about something. Key word being most; even for a kid's series, there were several villains such as the Creeper who physically assaulted someone and have attempted murder, which ironically makes them the exception to this trope usually being the standard.
• Evil Laugh: Vincent Van Ghoul, despite being on Scooby-Doo's team.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin:
  • The wax phantom from "Don't Fool With a Phantom" has captured Shaggy and Scooby and plans to turn them into wax dummies:
  Shaggy: But, like, we're already dummies! Right, Scoob?
  Scooby: Du-u-uh, right!
  • In "Hassle In The Castle", Velma sees and verbally acknowledges that the Shaggy head protruding from half of a magician's saw-in-two box was a dummy head. Shaggy pops up from the other half and says "Somebody mention me?"
• Expy: It's mostly forgotten now, but the characters of Fred, Velma, Daphne and Shaggy were originally thinly disguised knockoffs of Dobie, Zelda, Thalia and Maynard from The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis.
• Face–Heel Turn: Scrappy in the live-action movie
• Faint in Shock: Shaggy and Scooby frequently faint when they're scared (which is often).
• Family-Unfriendly Death:
  • The death of the cat people in Scooby Doo on Zombie Island goes straight into Nightmare Fuel. Also the death of the former inhabitants. Being forced to go into a bayou where alligators just wait for their meal? Charming.
  • The entire gang suffer one at the end of The Scooby-Doo Project. The last we see of them is the monster coming towards them then the camera cutting out and the announcer telling us no trace of them was ever found.
• Family-Unfriendly Violence:
  • In Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island, there are a few examples of this, with one zombie having his head ripped off and two getting cut in half.
  • The crossover with Supernatural takes the three main characters of that series and plops them into the cartoon world, winding up in the Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! episode "A Night Of Fright Is No Delight." The first victim, Cousin Simple, who ran from the mansion in the original episode, is found stabbed to death here. Also, Fred takes a shot to the nose from the ghost, causing it to bleed, and a tumble out a mansion window causes Shaggy to break his arm.
• Faux Paw: Used in the first movie.
• Fear-Induced Idiocy: Anything Shaggy and Scooby Doo do that isn't inspired by hunger, is inspired by fear. And more than a few things they do are rather... lacking in intellect.
• Fearless Fool: Zig-Zagged. Whenever a monster shows up, Scrappy almost always tries to fight it, with little to no effect. Several of these instances include real monsters, where if Scooby had not snatched him out of the way and ran, Scrappy would've been mince meat. However he has his competent moments such as "Gem Of A Case", where Scrappy hears Shaggy out after he's pulled back and there are times when his Scrappy traps seem completely capable to catching something (although Shaggy and Scooby get caught more often than the monsters). Definitely averted with the ending of "South Seas Scare", especially since it was a real monster: he throws a lava monster back into the volcano at the end of the short.
• Fictional Fan, Real Celebrity:
  • A frequent trope of The New Scooby-Doo Movies and Scooby-Doo and Guess Who?, since many of the weekly guest stars were Ink Suit Actors that Mystery Inc. would express admiration for. These included The Three Stooges, Dick Van Dyke, and Sonny & Cher for the former show; and Sia, Bill Nye the Science Guy, and "Weird Al" Yankovic for the latter.
  • Scooby-Doo! and KISS: Rock and Roll Mystery featured the members of KISS, whom the gang meet while going to their concert at the fictional KISS World amusement park.
  • Scooby-Doo! and the Gourmet Ghost guest-starred celebrity chefs Bobby Flay and Giada DeLaurentis, whom the gang (especially Shaggy and Scooby) admire. Giada is in fact a fan of Shaggy and Scooby's as well, as she asked them to give a speech about sandwich building architecture. In addition, Bobby happens to be Fred Jones's uncle in this story, just to make the fictional/real person distinction weirder.
• Fine, You Can Just Wait Here Alone: How Shaggy and Scooby end up going along 90% of the time.
• Five-Man Band Concert: After they solve the mystery and if "The Hex Girls" are involved, there's a concert and the gang is often a backing band of sorts for "The Hex Girls". Big Friendly Dog is on the percussion, Lovable Coward is on the bass, The Heart Daphne is on the tambourine, The Smart Gal Velma is on the keyboard, and Standardized Leader Fred is on the guitar. All of them are appropriately dressed following the goth style that characterizes "The Hex Girls". Such lucky, In-Universe Ascended Fans. There have been variations in the arrangement, though.
• Flanderization:
  • Daphne's klutziness is turned up to eleven in Abracadabra-Doo.
  • In Mystery Incorporated, Fred becomes completely obsessed with making traps.
  • Scooby's cowardliness, during the first season.
  When it comes to courage, both Scooby and Shaggy have been incredibly flanderized since the original series. The duo was always reluctant to go ghost-chasing (Daphne was also less enthusiastic about their adventures) but more recent incarnations makes this viewer wonder how the two function at all with the group.
  • Velma is normally a bright girl, but she becomes a bit inept (not of her own doing) when she loses her glasses. However, a particular bit of brain fart is puzzling. In "The Ghost Of The Red Baron," she is sent airborne in a bi-plane she has no control of, and she forgets the international distress radio call (followed by an atypical Daphne response):
  Velma: Let's see, what was it? January? February? ...March? April? Mayday!! That's it!!
  Daphne: That's Velma. What's she calling "mayday" for? Today's June 5th!
  • In What's New, Scooby Doo?, Velma became a bit more as snarky as she was smart, albeit her fear of clowns came suddenly to the surface. And in Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, she tacks on cynicism, her obsessiveness to Shaggy and her contempt (as of episode 10) of Scooby.
• Food as Bribe: Shaggy and Scooby can be coaxed into doing anything for food, namely Scooby Snacks.
• Foreshadowing: Zombie Island has several signs linking to the end of the mystery, including one in one of the chase sequences, where a Zombie gives Shaggy a vine to pull Scooby out, at first, it looks like just a gag involving the whole "Monster helps them to save themselves", but it foreshadows that the Zombies are not as evil as they're made out to be.
• Fortune Teller: In the Where Are You episode "A Gaggle of Galloping Ghosts", the gang meets a Gypsy fortune teller who gives them dire warnings. She turns out to be the episode's villain in disguise.
• Free-Range Children: The gang was originally designed to be high school age, and in the first series most of their adventures are implied to take place locally. With a few exceptions of a trip to China Town or Hawaii. As the series went on they became more of this even if they didn't appear to have grown much older.
• Friendly Scheming: A number of stories have the team actually stage a mystery in order to play a joke on one particular gang member.
  • In the Chupacabra-Cadabra story from the Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? DC Comics series, the gang arrives to a magic show in Mexico for Shaggy's birthday. A monster called Chupacabra appears, and the team members start disappearing one by one... eventually, it is revealed that it was all a pretext for Shaggy's surprise birthday party, and everyone, except Shaggy and Scooby, was in on it.
  • Likewise, in The Secret of Hotel Hush, the supernatural mystery turns out to be a pretext for Scooby's birthday party - this time, Shaggy was also in on it.
  • The same happens in Now You See Them... from the Scooby-Doo! 50th Anniversary Giant series: Shaggy, Velma, Fred, and Daphne stage a lighthouse monster mystery as a prelude to Scooby's birthday party.
  • In Snack Attacked! from the same series, the gang creates another fake mystery to distract Scooby while the Scooby Snack Factory is preparing a new surprise brand with his face on the box.
  • In Ghost in the Machina, Fred, Velma, and Daphne staged a monster mystery at Big Ralph's Car Wash as a way to get Scooby and Shaggy to take a bath.
  • In Clueless, the gang staged a fake kidnapping of Velma as a prelude to her surprise birthday party.
  • Unlucky Luck (Scooby Doo... Mystery Comics Gold Key issue #20, July 1973) had Velma staging a game to cure Shaggy and Scooby of being superstitious. She first gets the two to discard their luck talismans then she has Fred and Daphne plant rewards among bad luck elements, but it backfires: Shaggy and Scooby retrieve their luck talismans thinking that if they had all that bad luck, imagine what kind of good luck they'll have.
  • The Happy Birthday, Scooby-Doo episode of The New Scooby-Doo Mysteries starts like this: a ghoul at the TV station ZPOP turns out to be a ruse made up by the gang to lure Scooby-Doo to a surprise birthday TV show. However, an actual monster soon appears at ZPOP.
• Functional Magic: The conclusion of Scooby Doo and the Goblin King. The Goblin King permits Shaggy and Scooby (the main heroes) to retain their memories of the events that transpired but he erases Fred's, Velma's and Daphne's memories. Shag and Scoob pull up in the van as their buddies' heads clear, not knowing what happened last:
  Daphne: Shaggy! Scooby!
  Velma: Where were you two all night?
  Shaggy: (He and Scooby exchange knowing glances) Like, you wouldn't believe it if we told you!
• Furniture Blockade: Used several times by Scooby and Shaggy in attempts to escape the Monster of the Week, often to no effect.
• G-Rated Drug: Scooby Snacks. Either that, or they're just very convenient, cheap, salted-chip style appetizers whose demand is fueled by an unspoken drug, ie, marijuana.
• Gadgeteer Genius: Velma arguably qualifies, at least in What's New, Scooby-Doo?. where she's capable of building (among other things) a robot dog with a remarkable number of functions and an MP3 player the size of a sugar cube (though the latter lacked earphones). In the same series Fred also at least comes close with his improbably sophisticated modifications to the Mystery Machine.
• Genre Blindness:
  • Particularly in the original series. No, the gang will never figure out or even guess that the monster is just a guy in a costume right away, no matter that the last few dozen monsters were all guys in costumes. They have to wait until the end of the episode.
  • All the villains who still think that dressing up as a monster is a foolproof plan that couldn't possibly be foiled by, say, four meddling kids and their large-breed dog, too.
• Genre Savvy: The three principals from Supernatural enter the Scooby world where an actual ghost terrorizes the Beauregard Sanders mansion. They have to catch the ghost and at the same time maintain the Scooby-Doo status quo.
• Genre Shift: Zombie Island transitioned from a straight Scooby-Doo story, to a supernatural horror mystery film.
• Gesundheit: Pulled twice in "Ghastly Goals" when the Eshu's name is stated.
• Gone Behind the Bend: Shaggy and Scooby have mastered this technique.
• Gotta Catch 'Em All: From The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo. Unfortunately, they never did catch all the ghosts.
• Green Gators: Scooby-Doo, Where are You!, What's New, Scooby-Doo!, and Scooby-Doo and the Legend of the Vampire all had green crocodiles or alligators. Averted in Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island, where the alligators are gray.
• Growing Muscles Sequence: One in each of the first two live action movies. The first happens to a villain and could be viewed as Nightmare Fuel, while the second happens to Shaggy and is played for laughs.
• He Went That Way: Another cheap trick used by Shaggy and Scooby to evade the Monster of the Week.
• Headless Horseman: The Headless Specter from "Haunted House Hang-Up."
• Heavy Mithril: The Hex Girls, the witch-themed rock band in Scooby-Doo and the Witch's Ghost. In Scooby-Doo and the Legend of the Vampire, they were confused for vampires.
• Heel–Face Turn: Miyumi in Scooby-Doo and the Samurai Sword.
• Heroic BSoD:
  • Velma in Scooby Doo And The Goblin King. Her brain synapses short-circuit, causing her to collapse and faint after seeing the supernatural maelstrom the Amazing Krudsky had conjured.
  • Shaggy has one in Scooby-Doo! Legend of the Phantosaur whenever he gets scared.
  • From The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo episode "It's a Wonderful Scoob," a mishap with Time Slime's scepter shows him all the horrors he's faced in his life, Scooby becomes so traumatized that he goes into a 10-Minute Retirement. Vincent shows him a Bad Future to help snap him out of it, though.
• Heroic Dog: Scooby inside and out. In spite of his cowardice, he won't hesitate to charge to the rescue if the kids are imperiled.
• Heroism Incentive:
  • Nearly Once an Episode to get Shaggy and Scooby to split up. What won't they do for a Scooby snack?
  • Shaggy's first taste for a Scooby Snack comes in Decoy For A Dognapper. As Fred lays out his plan with Scooby as a decoy, Shaggy intercepts the Snack Daphne intended for Scooby:
  Velma: What did you do that for, Shaggy?
  Shaggy: Because I know who's stuck with the job of taking the decoy on a leash! (savoring the snack) Not bad. Not bad at all.
• Hey, It's That Sound!: The Where Are You! episode "Spooky Space Kook". The UFO used the "electronic rattlesnake" noise from the Heat Ray warming up from The War of the Worlds (1953).
• Hippie Van: The Mystery Machine is a VW van with a trippy paint job. Just like everyone who wasn't name Shaggy and Scooby, was Put on a Bus in the late '80s.^note Different vehicles were used in The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, Scooby-Doo Meets the Boo Brothers, Scooby-Doo and the Ghoul School, and Scooby-Doo! and the Reluctant Werewolf; the kids were too young to drive in A Pup Named Scooby-Doo.
• Holding the Floor: One of the ghosts from The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo was weak to sunlight, so the gang needed to delay the ghost until daybreak, which Van Ghoul calls a filibuster.
• Hollywood Torches: Shaggy finds and uses one in Where Are You episode "Spooky Space Kook".
• "Home Alone" Antics: A regular occurance after a Let's Split Up, Gang! when Scooby & Shaggy are on the run from the monster of the week, then set up some kind of elaborate scenario in order to confuse the monster.
• Honor Before Reason: Miyumi in Scooby-Doo and the Samurai Sword.
• Hurricane of Puns: The made-for-TV movies had more than enough of monster puns.
• Hypno Fool:
  • Shaggy is made fearless/normal with the trigger "bad" in Scooby-Doo! Legend of the Phantosaur.
  • Shaggy, Scooby and Daphne are hypnotized into performing amazing circus acts in "Bedlam In The Big Top."
• Idiot Ball: Every time you see a door that needs to be pushed to be opened, everyone's going to think it's locked.
• Impact Silhouette: Scooby and Shaggy in Where Are You! episode "Spooky Space Kook".
• Injured Limb Episode: Fred breaks his leg in "There's No Creature Like Snow Creature".
• Ink-Suit Actor:
  • Many of the Special Guest stars on The New Scooby-Doo Movies: Don Knotts, Jonathan Winters, Phyllis Diller, Sandy Duncan, Sonny & Cher, Davy Jones, Jerry Reed, Tim Conway, Don Adams, Cass Elliot, and Dick Van Dyke.
  • Vincent Price as Vincent Van Ghoul in The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo.
  • Joe Barbera appeared in the Johnny Bravo episode, and in caricature under psuedonyms in a couple of episodes of What's New, Scooby Doo?
  Everyone: JOE BARBERA???
  Johnny Bravo: ...Who's that?
  • In A Scooby Doo Valentine (episode of What's New, Scooby Doo?) the imposters of the gang are unmasked and revealed to be caricatures of their voice actors (Frank Welker, Casey Kasem, Grey DeLisle, Mindy Cohn). In fact, the valentine they find as a clue has the gang's names written in the handwriting of the voice talents.
  • Supernatural actors Jensen Ackles, Jared Padalecki and Misha Collins appear as Dean, Sam and Castiel in cartoon form in that show's episode "Scoobynatural."
  • The Special Guest stars on Scooby-Doo and Guest Who?: Chris Paul, Wanda Sykes, Ricky Gervais, Penn & Teller, Jim Gaffigan, "Weird" Al Yankovic, Sia, Kenan Thompson, Whoopi Goldberg, Mark Hamill, George Takei, Halsey, Steve Buscemi, Jeff Dunham and Darci Lynne Farmer, Maddie Ziegler, Jeff Foxworthy, Malcom McDowell, Christian Slater, Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Bill Nye, Kacey Musgraves, Morgan Freeman, Kristen Schall, Joey Chestnut, Gigi Hadid, Alton Brown, Tim Gunn, Tara Lipinski, Chloe Kim, Laila Ali, Liza Koshy, Macklemore, Sandy Duncan, Alex Trebek and Johnny Gilbert, Axl Rose, Jason Sudekis, Lucy Liu, Sean Astin, Cher, Jessica Biel, Joseph Simmons of Run-DMC, Billy Dee Williams, Terry Bradshaw; Frank Welker, Grey Griffin, Matthew Lillard and Kate Micucci; and Carol Burnett.
• In-Universe Nickname: Danger-Prone-Daphne.
• Invincible Incompetent: Two flavors:
  • Shaggy and Scooby always seem to end up finding the weekly monster despite their cowardice, laziness, and complete lack of investigative skills.
  • Despite the inevitable failure of Fred's convoluted traps to catch the monster, the monster usually ends up trapped by the end of the episode anyway.
• Is It Always Like This?: The Scooby-Doo comic book has an issue where a character asks, "And this happens everywhere you go?" Shaggy responds with, "Well, there was this one time where Fred took us to a flower shop..."
• Jokers Love Junk Food: Shaggy and Scooby are Big Eaters who will eat most things that won't eat them first. Though Shaggy and Scooby do eat healthy food as well, they have a soft spot for sweets, though it varies by incarnation.
  • In Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, they are shown eating blockbuster pizzas, will dip corn on the cob in chocolate sauce, and are frequently shown hanging out at a malt shop.
  • What's New, Scooby-Doo?: During the 2000s, Casey Kasem returned to the role of Shaggy after a falling out over the use of the character in Burger King ads, on the stipulation that Shaggy would now be a vegetarian. This meant he ate "healthier" fare, though still not averse to junk food like ice cream.
• Jumped the Shark: invoked Taken literally in the What's New episode "Lights, Camera, Mayhem" as Scooby and Shaggy sail over a tank of sharks on a motorcycle, with Velma cracking the obvious punch line:
  Velma: Who would ever think that Scooby would jump the shark?
  • In an inversion, Mark Evanier talked to a Comic-Con (San Diego) crowd in 2007 of how people thought Scooby-Doo jumped the shark with the introduction of Scrappy-Doo (which Mark created as a result of ABC's insistence). "It's Scooby-Doo," Mark told the crowd. "How do you ruin Scooby-Doo?"
• Kavorka Man: It's not so much that Shaggy is a pimp, but many episodes and movies have shown that many an attractive female seems to think Shaggy is hot. Most recent example is the made-for-video movie Scooby Doo! Abracadabra Doo, which has Velma's kid sister Madelyn with the hots for Shaggy. And now, with Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, Velma does as well. One wonders how the next family get-together might go. ("I guess we Dinkley sisters have something in common after all.")
• Kissing Cousins: One episode of The Scooby-Doo Show featured Scooby-Doo and Scooby-Dum's cousin Scooby-Dee. Both Doo and Dum found her very attractive. Whether or not the fact that they're all dogs eases the weirdness is up to you.
• Knight's Armor Hideout: Used to happen every other week. Sometimes This Week's Villain would hide inside the armour while the Mystery Gang charged past; sometimes Scooby and Shaggy would fit into the Hammerspace inside a suit of armour so as to evade detection; on one occasion they tried to hide in the armour only to find the villain was already in there...
• Lampshade Hanging:
  • What's New Scooby Doo? revels in hanging lampshades on the tropes of the old cartoon, especially in the movies. Common targets include The Reveal dialogue, quirks of the characters, plot tropes, and potential fakeness of the monster.
  • In Night of the Living Doo, Gary Coleman points out the plot doesn't make a whole lot of sense and left a lot of unresolved threads.
• Large Ham: Fortius from Scooby-Doo! Spooky Games.
  Fortius: You can run, but Fortius can run faster!
• Lava Surfing: Scooby and Shaggy use this method to get through the Gate of Fire in Samurai Sword.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: Shaggy and Scooby when anyone they really care about is in trouble. There was even one moment when Velma was captured and Scooby turned down a Scooby Snack, saying he didn't need it to be persuaded to help rescue her.
• Let's Split Up, Gang!: Trope Namer, ahoy! It's notable that in the more modern adaptations, it's nearly irresistible to play with this trope more than a little.
• Limited Animation:
  • Scooby-Doo was infamous for it. Oddly enough, it doesn't apply to the first few DTV movies (Zombie Island, Witch's Ghost, Alien Invaders, Cyber Chase) since the animation is quite lively and fluid. Nowadays it's back to looking pretty cheap. But a lot better than before.
  • Lampshaded in the 13 Ghosts episode "That's Monstertainment." Scooby appears in a mock-up of the MGM opening title sequence where it reads "Ranna-Rarrera" below it and "Limitus Animatus" around Scooby's face.
• Lives in a Van: The Mystery Inc. gang live mainly in the Mystery Machine.
• Living Statue: Fortius from Spooky Games.
• Local Hangout: Some shows feature the gang hanging out at a Malt Shop.
• Long Runner: Still making new episodes/movies, over 50 years later. As of the end of 2020 upon the most recent episode of Scooby-Doo and Guess Who?, there have been 560 series episodes (these include eleven-minute and seven-minute installments and Scooby and Shaggy's Laff-A-Lympics appearances), 10 guest appearances on other shows, two parody spots, 12 specials, 7 made-for-TV movies (two live-action), three theatrical movies, three commercial shills (2005 spot for Dove shampoo with Velma, Wilma Flintstone and Jane Jetson; 2006 spot for DirecTV with the whole gang, a 2014 spot for State Farm with the gang), a movie theater spot (the gang busts Daffy Duck for jabbering on a cell phone in a theater), and (so far) 31 direct-to-DVD movies.
  • Co-creator Joe Ruby once commented that Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! would likely be a one-and-done series then forgotten. To his delighted surprise, it wasn't. It was such a big hit that CBS exec of children's programming Fred Silverman insisted on Joe and partner Ken Spears being in charge of whatever cartoon the network bought. And that followed when Silverman jumped ship to ABC.
• MacGuffin: The eponymous 13 Ghosts.
• MacGyvering: Daphne frequently picks locks or otherwise saves the day with everyday items from her purse in What's New, Scooby-Doo? In the second live-action movie, she uses some tape and blush to trip a fingerprint-activated lock so they could escape from a cell that they're being held in. "I enjoy being a girl!"
• Magic from Technology
• Magic Skirt:
  • Velma in the first live action movie (where she's dangling upside down by one foot◊—word is that Linda Cardellini had her skirt taped to her legs as Warner Bros. wanted the movie to maintain a family-friendly integrity), and Velma and Daphne in the What's New episode "Ready To Scare" (the entire gang suspended by their feet).
  • In "Haunted House Hang-Up," Velma, Shaggy and Scooby fall into a well feet first. Velma's pleated skirt does not rise.
  • Subverted in "Recipe for Disaster," where Velma and Daphne hold their skirts down after a high-power floor dryer (used after the gang gets soaked) is activated.
• Male Gaze:
  • The first scene in the prologue of Abracadabra Doo.
  • In the crossover with Supernatural, Sam cannot take his eyes off Daphne's caboose. The way she was drawn in that scene, who could blame him?
• Malevolent Masked Men: The "monsters" are nearly always crooks in elaborate monster costumes trying to scare the locals for whatever reason.
• Man, I Feel Like a Woman:
  • In the first movie, Fred switches minds with Daphne, giving him her body.
  • In the direct-to-video movies Pirates Ahoy and The Goblin King, Shaggy is seen dressed up as Daphne and Scooby is dressed up as Velma.
  • Also briefly in the second live-action movie, Shaggy drinks a potion that gives him a female body, and checks himself, or rather, herself out in a mirror.
• Man in the Machine: Quite a few of the cases use this trope.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: The franchise famously flip-flops on this to the point that it can change per film, series, or even episode. Some parts of the series, the characters rightfully point out that they've done the "Scooby-Doo" Hoax so many times that there's no way a ghost can be real, only to be Instantly Proven Wrong, while in other cases clearly supernatural things beyond their usual mysteries are happening and someone like Velma is firmly cemented in Arbitrary Skepticism. There's even installments that double down in reverse, trying their hand at Doing In the Wizard thoroughly to explain every facet of a mystery and making sure absolutely nothing about is supernatural, no matter how implausible or pure science-fiction it may seem. And then they might hint at a real ghost at the very end anyway.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Steve Looker from Spooky Games.
  • Scientists and technicians tend to have names either related to their field of study, or to science in general (e.g. Professor Angstrom). Other minor characters' names sometimes reference their line of work too (e.g. Sue Crose, maker of a sugary drink).
• The Meddling Kids Are Useless:
  • The meddling kids themselves are an odd case, as they actually do manage to solve mysteries... or rather, Velma does, with a little help from Fred and occasionally Daphne. Our main heroes, Scooby and Shaggy, on the other hand, mostly just have exciting chase scenes and eat lots, while Daphne is kidnapped by the villain ("Danger-prone Daphne", indeed) and Fred makes traps that invariably fail but somehow manage to accidentally capture the villain anyway. In the end, it's Velma who figures out who the villain is and explains the mystery to the others.
  • This is averted hilariously in the movies, in which the cast also realize their shortcomings - Daphne takes down a good number of bad guys after taking martial arts classes and Shaggy and Scooby spend the entire second movie performing investigations on their own to prove their worth (of course, the success of said investigations is pretty limited...)
  • The third live-action film averts this. Every member of the gang provides something useful, but not at the same degree as the earlier two films (which is correct, as this film is a prequel). Freddy comes up with the plan, Daphne provides the wheels and disguises, Velma provides science and history, Shaggy drives and provides a list of suspects (and the motive), and Scooby actually catches the villain.
  • The third episode of the original series is a perfect example of this trope. The police would have caught the criminal even if Mystery Inc. had not ended up in the castle.
  • In "A Clue for Scooby Doo", "Bedlam At The Big Top", and "Never Ape an Ape Man", Scooby and Shaggy do have a major role in solving the case.
    • For "A Clue for Scooby-Doo", Scooby-Doo finds the air tanks for the gang while Shaggy sits on the rock that opens up the villian's hideout.
    • For "Bedlam At The Big Top", Shaggy and Scooby-Doo put the Ghost Clown into a trance in which the Ghost Clown thinks he's a chimp.
    • For "Never Ape An Ape Man", Shaggy takes a picture of the Ape Man without his mask on. Talk about carrying the Idiot Ball, Carl The Stunt Man.
  • In many later spin offs where Velma and Fred were absent, Shaggy and Scooby were left to use Bugs Bunny style antics to take down the Monster of the Week (who were often real this time).
• Medium Awareness: In the comic story "Mark of the Blue Scarab" (Gold Key #24), the narrator affects this on the first page where the title character is chasing Shaggy and Scooby:
  Zoinks! What's going on here, readers? Those costumed clown superheroes usually appear in other comic books! Perhaps you should check the indicia at the bottom of the page to see if this is really a copy of Scooby Doo Mystery Comics...
• Mokele-Mbembe: In the 1997 comic series story "At Least That Beast" (later reprinted in the 67th issue of Scooby-Doo: Where Are You?), the gang are called to the Congo after hearing reports of the Mokele-Mbembe terrorizing a nearby diamond mine under the command of a witch doctor. It turns out to be a disguised mining machine controlled by the mine's owner (who also dressed up as the witch doctor), who had hoped to scare away his own workers and the nearby villagers so that he could keep all the diamonds for himself. The ending leaves it ambiguous whether a real Mokele-Mbembe actually exists, however.
• Monster in the Moat:
  • Scooby-Doo! and the Reluctant Werewolf: Dracula's Castle moat has at least one crocodile. It proceeds to foil Shaggy and Scooby's attempt to escape the castle with a Bedsheet Ladder, although Scooby doesn't notice until he's already climbed down into its mouth without knowing it was there.
  • Scooby-Doo and the Ghoul School has the eponymous location surrounded by a moat inhabited by a two-headed Threatening Shark.
• Monster of the Week: Usually, each new episode or comic issue focuses on the gang encountering some new bizarre hoax (or, occasionally, some new bizarre creature), unconnected to any of the previous things they've met and unlikely to show up again.
• Mustache Vandalism: Scooby and Shaggy have done this many times, usually with the "painting/statue coming to life" variation.
• My God, What Have I Done?:
  • Velma's uncle Evan and aunt Meg, when their daughter Marcy turned out to be the Villain of the Week in A Scooby-Doo Halloween. They felt guilty for putting Halloween before their own daughter's birthday.
  • This also occurred in What's New, Scooby-Doo?, where Villain of the Week turns out to be Velma's favorite teacher, and he shows real remorse for his actions.
• My Eyes Are Leaking: Velma towards the end of Music Of The Vampire. The witch's hypnotic gas is making her eyes water, and Daphne (who is dazed and tied to a swamp altar) thinks Velma is crying.
• Mysterious Purple: While the logo colors for this series about a group of teens solving mysteries that seem supernatural at first (and sometimes are actually supernatural) do change, purple is almost always included, either as the main fill-in for the text or as the backdrop shading for the text.
• Mystery of the Week: Each episode is almost always a standalone mystery for the group to explore. There's rarely any Continuity Lockout which makes picking up any series in the franchise easy enough.
• Mythology Gag:
  • The end of The Mystery Begins features live reenactments of parts of several Scooby-Doo opening themes, including Scooby Doo, Where Are You!, The New Scooby Doo Movies, and What's New, Scooby Doo? (while playing the theme song from the third series).
  • The entire movie is one big Mythology Gag, when you come to think of it.
  • A flashback to Velma's childhood in What's New, Scooby Doo? uses the art style of A Pup Named Scooby-Doo. It depicts why she's afraid of clowns.
  • One of the episodes of What's New, Scooby Doo? features Fred and Velma indisposed, leaving only Daphne, Shaggy and Scooby to solve the mystery by themselves, a la all the later shows before A Pup Named Scooby-Doo.
  • In the first episode of Mystery Inc., Shaggy mentions that he fell asleep watching "a Vincent van Ghoul movie". Vincent van Ghoul was the group's mentor in The 13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo. In the same episode, several previous mysteries are seen in a museum, with Velma mentioning a few mysteries, and giving out the motives and identities of the "monsters".
  • In A Scooby Doo Halloween, Shaggy is dressed as a werewolf like in Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf.
  • In "Curse of the Lake Monster", the gang receives a check for $10,000 from The Bank of Hanna-Barbera. Also in that movie, Fred and Daphne pretend to be mannequins, dressed in their classic clothing from the cartoons. Fred sees his reflection and contemplate this before saying "nah".
  • In Scooby Doo and the Cyberchase, the gang's simulated duplicates inside the video game are drawn in the style of the older series. Lampshaded with a quip that the game's designer hadn't seen the gang in a while when he programmed it.
  • The 1972 episode with the Three Stooges "The Ghost Of The Red Baron" uses the background music from Dastardly & Muttley in Their Flying Machines extensively and almost exclusively.
  • The Scooby segment of the April 1st Batman: The Brave And The Bold episode is not only designed and animated in the same way as the Scooby Doo Movies episodes with Batman and Robin, but it also has the same animation glitches—Batman's neck is exposed (which Bat-Mite points out to his digust) and another scene shows Batman with a gloveless hand with a ring on his finger.
  • In the episode Scooby Doo And A Mummy, Too, Velma is disguised as Cleopatra (to Shaggy's Marc Antony) in an attempt to hide from the mummy. She actually dresses up as Cleopatra in Scooby Doo In Where's My Mummy? as part of the "Scooby-Doo" Hoax she helps stage.
  • In "Guess Who's Knott Coming To Dinner," Don Knotts (in the guise of Captain Moody's first mate) identifies Fred as Captain Moody's nephew Ronald. This is probably a nod to Ronnie, which was Fred's original name until he was renamed after CBS programming head Fred Silverman.
  • The 2012 special Spooky Games uses the same premise as the 1973 Scooby Doo Movies episode "The Spirited Spooked Sports Show'' (with Tim Conway) — Shaggy becoming a competitive runner who runs fastest when he's scared.
  • Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated aimed to appear to end where Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! begins, something that would've been expanded on had the series made it to a third season.
  • The Supernatural episode "Scoobynatural" takes the Scooby episode "A Night Of Fright Is No Delight" and turns it on its collective ear as well as takes some liberties with it.