Daphne's uncle sends the gang to Costa Rica for the opening of a museum exhibit on dinosaurs. When they meet archaeologist Melbourne O'Reilly, he reveals the legend of a dinosaur spirit. So when the gang watch a dinosaur film in the museum's theatre, the dinosaur in the film jumps out of the screen and into the audience. It is up to the gang to figure out who is really behind this mystery.
This episode includes examples of the following tropes:
- Dinosaur Doggie Bone: Scooby snatches a bone from one of the dinosaur skeletons. It ends up becoming a Chekhov's Gun as Velma uses it to figure out the curse on the dinosaur skeleton was fake.
- Dramatic Unmask: Double subverted. At first the monster gets away, but Velma decides to make a slide show for all the suspects and reveal the culprit. During the presentation, it's revealed that the gang found the monster, and the costume is removed to reveal it's actually an excavator.
- Gold Fever: When Shaggy stumbles upon what he thinks is gold, he eagerly starts stuffing it into his shirt and pockets until Melbourne reveals it's nothing but iron pyrite, or fool's gold.
- Robotic Reveal: The dinosaur spirit is a rock excavating vehicle.
- Shout-Out: After the Dinosaur Spirit attacks the museum, J.J. Hakimoto says "Just when you thought it was safe to go to the museum." which is parody the tagline of Jaws 2, "Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water".
- Stock Sound Effects: The dinosaur spirit shares the roars to one of the most famous T-Rexes in pop culture.
- Terrifying Tyrannosaur: It's not a T-Rex, but this trope is still in effect.
- Worthless Yellow Rocks: After the gold he was grabbing is revealed to be fake, Shaggy throws it all away. But as it turns out, at least one of those nuggets was real gold that he thought was fake.
