By the time that he was cast as the voice of Scooby-Doo in 1969, Donald Earle Messick was already a star in voice acting.
Born September 7, 1926, Don was performing locally as a ventriloquist by the age of 13. When he was 15, his ventriloquist act won him his own weekly radio show on WBOC (now WTGM) in Maryland.1
Animation Resources has a detailed biography about Don that is a must-read for any Scooby fan. Click here to go to it.
In his tribute to Casey Kasem, Frank Welker describes how he benefited from working with Don:
"Casey had a stint in the service and did radio there which he would often tell me about. He got along well with the entire cast wonderfully well. Don Messick (Scooby-Doo) also did radio in the service, so there were a lot of those stories. John Stephenson, Hal Smith and a few others (who played our regular villains) all got along great with Casey. I noted they all had this rich radio background…thus many war stories and deep mutual respect. I was young and straight off the football field and had very little showbiz or radio background. As a poor reader, it was heaven to listen to Casey and the boys trade stories. But talk about education. I was watching and working with the greatest in the biz, and learning on the job. How great is that?"2
Animation historian Jim Korkis quotes a story that Don told about the creation of Scooby's voice:
"Astro preceded Scooby Doo. I had to come up with what I call growl talk. The words were there. Joe [Barbera] liked things starting with R’s for the dogs especially. He got that from watching Soupy Sales. Sales had an offscreen dog. All you would see was the paw and he talked with R-talk. So, Joe decided that Astro should have that kind of attitude. Rello, Rorge! I ruv roo, Rorge. But then along came Scooby Doo, my favorite voice. So then when we were doing the later Jetsons episodes, I had to pitch Astro a little bit higher. Because Scooby had the growl talk though his was more of a barrel-chested thing."3
Information Sources:
1Biography: Don Messick. Animation Resources. Retrieved from https://animationresources.org/biography-don-messick/
2Welker, F. (2016, February 6). Remembering Casey Kasem, a gone but not forgotten member of the Scooby-Doo gang. Mashable. Retrieved from https://mashable.com/2016/02/06/casey-kasem-scooby-doo/#tJ0aV4dMcGqM
3Korkis, J. (2017, July 21). Animation Anecdotes #322. Cartoon Research. Retrieved from http://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/animation-anecdotes-322/