THE SCOOBY GANG
MEMBERSHIP: Fred Jones, Daphne Blake, Velma Dinkley, Norville Shagsworth “Shaggy"
Rogers and his dog, Scooby-Doo
PURPOSE: The investigation, exploration and possible debunking of alleged supernatural locations.
BASE of OPERATIONS: Coeursville, Massachusetts, also Mobile
FIRST APPEARANCE: Scooby Doo, Where Are You (ABC-TV series, September
13,1969 - Recent)
HISTORY: Fred, Daphne, Velma and Shaggy were four teens who attended
Coeursville High School (Grades 7-12) in the Early Seventies. Bound by common teenage
interests as well as senses of responsibility, they stumbled on a mystery one night
concerning a suit of armor behind the wheel of a truck and delved into the mystery as if it
was a riddle or a practical joke set up for them to find. The discovery thrust
them into a series of incidents involving art thieves and eventually more
unexplained events as they traveled abroad on trips across the United States. By time they
graduated high school in 1974, they had visited and exposed
twenty sites being used to conceal criminal activities.
Even through their college years, the four
teens continued to poke into any incident that never seemed right. They became
popular in the press as unofficial detectives as they were dubbed the Scooby
Gang after Shaggy's Great Dane, a huge, friendly dog with a huge appetite.
Instead of defending the gang as a conventional guard dog, it often became the
first to run and hide, often moving furniture and knocking things over as it
does. Scooby was mostly kept in check through Scooby Doughnut Snacks, from which
he was named, although in later years, they were confused as a brand of dog
biscuits. As a young adult, Blake eventually began hosting a local news-like TV series that
investigated and featured reportedly haunted locations. Fred, the unofficial leader,
became her cameraman while
Shaggy acting as driver and Velma as the team's advisor. Although Velma had
aspirations of being a scientist, she stayed loyal to Fred and Daphne, briefly
running a bookstore as she studied for her doctorate in forensic science.
Over time, their syndicated
paranormal detective documentaries allowed them to achieve a
certain pop status with a number of fictionalized cartoon series based on their adventures
through Hanna-Barbera Entertainment. However, in 1985, they tried to pull their
support of the animated series due to declining quality, least of which was the
addition of a new animated character called "Scrappy Doo," which not
only lead to the cancellation of the series in that year but to a lawsuit over
the use of their likenesses on merchandise. Only Daphne and Shaggy allowed the
use of their likenesses in a re-vamped version of the series called "The
Thirteen Ghosts of Scooby Doo," which included occult expert Vincent von
Ghul (nee Van Ghoul), as their paranormal advisor while they covered exaggerated
versions of incidents from their old case files. By now, Daphne, having grown
tired of being abducted and held hostage, had studied unarmed combat to increase
her knowledge of martial arts. Fred and Velma eventually renewed their contracts
with Hanna-Barbera in 1998 for a series of Direct-to-DVD animated motion
pictures. Fred had briefly enjoyed popularity as a freelance writer of true
crime books, and Velma briefly had the honor to work with NASA. In 1988, the
gang allowed new likenesses to be commissioned for a more juvenile version of
their lives called "A Pup Named Scooby Doo." For this series, their
hometown of Coeursville, Massachusetts
was renamed "Coolsville" to be more
children-friendly for much younger viewers. The popularity of the DVDs
and the re-release of their original animated series soon lead to the release of a
live-action feature
film in 2002 based on their younger lives than on their recent careers.
Over the years, the gang has traveled abroad
on vacation excursions and as guests for friends and family. Some of their
travels have taken them to the American Southwest, Mexico, England, the Far East
and even an uneventful cruise through the so-called Bermuda
Triangle. Not all of
their cases have been paranormal. Some of them have involved opportunists using
legends of cryptozoological animals, such as a Yeti-like creature near the
Wolf's Head Lodge in Vermont and an alleged pterodactyl sighting near Montana's
Big Canyon Dude Ranch, rare reported extra-terrestrial sightings and just
costumed criminals using names like the Creeper, Mamba Wamba and Iron Face.
Case Files: Essex County Museum (9/13/69, 11/29/69), Vasquez Castle (9/27/69),
Cutler's Cove
(9/20/69, 12/13/69), Gold City
(10/4/69), Weatherby Estate
(10/18/69), Funland Amusement Park (11/1/69), Old Coeursville Theater
(11/8/69), Franken Castle (11/22/69), Old Sanders House (1/10/70),
Wolf's Head Lodge (1/17/70), Oceanland (9/26/70),
Old Stillwell House (10/10/70),
Mona Tiki Tia (10/17/70), Blake Ranch (9/11/76), The Everglades (9/18/76), The Smithsonian (9/25/76),
Happy Humor Ice Cream Factory (10/2/76), Dilly-Dolly Toy Company (10/9/76), Temple
of Kontazuma (10/23//76),
Winterhaven Power Company
(10/25/76), Sleepy Hollow (10/31/76),
Old Crabbe House (11/27/76),
Underground Seattle (12/1/76), Coeursville Community College (12/4/76), Viking Lake (9/10/77),
Skull Island
(9/17/76, 10/20/76), Big Canyon Dude Ranch (9/24/77), Spider Mountain (10/15/77),
Wilcox House (9/30/78), McDuff Castle (10/14/78), Decade Records (10/18/78),
Miedo Fortress (aka Fortress of Fear, 12/9/78)
COMMENTS: This bio features the original "Scooby Doo" 1969-1972,
1976-1979 series while incorporating parts of the animated and live-action movies.
Because of anachronistic individuals in the 1972-1973 episodes (Laurel &
Hardy, the Three Stooges...) and the overall pitiful storylines of the
1979-1983 seasons, those episodes are not considered canon.
Matthew Lillard also played Dennis Rafkin in "Thirteen Ghosts" (2001)