Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! is a animated television series created by Joe Ruby and Ken Spears during their time at Hanna-Barbera that debuted in 1969, beginning one of the most popular and long-lasting animated franchises for television which remains the only Hanna-Barbera property to have entries and enjoy mainstream success across every decade since its inception to well into the 21st century. The original series itself consists of 25 episodes across two seasons (17 and 8 respectively) which originally aired on Saturday mornings on CBS with its immense popularity inspiring numerous subsequent HB shows to follow the teen sleuths solving mysteries formula and its first sequel series coming two years after its initial ending.

The series that started it all features a gang of four mystery-solving teenagers, consisting of confident de-facto leader Fred Jones, intelligent but glasses-losing Velma Dinkley, girly but also cunning Daphne Blake, cowardly and gourmet Norville "Shaggy" Rogers, and their talking Great Dane, Scooby-Doo. In each episode, Mystery Incorporated runs into some sort of paranormal activity, and it's up to them to solve the case. In nearly every episode, however, it just turns out to be a man in a mask, though the gang never seems to catch onto this.

Originally called Mysteries Five, Scooby was supposed to be an updated version of old-time Radio Drama classics like I Love A Mystery and Armchair Detectives. It was the first children's cartoon to feature characters resembling "contemporary youth", and the five teens comprised a rock band (and their dog, here named Too Much) who solved mysteries on the side. Ruby and Spears' original scripts were a bit too nuanced and intelligent for the higher-ups at CBS, who deemed it "too scary for children" and demanded it be "toned down".

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Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! contains examples of:

• Abandoned Mine: A decrepit old mine is featured in the episode "Mine Your Own Business". While trying to determine the identity of the scary Miner 49er, the gang exploress the mine in search of clues.
• Absurdly Ineffective Barricade:
  • In "Spooky Space Kook", Shaggy and Scooby use a desk for one of the doors, only to find out that the door opens outwards instead of inwards.
  • In "Mystery Mask Mix-up", we have this:
    Shaggy (after they've finished nailing the door shut): He won't be able to open that door.
    The wall lifts up, revealing the ghost.
    Shaggy: Wouldn't you know he'd come through the wall?
• Affably Evil: After the Vazquez castle ghost is revealed to be the ex-illusionist Bluestone the Great, he doesn't give a You Meddling Kids speech, but he actually manages to be gracious enough to give an encore performance. He is also quite cooperative when the police take him away.
• All Cavemen Were Neanderthals: The caveman from "Scooby's Night With a Frozen Fright" is a hulking, grunting brute.
• Always Night: The monsters and ghosts only appear at night (and for good reason) and daylight scenes occur on only a few occasions throughout the entire series.
• Amoral Attorney: Misters Creeps and Crawls.
• Amusement Park of Doom: In an episode, the gang look into the odd goings on of Funland, an amusement park that has been shut down temporarily, and has a malfunctioning robot running around causing damage.
• Anti-Sneeze Finger: In "A Tiki Scare is No Fair," Velma hides out in a stack of hay from the Mono Tiki Tia witch doctor, but the hay is triggering an impending sneeze. She uses the anti-sneeze finger, but she winds up sneezing hay right in the witch doctor's face.
• Armored Collar of Durability: There's the Spooky Space Kook, whose armored form is meant to mimic a conventional space suit while also giving him a hulking, intimidating appearance. Critically, obscuring his neck behind his armor also exaggerates the "floating" appearance of his head.
• Artistic License – Chemistry:
  • In "Go Away, Ghost Ship", Scooby is able to handle dry ice without gloves without hurting himself.
  • "Haunted House Hang-Up" shows us the gang covering the Headless Specter in natural gas. You can't see natural gas. That's why it's a gas.
• Artistic License – History:
  • In "A Gaggle of Galloping Ghosts", Daphne finds an inscription about King Tut written in 1668. Tutankhamun's tomb wasn't discovered until the early 20th century, and he wasn't famous prior to that.
  • In-Universe, Velma notes the inconsistency of a Native American witch doctor (predating a good thousand years) speaking modern English.
    Shaggy: Maybe he went to night school.
  • In the "witch doctor" episode, totem poles and full-body leather garments are as out-of-place in a Southwestern pueblo cliff-dwelling as bagpipes and matador costumes in a Dutch windmill.
  • Although it's possible that he merely had a painting commissioned of himself in a Confederate uniform, Colonel Beauregard Sanders is implied to have been a Confederate officer because of the Worthless Treasure Twist. This is impossible because the last confirmed Confederate veteran died in 1951. The last person who claimed to be a Confederate veteran died in 1959, a full ten years before the episode aired.
• Artistic License – Physics:
  • Shaggy, Scooby, and the Headless Specter have a chase over the mansion on helium balloons in "Haunted House Hang-Up". Helium gas is not strong enough to lift a person.
  • One episode features Scooby attempt to get himself, Shaggy, and Velma out of a locked room by ramming the door with a large block of ice. Instead, the ice - in Velma's words - hits the keyhole of the door hard enough that it gets shoved through and comes out in the shape of a key. Obviously, this is impossible for many reasons.
• Ass in a Lion Skin:
  • In "Jeepers, It's the Creeper," a baby chick labors under the delusion that it is a dog after imprinting on Scooby.
  • "Never Ape an Ape Man" also has the Ape Man disguise himself with a Scooby-Doo mask to put on a Mirror Routine with the real Scooby.
• Assurance Backfire:
  • The debut episode, "What A Night For A Knight" has this at the onset, when Shaggy and Scooby hear a noise in the bushes and Shaggy tells Scooby to see what it is.
    Shaggy: Don't worry...I'm right behind you.
    Scooby: (sarcastically) Thanks a lot.
  • In "Mystery Mask Mix-Up," Fred and the girls get locked in a room.
    Daphne: I guess it's up to Shaggy and Scooby to find us.
    Velma: It's up to Shaggy and Scooby?? Oh, brother. Are we in trouble.
• Attack! Attack... Retreat! Retreat!:
  • The first season has the gang being terrorized by the Phantom Shadows. The climax leads to the phantoms getting chased by a flying washing machine.
  • In the second season, a Hawaiian witch-doctor flings Shaggy and Scooby into a jungle with a rotating trap door. The witch-doctor runs towards the place where they landed, and ends up bolting upon seeing a bizarre jungle creature (actually the duo wearing an improvised costume made of large leaves).
• Bait-and-Switch Credits: The credits show all manners of supernatural menaces, while of course the episodes centered on proving that mysterious events have a mundane explanation. In contrast, the What's New, Scooby-Doo? opening has the unmasking of three monsters.
• Bait-and-Switch Gunshot: Zigzagged. In the adaptation of the episode "Go Away Ghost Ship" (as "The Ghost Of Redbeard"—Gold Key issue #6, reprinted in #26), Fred, Velma and Daphne are in the ship's hold when a door slams shut with a loud "blam" off-panel. Velma thinks she's been shot and goes through a death scene. Fred tells her otherwise.
• Banister Slide:
  • The episode "A Night of Fright Is No Delight". As the two green ghosts are fleeing Shaggy and Scooby, they jump on to a stair's banister and slide down in an attempt to escape.
  • Shaggy, Scooby and Velma (all in suits of armor) slide down a banister to escape the headless spectre of the episode "Haunted House Hang-Up".
• Barrier-Busting Blow: In "Scooby-Doo and a Mummy Too", Shaggy attempts to stop the mummy by locking it in the supply closet. The mummy just punches a hole through the door.
• Bat Scare:
  • The opening credits, every time.
  • It also happens when the gang encounters some bats in "Decoy for a Dognapper."
• Bedsheet Ghost:
  • One of the earliest ghosts the gang encountered, in "Hassle In the Castle", was The Phantom of Vasquez Castle, who appeared as a Bedsheet Ghost. In reality, it was a magician named Bluestone the Great who used his illusionist skills to make it look like the Phantom could fly and walk through solid walls.
  • The ghost floating out of a well in "Haunted House Hang-Up" was a helium-filled balloon with a bedsheet over it.
  • "Which Witch is Which?" has Fred and Velma searching an empty room when they notice a figure covered in a blue blanket. Velma thinks it is a ghost, but she lifts the blanket to find Daphne Bound and Gagged underneath.
  • In the episode "The Spooky Space Kook", while exploring an abandoned airport, Shaggy and Scooby are scared by a dummy attached to a harness flying towards them. The two jump into a nearby pile of old parachutes and think each other is a ghost when covered by the parachutes, then they run out of the room terrified.
• Beneath Suspicion:
  • The show plays this trope straight constantly during its early incarnations, although they begin playing with it in later series and spinoffs. In the original series, the one character the gang briefly meets early on in each episode disappears and is never seen again... Until the monster is captured. He usually tries to make himself extremely helpful during the brief time he's seen, which is another hint. However, as shown below, there were exceptions.
  • This trope was already subverted in the third episode ever to air, 'A Clue for Scooby Doo.' When pulling off the mask, they assume it's the helpful Mr. Shark pretending to be Captain Cutler's ghost, but instead it's the actual Captain Cutler, whom they'd never before met. (Shaggy, Scooby and Velma saw a picture of Cutler on his widow's wall earlier, and it was Shaggy who caught on to who he was.) Lampshaded in a Comic-Book Adaptation which has Captain Cutler think to himself in disbelief that the gang thought he was Mr. Shark.
  • Subverted in "Spooky Space Kook" where the gang meets a rather creepy-looking farmer who tells them about a ghost haunting a nearby abandoned airfield. They investigate, and find out that the phony ghost is not the farmer, but the farmer's next-door neighbor (who we haven't even seen until now) who was trying to scare the farmer off his land. And the police who show up at the end? The creepy farmer called them himself when he got worried about the Scooby gang's own safety!
  • Double subverted in "The Haunted House Hang-Up", where the kids meet a creepy old man who tells them a creepy story of a haunted house, then disappears. They spend most of the episode trying to catch a headless ghost in said haunted house, only to find out it's the inheritor of the house (a person they've never seen before), trying to keep treasure hunters away until he can recover his grandfather's fortune. The next moment, a masked burglar wearing a bedsheet on his head breaks into the house. They catch him and guess what? He's the guy they met in the beginning.
  • In "Foul Play in Funland", they are alone for the first half without meeting anyone. This one has no disguised villains, just a malfunctioning robot and an inventor trying to repair it, and his sister, who doesn't like robots.
• Beware the Skull Base: In "Go Away Ghost Ship", the Ghost of Redbeard has his base on the aptly-named Skull Island.
• Big Ball of Violence: Happens twice in "Jeepers, It's the Creeper":
  • After Velma, Fred and Daphne jump on Scooby and Shaggy (mistaking them for the Creeper), the resulting punch-up is obscured by a dust cloud.
  • The climatic chase ends with a Big Hay-Pile of Violence, courtesy of Shaggy, Velma, Fred, Daphne and the Creeper.
• Big Eater: Guess. Often subverted with Shaggy, since he wants to eat a lot, but Scooby, playing the trope straight, often eats Shaggy's food before Shaggy can.
• Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti: The titular Snow Ghost from "That's Snow Ghost", who is supposedly a ghost yeti.
• Big Shadow, Little Creature: Typically played straight in several episodes, but an interesting variation occurs in "Mine Your Own Business," when the ghostly Miner '49er runs for it when he sees and hears what appears to be a train approaching... but it's really Shaggy imitating a train horn and chugging, and Scooby going down the tracks with a flashlight and speaker from which Shaggy's train noises are coming.
• Bizarre Taste in Food:
  • Shaggy and Scooby Doo. From liverwurst and ice cream sandwiches to peanut butter pizza with anchovies and chocolate sauce. Shaggy once even wanted to put fish food on his sandwich along with the other condiments, but he changed his mind when the goldfish in the tank got angry.
    Velma: Yuck! His stomach must be made of scrap iron.
    Shaggy: Can I help it my first toy was a garbage disposal?
  • Averted in "A Gaggle of Galloping Ghosts" as the (alleged) contents of the refrigerator sound too revolting even for them.
    Shaggy: "Pickled Vampire Wings"? Yuck! "Werewolf Snacks"? "Fried Moonbeams"?! Double YUCK, YUCK!! [both slam the fridge door shut with their heads turned away and eyes tightly shut]
  • Also averted in "Jeepers, It's the Creeper!", where even they are disgusted by a hermit's meal of squirrel stew with pickled bat wings and crab grass roots.
    Shaggy: N-no, thanks. I just remembered I'm on a strict squirrel-free diet.
    Scooby: Me too!
• Black Belt in Origami: In "Mystery Mask Mix-up", Shaggy tries to bluff the ghost: "Go on, I dare you to cross the line, but I warn you, I know judo, chop suey, and Chinese checkers!" The ghost (being Chinese) was not intimidated.
• Blind Mistake: Velma made a few blunders after losing her glasses. Among other things, she once approached a statue and thought it was Shaggy, petrified with fear. Another amusing example was in "A Gaggle of Galloping Ghosts," when she crawled into an old torture chamber and thought it was a playroom.
• Blind Without 'Em: "My glasses! I can't see without my glasses!"
• Blown Upward by a Blowhole: In "Scooby's Night With a Frozen Fright", while fleeing from the caveman, the gang runs across the back of a sleeping whale. When the caveman tries to do the same, Scooby stomps on the whale so its blowhole would expel a spout of water that lifts the caveman up.
• Blow That Horn:
  • In What the Hex is Going On?, Scooby uses a bugle to call the gang after he falls asleep on guard dog duties and his protectee has disappeared.
  • In "Spooky Space Kook," Scooby blows a bugle ("Mess Call," of course) to alert the others about the title villain's presence.
• B-Movie: In "Nowhere to Hyde", the gang discusses a movie called I Was a Teenage Blob.
• Borrowed Catchphrase:
  • In "What the Hex Going On?", Shaggy says "Scooby-Dooby-Doo" instead of Scooby.
  • Fred, Daphne and Velma share a "Zoinks!" in "A Tiki Scare is No Fair".
• Boyish Short Hair: Velma Dinkley has short hair that ends at her chin level.
• Brainy Brunette: Velma is portrayed as a highly intelligent young woman.
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: The typical choices of ingredients that Shaggy and Scooby put in their sandwiches and desserts.
• Briefcase Full of Money: "The Backstage Rage" starts with Shaggy and Scooby discovering a violin case full of money. It's the start of a counterfeiting caper.
• The Butler Did It:
  • In "Go Away Ghost Ship", the Scooby gang has to chase a ghost pirate. Their employer, Mr. Magnus, has a big, creepy-looking butler who is an obstacle into going to see him. At the end of the episode, when the pirate is unmasked, Shaggy is surprised:
    Shaggy: Like, I thought the butler always did it.
  • In the comic book version of the episode, after the butler slams the door on the gang:
    Shaggy: The butler did it! The butler did it!
    Velma: The butler did what, Shaggy?
    Shaggy: Ummm.....he...slammed the door on us! Right, Scoob?
    Scooby: Right! (Velma eyerolls)
  • In "Nowhere to Hyde", all clues initially point to the housemaid Helga, but in the end it turns out that all those clues were planted by the real villain, who reveals himself when Shaggy and Scooby accidentally find a true clue.
• Buzzsaw Jaw: In "That's Snow Ghost", after Velma is chained to a log and placed on a sawmill conveyor belt by the titular ghost, Scooby saves her by rapidly biting the log in two after she tells him to "make like a beaver" seconds before the blade could dismember her.
• By the Lights of Their Eyes: Episode "Haunted House Hang-Up". When Velma, Shaggy and Scooby Doo walk around in the darkness, their eyes are the only thing that can be seen.
• The Cameo: In 'Don't Fool With A Phantom' Spider Woman/Black Widow from Space Ghost can be see briefly as one of the waxworks.
• "Can Hold Her Own" Moment: In "Jeepers It's the Creeper", Velma finds herself confronted by the eponymous monster. She asks him if he'd hit someone with glasses. The Creeper removes her glasses and draws back to punch her. Velma demonstrates that she can take care of herself by kicking The Creeper's shin, retrieving her glasses, and running off.
• Captain Colorbeard: Redbeard, from "Go Away Ghost Ship."
• Cartoon Juggling: Shaggy in "A Tiki Scare is No Fair" while distracting the Witch Doctor.
• Cartoony Tail: Scooby-Doo is a Great Dane and has a tail like one;, but it often curls and waves like that of a cat.
• Cast as a Mask: Averted most of the time, but there have been a few exceptions with some villains...
  • The gypsy fortuneteller the gang encounters in "A Gaggle of Galloping Ghosts" is voiced by June Foray, but then she turns out to be a man named Big Bob Oakley in disguise, voiced by John Stephenson. Averted with Big Bob's Dracula, Frankenstein Monster and Wolfman disguises, where Stephenson provided their voices as well.
  • The Snow Ghost is voiced by Vic Perrin, but his true identity. Mr. Greenway, is voiced by Hal Smith.
  • The Creeper is voiced by John Stephenson, but his true identity, Mr. Carswell, is voiced by Casey Kasem.
• Catchphrase:
  • Shaggy: Zoinks!
  • Velma: Jinkies!
  • Daphne: Jeepers!
  • Scooby: Scooby Dooby Doo!
  • Fred:...Dang, I still don't have a catch phrase!, unless you count "Let's split up, gang!"
  • Fred and Velma were also fond of saying "I got a hunch" in the early episodes.
• Caught on Tape: The episode "Jeepers, It's The Creeper." The flame will tell the Creeper.
• The Cavalry Arrives Late:
  • The cops never really arrive until the end.
  • Averted in "A Tiki Scare is No Fair" with an agent in his own mask during the whole episode.
• Chase Scene: Nearly every episode. Sometimes with music.
• Chinese Vampire: Two jiangshi pursue Daphne in "Mystery Mask Mix-Up."
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: Closed Circle or not, the gang can't help but to lend a hand. A good example would be the beginning of "Go Away, Ghost Ship", where the kids have to come up with a convoluted plan just to talk with someone that may need their help. Like the Good Samaritans they are.
  C.L. Magnus: What's going on in here?
  Daphne: Would you believe we're here to help you?
  Shaggy: Like, Good Samaritan joes!
• Circus Episode: The episode "Bedlam In The Big Top" had a phantom clown with a hypnotic coin sabotaging a circus.
• Clam Trap: In "Scooby's Night With a Frozen Fright", the caveman gets caught after falling into the giant clam exhibit.
• Cobweb of Disuse:
  • In "Mine Your Own Business", Shaggy and Scooby get cups full of them.
  • In "Nowhere to Hyde", the attic has a collection of them.
  • 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".
• Comfort Food: Norville "Shaggy" Rogers constantly consumes massive amounts of sandwich and pizza, seemingly to sooth his jittery nerves, even going so far as to consciously seek out food when in immediate physical danger. He shares this trait with his dog.
  Shaggy: Like, being in a constant state of terror makes us constantly hungry!
• Comic-Book Adaptation: 16 issues by Gold Key with the first ten issues either truncated or very loose adaptations of TV episodes (it became rebranded as "Mystery Comics" when the show became The New Scooby-Doo Movies). Charlton published eleven issues under the Where Are You! title. DC Comics has been publishing the brand as Where Are You! since 2010.
• Confirm Before Reveal: In "What the Hex Going On?", the gang are investigating the disappearance of their friend's Uncle Stuart after he was cursed into becoming an old man overnight by the ghost of Elias Kingston. While searching for clues, Shaggy asks the gang about Uncle Stuart's wardrobe; when they confirm that it matched his description, he replies, "Then I think we found him… only he looks a little older now!" He then shows the gang a skeleton wearing Uncle Stuart's suit.
• Confusion Fu: Often during a chase, Shaggy and Scooby (and even Velma once) will find a chance to put on some get-up and do a performance, completely bewildering the villains every time and enabling the pair to trick the villains and then escape.
• Contemporary Caveman: The caveman of "Scooby's Night With a Frozen Fright", of the Human Popsicle variety.
• Convenient Photograph:
  • In the episode "Never Ape an Ape Man", Shaggy is playing with a camera when he sees the ape man unmasked. Shaggy photographs the ape man, revealing his true identity.
  • In "Jeepers, It's the Creeper," the gang is driving when they discovered an injured bank guard lying near his truck, which was attacked by the titular villain, a green ghoul. He hands the kids a blank sheet of paper and mutters, "The flame will tell..." before passing out. At the episode's end, it's revealed that the guard caught the bank's president on camera robbing his own cash supply; the supposedly blank paper is the photographic proof and needs to be exposed to an open fire to be developed.
• Conveyor Belt o' Doom:
  • In "Don't Fool with a Phantom", the last episode of the original Scooby-Doo series, the Wax Phantom (the Monster of the Week) left Shaggy and Scooby tied up on a conveyor belt that would dump them into a tank of melted wax, and Shaggy quipped, "That bit went out with the silent movies!" You know it's a Dead Horse Trope when it's being parodied in the early 1970s.
  • Not that this stopped the Snow Ghost from tying Velma to a log and sending it towards a buzzsaw in "That's Snow Ghost"...
• Crash Course Landing: The very first episode ("What a Night For a Knight") does this. The gang is hiding from the Black Knight in a museum's World War I exhibit with Shaggy and Scooby in a biplane's cockpit. Scooby's tail accidentally turns the engine on and set it in motion and flight. Scooby manuevers it and it winds up crashing into the Black Night.
• Crisis Catch-and-Carry: Scooby and Shaggy race away upon seeing the Creeper. However, Scooby then returns to pick up the chick that's been following them around.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: In "Bedlam In The Big Top" with a clown that hypnotizes people, 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.
• Dagwood Sandwich: Often made by Shaggy and/or Scooby; in "Hassle in the Castle" Shaggy calls his creation a Super Shaggy Sandwich, whereas in "A Night of Fright is No Delight", it's a Shaggy Super Sandwich.
• Damsel in Distress:
  • Daphne Blake is often kidnapped by the villain of the week in most incarnations, and earned the In-Series Nickname "Danger-Prone Daphne".
  • Velma becomes this in "That's Snow Ghost" when the title monster chains her to a log and sends her towards a buzzsaw.
• Danger Takes a Backseat:
  • In "Nowhere to Hyde", Hyde sneaks into the back of the Mystery Machine while the gang eats dinner. He's only discovered when Velma asks Scooby to retrieve the blanket under which he was hiding.
  • Inverted in one episode; the gang finds the Creeper in the driver's seat of the Mystery Machine.
• Danger — Thin Ice: In "That's Snow Ghost!", Scooby and Shaggy, riding a snowmobile while running from the titular ghost, crash into a sign reading "DANGER - THIN ICE". They end up taking a dip in the water and are subject to Harmless Freezing.
• Deceased Estate Conflict: In "A Night of Fright Is No Delight", Scooby-Doo was made the heir of the inheritance of Colonel Beauregard Sanders, who Scooby saved many years ago. The condition is that he, and four other heirs, need to stay in the Sanders estate for one night. Corrupt lawyer Cosgood Creeps and his partner Cuthbert masquerade as ghosts to scare off Scooby and the other heirs from claiming it.
• Delaying the Rescue: In "Scooby Doo and a Mummy Too", Shaggy leaves the professor Bound and Gagged after getting his word that he's all right. "Groovy. Be back for you later."
  Shaggy: Groovy. Be back for you later.
• Delivery Guy Infiltration: In "Go Away Ghost Ship," Shaggy and Velma are dressed as a chef and maid respectively with Scooby under the cart tureen and Fred and Daphne in the cart's lower part. This is so they can get into shipping magnate C.L. Magnus' penthouse and help him with the mystery of who is raiding his ships.
  Velma: Room service.
  Shaggy:Yeah. Breakfast is ready.
  Butler: At eleven o'clock at night??
  Shaggy: Sure. That way you won't have to wait till morning to eat it!
• Depending on the Artist: Similar to the fluctuation of models and layouts in Looney Tunes depending on the various directors, animation in Where Are You! never consistently stuck to one specific model per episode, and the variety of Hanna-Barbera's animators' drawing styles often showed from scene to scene.
• 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.
• Didn't Think This Through: "A Clue for Scooby Doo" has Shaggy and Scooby underwater (with scuba gear, of course) trying to ward off the ghostly sea diver (the ghost of Captain Cutler) with a cannon on the deck of a sunken ship. Shaggy tries to ignite the cannon's fuse with a match before remembering that matches don't light underwater.
• Disproportionate Retribution: The general format throughout the franchise is everyone caught doing the "Scooby-Doo" Hoax is arrested and sent to jail. However, while certainly other legal action such as lawsuits might result, not every hoaxster's actions justify imprisonment or even arrest.
• Dissuading the Property Buyer: The basis for much of the "haunting" in the show is someone trying to drive down the property values by pretending to be a ghost so he could buy it cheaply. This even named the trope "Scooby-Doo" Hoax.
• The Dog Bites Back: At the end of "Decoy for a Dognapper", the kidnapped dogs chase and tree Geronimo.
• The Dog Was the Mastermind: Done in "A Clue For Scooby Doo". The villain is disguised as the alleged ghost of a dead sailor. The episode presents two suspects: the dead sailor's wife, and another sailor. The villain turns out to be the dead sailor, who was not so dead after all. (However, his wife was an accomplice.)
• Dragon and Lion Dance: Downplayed in "Mystery Mask Mix-Up", where the gang is watching a Chinese New Year Parade in San Francisco's Chinatown, which has a dragon puppet. However, the puppet was featured prominently in the season two opening where it roars, suggesting that it's a Monster of the Week.
• Dramatic Thunder: Accompanies the spooky location of the week in a few episodes, such as "Mine Your Own Business," "A Night of Fright is No Delight" and "Nowhere to Hyde." It's spoofed in "A Gaggle of Galloping Ghosts" when the Mystery Machine arrives at Franken Castle, it begins to thunder and lightning, and the gang notices that there's not a cloud in the sky. All instances are accompanied with the classic "Castle Thunder" Stock Sound Effects.
• Drives Like Crazy:
  • Velma, believe it or not, in "Foul Play in Fun land" after losing her glasses.
  • Fred also briefly resorted to this, including crashing through walls, during the Chase Scene in "Mystery Mask Mix-up."
• Dropped Glasses: Velma would always lose hers at the worst possible times.
• Dub Name Change: When the original series aired in Japan in 1970, each of the main cast went through a name change: Scooby-Doo is Clooper, Shaggy is Boropin, Fred is Handsome, Daphne is Jenny, and Velma is Megako (a shortened version of "Meganekko" - "the kid with the glasses").
• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • The show originally opened for the first two episodes with an instrumental theme by Ted Nichols, who composed the incidental music for the rest of the show. This theme was only heard in the first two episodes before being replaced with the much more well known David Mook vocal theme song. Those episodes were appended with the Mook theme on DVD and new airings of the show.
  • The show's first few episodes didn't yet have the episode titles displayed with the now-familiar image of the gang running in front of the sinister Wraparound Background. The early episodes had an Episode Title Card on which the Ghost of the Week is displayed. Since these revealed the villains too early, the production soon settled on using the image of the gang running.
  • In "What a Night for a Knight" (1969), the series' first episode, the only character expressing any interest in food is Scooby. Shaggy and everybody else eat nothing (although Shaggy does ask "When do we eat?" when the gang is in the van having left the museum). Shaggy is later depicted as a Big Eater. Also in the same episode, while Fred does appear, he isn't namedropped whatsoever and does not interact much with the other protagonists
  • Also in "What a Night for a Knight" (1969), Daphne describes Shaggy as "the swingingest gymnast in high school"; a rare allusion (at least in the 60s-80s series) to the gang's age or education.
  • In "A Clue for Scooby Doo" (1969), the second episode, the team has unmasked the villain of the episode, but still do not know who he is, because they have never seen his face before. The man is clean-shaven, but Shaggy has the idea to place seaweed on his face. Shaggy realizes that the guy is Captain Cutler, who faked his death years ago. Shaggy recognizes him from a bearded portrait of a younger Cutler, which he had seen earlier that day. Shaggy acts as the smart guy of the team, while Velma is mostly irrelevant here. In most later episodes, unmasking and recognizing the villain is Velma's main task.
  • "Decoy for a Dognapper" (1969), the fifth episode, begins on a completely ordinary day, with Scooby walking down a sidewalk. The Mystery Machine is shown to be equipped with (what looked like, at the time) state-of-the-art surveillance equipment. When the "Witch Doctor" makes his appearance, Velma scoffs at it, asking how an American Indian in the 1800's could learn perfect English. Shaggy's response, "Maybe he's been taking night courses," sounds more like a sarcastic joke. While he's scared of "Geronimo's ghost" and is rightly concerned whoever is putting on the hoax might be dangerous, Shaggy isn't fooled by this ghost disguise.
  • "Decoy for a Dognapper" (1969) is also the first episode which sees Shaggy eat a Scooby Snack, knowing that he will be walking Scooby into danger. He comments "Not bad. Not bad at all." Later episodes see him happily accepting them as bribes. Before this, they were used exclusively to persuade Scooby to do something; there are even some scenarios, such as getting in a mine shaft in "Mine Your Own Business" (1969), where Shaggy is not shown to be fearful at all, whereas later on the pair usually share fears and reluctance to do something.
  • In "Foul Play in Funland" (1969), the eighth episode, Daphne explains to Shaggy about Scooby's apparent aversion, as if she is more familiar with Scooby's tastes in food. Most later episodes have Shaggy both knowing Scooby's tastes and sharing several of them.
  • Shaggy doesn't address Scooby as his popularized shortening "Scoob" until the ninth episode, "The Backstage Rage" (1969). He's also more annoyed with Scooby's antics (especially when Scooby eats his food) and often snarks at him, both traits disappearing over time.
  • In comparisons between this series and later entries in the franchise:
    • Scooby's behavior - talking, reading, etc. notwithstanding - is more like that of a typical dog (sniffing, barking, etc.) than in later series and films.
    • This is the only series where Scooby's name isn't hyphenated in the title, although it was hyphenated in promos during the original CBS run.
    • Velma does not say "Jinkies!" at all across the show's entire run, and would not until The New Scooby-Doo Movies.
    • Similarly, Daphne only says "Jeepers!" once, in "What the Hex is Going On?" (1969).
    • The "You Meddling Kids" phrase doesn't debut until the third episode of the second season, "Scooby's Night with a Frozen Fright." (A few others said some kind of variation of it; Big Bob Oakley in "A Gaggle of Galloping Ghosts" calls them "blasted kids.") And the episode coming right after has Mr. Carswell mutter "Blasted meddling kids." But later uses and parodies eventually made it a main part of the franchise.
    • The way Scooby expresses his signature catchphrase "Scooby Dooby Doo!" is more lower pitched and low-key in the earlier episodes by comparison to the more familiar way it's expressed later on in the franchise.
• End-of-Episode Silliness: Each episode typically ends with Scooby, Shaggy or both doing something silly, often leading to the obligatory "Everybody Laughs" Ending. Sometimes it's unintentional, but there are other times where it's an intentional joke or prank on the rest of the gang.
• Enhanced on DVD: Indeed, the show was restored by Warner Bros. in high-definition in 2004 and released on DVD, Blu-Ray and streaming/VOD services this way, while airings on Boomerang (and sometimes Cartoon Network) still largely use the Turner prints prepared in 1996 that look noticeably less-than-stellar compared to Warner's remastered version (though "Go Away Ghost Ship" takes this even further by airing its' 1980s syndication print that is much more faded, lacks the Laugh Track and is at PAL speed, as of the mid-2000s.) However, the Warner restorations remove the original instrumental theme song from the first two episodes and replace it with the more familiar vocal theme song, but otherwise they are identical to how the show originally aired on CBS.
• Epileptic Flashing Lights: There's the Spooky Space Kook, whose helmet lights up with red and black strobe lights every time it lets out its signature Evil Laugh.
• Everybody Do the Endless Loop: Whenever Daphne and Fred are seen dancing it's always the awkward swaying-back-and-forth move.
• Evil Laugh: The villains capable of laughter, anyway.
• Exorcist Head: Due to an animation error, the 1969 episode "Mine Your Own Business" has Fred's head turn 180 degrees to look at something behind him, without the rest of his body moving.
• Expospeak Gag: In "Hassle in the Castle", Velma translates her own Expo Speak.
  Velma: When the barometric pressure dropped and the warm offshore air came in contact with the midland cold front, we ran into some unnavigable nucleation.
  Fred: You're right, Velma — whatever you said.
  Velma: I said, we're lost in a fog.
• False Confession: In "Nowhere to Hyde", Dr. Jekyll proclaims he is the Hyde almost immediately into the episode before the gang's even begun their investigations. However, all the evidence leads towards Helga rather than him, and they don't really buy the story to begin with. Turns out not only was Helga framed, but Jekyll was intentionally using the ridiculous fake Hyde story to make himself seem innocent so Helga would be arrested instead, when he really was the perp the entire time.
• Fear-Induced Idiocy: When fleeing the eponymous villain in "Spooky Space Kook", Shaggy and Scooby find themselves locked in a room with the spectral spaceman. They leap out a window to grab the key to open the door, reenter the building, unlock the door, then flee the Space Kook.
• Fine, You Can Just Wait Here Alone: In "Spooky Space Kook", Shaggy and Scooby declare they aren't going any farther. Fred responds, "Fine, if you want to stay here — alone." A ghostly laugh sends the two running to catch up.
• Finish Dialogue in Unison: The episode "What a Night For a Knight," has Scooby and the gang at a library researching the origins of a pair of spectacles Scooby found at the museum where the episode's villain, the Black Knight, is housed and is believed responsible for the disappearance of British archaeologist Jameson Hyde-White.
  Velma: (reading from book) Here it is...they're a special type of glasses used by jewelers, scientists and archaeologists. And...hold onto your hula hoops...it says here made only in England!
  Fred: Archaeologists?
  Daphne: England?!
  Fred, Daphne, Velma, Shaggy and Scooby: (to camera) Professor Hyde-White!
• Floorboard Failure: in "Mine Your Own Business". Justified as the mine is decades old.
• Food as Bribe: Shaggy and Scooby can be coaxed into doing anything for food, namely Scooby Snacks. It's even lampshaded by the series' opening theme:
  And Scooby-Doo, if you come through
  Then you can have yourself a Scooby Snack
  That's a fact!
• Foot Bath Treatment:
  • In "Hassle in the Castle," Scooby uses a foot bath (and a blanket) to pretend he's got a cold so he won't have to sniff out the Phantom. Naturally, the others don't fall for it.
  • At the end of another episode, Scooby really does catch a cold and soaks his feet while Shaggy serves him chicken soup - with a live chicken in it.
• 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.
  • Also in "What the Hex is Going On," Scooby poses as one when a customer enters an empty swami's shop. Shaggy throws his voice and Scooby lip-syncs to it, to make it less obvious he's really a dog.
• Forty-Niner: "The Miner Forty-Niner", a ghostly miner, was one of the villains on an episode.
• Four Legs Good, Two Legs Better: While resembling a gorilla, the Ape Man is always bipedal and never walks on his knuckles. It may be where he gets the "man" part of his name.
• Full-Boar Action: In "A Tiki Scare is No Fair", after being separated from the rest of the gang, Shaggy and Scooby get chased by a wild boar protecting its two piglets.
• Ghostly Wail: Very loud wails from the costumed antagonists, most of whom were ghost-based, are quite common.
• Ghost Pirate: There are episodes which have (fake) Ghost Pirates. And in one episode, Ghost Vikings as well. Such is the case of "Go Away Ghost Ship", where a newspaper article about a series of thefts from ships owned by the Magnus shipping company sends the gang to the high seas to track down ghost pirate Redbeard.
• Ghost Ship:
  • In "Go Away Ghost Ship", there's a haunted ship that is said to be led by ghost pirate Redbeard.
  • In the very second episode, "A Clue For Scooby-Doo," the gang tracks down the disappearances of yachts to an area called "the Graveyard of Ships." And of course, several times they've encountered ghost pirates and their crews.
• Go-Go Enslavement: In "Bedlam In The Big Top", Harry the Hypnotist, disguised as a Ghost Clown, hypnotizes Daphne. When next we see her, she's wearing a fanservicey circus outfit and performing a stunt on a unicycle.
• Gone Horribly Right: In "Go Away Ghost Ship," the gang goes out on a speedboat and use a recorded foghorn to pose as the freighter that Redbeard's ghost is after. Their plan works all too well, and Redbeard's ship rams their speedboat and splits it clean in two.
  Velma: Our plan worked too well. It's going to ram us!
• Greed: About 90% of the time, the villain's motive amounts to nothing more than either money or some sort of other personal value. Very rarely is it truly personal, and some of their actions far outweigh their motives by a mile (though there are some exceptions, such as Mr. Greenway/The Snow Ghost, who is apparently a sadist from his behavior).
• Green and Mean:
  • If not for their green skin, it'd be hard to tell that both the Creeper and Hyde are passing themselves off as villainous monsters, not just mean ugly men.
  • The zombie from "Which Witch is Which?" and ghost werewolf from "Who's Afraid of the Big, Bad Werewolf?" are also green, to separate them from the living.
• Have a Gay Old Time: Chased by a ghost sword, Shaggy refers to it as "the gay blade".
• Hell Is That Noise: In "Mine Your Own Business", Hank informs the gang that the Gold City Mine moans "calling for the miner". He turns out to be right, at least until the gang discover that the moaning wasn't really being produced by the mine itself and thankfully it was the Miner 49er moaning over a speaker. This unfortunately doesn't make the situation any better.
• Hero Stole My Bike: in "Decoy for a Dognapper", Shaggy asks a friend if he has anything for him to follow Scooby's abductors. When the friend says, "Only my motorbike", Shaggy roars away with it. At least he asked...
• High-Speed Train Reroute: In the episode "Decoy for a Dognapper", the Villain of the Week sends Scooby on a ride down the train tracks on a rail car, which naturally puts him in danger of getting run over. While Shaggy pumps desperately to keep them ahead of the locomotive, Fred backtracks to the switch, reroutes the rail car to a sideline, and switches it back just in time to save them.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: In "Nowhere to Hyde", Fred, Velma, and Daphne scare the Villain of the Week so badly that he falls through his own Trap Door.
• Hoist Hero over Head: The Snow Ghost hoists Scooby over his head in preparation for throwing him off a ledge.
• How Is That Even Possible?:
  • In "Scooby's Night With A Frozen Fright," the gang has delivered a caveman frozen in a block of ice to Oceanland Marine Park where it is put in the park's Arctic room. Later, when the gang returns to retrieve Shaggy's fishing pole, they find the block of ice melted and the caveman gone.
    Daphne: But that's impossible!
    Velma: Not if he came to life, it isn't.
  • At the end of "A Clue For Scooby-Doo," Scooby sips his drink through a straw and simultaneously empties the drink cups of the gang.
    Daphne: How did Scooby do that?
    Fred: I guess that's another mystery.
• Humongous Mecha: The Hawaiian witch doctor in "A Tiki Scare Is No Fair" has one in the appearance of a huge Tiki statue, which is obviously an automaton that runs on wheels under the feet for mobility. The eyes are either windows or cameras for an operator inside, so when Shaggy accidentally covers the eyes, the operator can't see and starts flailing the mecha around until it crashes.
• Hypno Pendulum: The Ghost Clown used a golden coin on a string like this. It turns out the ghost is actually a disgruntled hypnotist in disguise.
  Ghost Clown: Watch the pretty coin of gold
  And you will do as you are told!
• Hypnotism Reversal: The monster in the episode "Bedlam in the Big Top" is a Ghost Clown who wreaks havoc by hypnotizing people with a coin on a string. Scooby and Shaggy defeat him by baiting him into trying to hypnotize them, then looking away while holding up little mirrors.
• "I Can't Look!" Gesture:
  • In the episode "Go Away Ghost Ship", Velma and Daphne shut their eyes (Fred covers his) to avoid seeing Shaggy and Scooby crashing into a pile of tires.
  • In "Mystery Mask Mix-Up", Fred drives the Mystery Machine off a high-rise during a chase scene with the ghouls of the week. The camera pans across the van to show everyone covering their eyes, including Fred.
• Ill-Timed Sneeze: This is a Running Gag in the show. While hiding from the Monster of the Week, Shaggy or Scooby starts readying himself to sneeze, only to be stiffled by the other, who immediately proceeds to sneeze himself, blowing their cover.
• I'm Not Doing That Again: In "Foul Play At Funland," Scooby and Shaggy are in a rollercoaster car being pursued by the episode's antagonist, an out-of-control robot. Fred tells them to jump into another car on an adjacent track. They do, and after the rescue is effected:
  Shaggy: Don't ever let us do that again!
• Impact Silhouette: Shaggy and Scooby tend to leave these when they're running from the villain. Such is the case of the episode "Spooky Space Kook", where Shaggy and Scooby leave standard holes when they run through a door. Scooby also does it in "A Night of Fright is No Delight", in the basement after seeing the two green phantoms.
• Implied Love Interest:
  • In this series, it was strongly implied that Fred and Daphne were boyfriend-and-girlfriend, such as dancing together at parties, wearing complementary ascots, and whatnot, but it was never confirmed if they were an Official Couple.
  • Velma and Shaggy, at times, are designated dance partners but in one case it was only a set up for a Scooby joke as he interrupts to dance with Shaggy. Some more convincing arguments come from earlier episodes where he carries her spare glasses on him at all times and she brings his cough medicine when he's ill. Such could be read as Implied Love Interest or sibling-like care.^note It should be noted the characters were originally designed as brother/sister in earlier versions.
• Imprinting: Scooby has a baby chick do this in "Jeepers, It's the Creeper". When he returns it, a whole nest of eggs hatch and all of them imprint on Scooby.
• Inconsistent Episode Lengths: The Season 2 episodes were shortened a couple of minutes to make room for CBS's "In the Know" (later "In the News") interstitials. To accommodate this, season one episodes were edited to trim two minutes.
• Inevitable Waterfall: In "Who's Afraid Of the Big Bad Werewolf".
• Instant Wristwatch: Done with Shaggy in "Never Ape an Ape Man," when among hearing about the Monster of the Week, Shaggy says that he just remembered he's late for a dentist appointment.
• Insurance Fraud: In "Go Away Ghost Ship", the villain (the owner of a shipping line) would dress as Redbeard the Pirate and raid his own ships, both to sell the stolen cargo and collect the insurance money.
• In-Universe Nickname: Daphne is given the nickname "Danger-Prone Daphne" due to her recurring status as a Damsel in Distress.
• It's a Long Story: In "Decoy for a Dognapper", Velma is groping around for her glasses, which a bat had dropped on Scooby's face. Shaggy retrieves it and gives it to Velma:
  Velma: How did you find them?
  Shaggy: It's a looooong story, Velma!
  Scooby: Roooong rrory!
• It's Like I Always Say: Velma in the episode "Hassle In The Castle," when Scooby takes on a John Wayne persona as he tracks down the castle's phantom.
  Velma: Like I said before...what a ham!
• It Was Here, I Swear!: In the debut episode "What a Night for a Knight", Shaggy and Scooby notice a missing spot on a museum wall. When they gather the others and bring them to the scene, the empty spot had been filled. "It was a minute ago," Shaggy pleads.
• Justice by Other Legal Means: See Disproportionate Retribution above. If a villain isn't technically doing anything wrong, such as Oakley and Bluestone^note who were just looking for treasure without otherwise disturbing anybody or violating a law, it would always be pointed out that they were being arrested for some completely unrelated offenses.^note Both were apparently criminals wanted in several other states
• The Ketchup Test: Fred pulls this off in "What a Night for a Knight", in order to confirm that the 'blood' on the museum floor wasn't blood. It was paint.
• Kidnapping Is Casual: Daphne was, in the early days of the franchise, frequently kidnapped and left Bound and Gagged by the Villain of the Week. While the group always makes "rescue Daphne" a high priority after she is taken, no one ever expresses concern over any serious consequences befalling her, and none of the villains ever seem to use her as a hostage to demand that Mystery Inc. back off if they want Daphne back unharmed. And Daphne, when rescued by whichever members find her, never seems more upset than occasionally complaining about the villains messing her hair or scuffing her outfit.
• Killer Gorilla: In "Never Ape an Ape Man", the Monster of the Week, while called an "Ape Man", appears in the form of an aggressive gorilla.
• Knew It All Along: In "Never Ape an Ape Man", Shaggy gets "grabbed" by a stuffed ape, and during his scuffle with it, unknowingly breaks it. When Velma tells him it's not real, he answers, "Well, I hope you don't think he had me fooled for a minute. I knew it all the time."
• Ladder of Mishap: In one episode, Shaggy attempts to climb a ladder, which turns out to be made of rubber and thus slides down the wall when he tries to use it.
• Lampshade Hanging: By the second season, Shaggy and Scooby were well-aware that whenever Fred split up the gang to search for clues, Scooby and Shaggy were going to be looking together.
• Larynx Dissonance: There have been a couple of male villains disguised as females pulling this off...
  • The gypsy fortuneteller in "A Gaggle of Galloping Ghosts" is revealed to be a man named Big Bob Oakley. The Cast as a Mask trope was used here, with June Foray providing the fake female voice, while John Stephenson did Big Bob's real voice.
  • The witch in "Which Witch is Which?" was invokedvoiced by Don Messick, and thus is justified in that the witch was really a man named Zeb in disguise.
• Latex Perfection: A number of the villains used masks like these to disguise as the various ghosts and monsters. A couple of other interesting variations are seen as well...
  • In "Never Ape an Ape Man," the title villain dons a rubber Scooby-Doo mask to perform a Mirror Routine with the real Scooby. Then later, Shaggy apparently finds the Scooby mask and wears it at the end, while Scooby finds an extra Ape Man mask.
  • A creepy old man appearing in "A Tiki Scare is No Fair" that is suspected as the villain turns out to be an undercover police officer in a rubber mask.
  • The second season intro concludes with Scooby fooling with a ghoulish latex mask while in a sewer hole.
• Laugh Track: The original network versions on CBS (and later ABC) used an artificial laugh track, as with many other H-B properties at the time. However, when the episodes entered syndication in 1980 (through the Program Exchange), the laugh track was removed, and with the exception of the first two episodes, would not reappear until 1997, when the episodes were remastered for airing on Cartoon Network after the Turner/Time Warner merger the previous year. All home video releases since have used the original network mixes.
• Leitmotif: There is a central theme in the musical underscore by Ted Nichols, mixed across a Theme-and-Variations Soundtrack, with a riff that has the same number of notes as the syllable count of "Scooby-Dooby-Doo, where are you?"
• Let's Split Up, Gang!: The gang would split up to look for clues Once per Episode, making it the Trope Namer.
• Lighter and Softer: Not by much, but season 2 introduced the peppy songs during chase scenes (Later referred to in APNSC as "the chase music".)
• Like Brother and Sister: Shaggy and Velma were originally meant to be siblings. They still give off this vibe occasionally:
  • In "The Backstage Rage", Velma clings to Shaggy when she's scared.
  • In "A Night of Fright Is No Delight", Velma holds Shaggy's hand while they look for clues in the caves under the mansion.
  • In "A Gaggle of Galloping Ghosts", Shaggy has Velma's spare glasses.
  • In "What a Night for a Knight", Velma carries Shaggy's cough medicine.
• Limited Animation: Naturally, since it is after all a Hanna-Barbera cartoon.
• Little Girls Kick Shins: Velma does it to the Creeper in retaliation for taking away her glasses (this after she asked "You wouldn't hurt someone with glasses, would you?").
• Look Behind You: The episode "Don't Fool With A Phantom" has Shaggy pulling this when Fred details his plans to catch the wax phantom using Shaggy and Scooby as bait:
  Shaggy: Fred, like the plan is faaaaaan-tastic, except...
  Fred: Except what?
  Shaggy: Like, we won't do it. Right, Scoob?
  Scooby: Right!
  Fred: Have you got a better idea?
  Shaggy: Sure. Like, look out there (he points ahead) and tell me what you see.
  Daphne: The wax works. (Shaggy and Scooby dart away as the others turn towards the direction Shaggy pointed) They've disappeared!
  Velma: Of all the nerve!
  Fred: I have to laugh at myself. Those two chickens fooled us!
• Lost My Appetite:
  • Shaggy, of all people, in "Jeepers, It's the Creeper!".
    Old Man: I'm the hermit of the hills, and you're just in time to join me for dinner! (Laughs)
    Shaggy (laughs): I just lost my appetite.
  • Shaggy and Scooby both suddenly became not hungry when Redbeard ("Go Away Ghost Ship") tells them to eat the "ghost pirate stew" they made.
• Luck-Based Search Technique:
  • There's a reason this trope was originally named "Shaggy Search Technique." It showed up as early as the second episode, "A Clue for Scooby-Doo":
    Daphne: Look! A secret passage!
    Fred: You're right! Shaggy, you're a genius!
    Shaggy: I am?
    Velma: Sure. Who else but you could've sat down on the rock that opened the secret passage?
    Shaggy: I thought that rock was pretty suspicious.
  • In "Nowhere to Hyde," Shaggy forages for food in a fruit bowl and finds a set of suction cups. This proves to be the only actual clue in the episode, as the others were planted by the real villain.
  • The other members of the gang occasionally used this trope, too. In one episode, Fred, Daphne, and Velma try looking for a secret passage on a showboat. Fred suggests pulling on a lantern, saying that it usually works that way on television. When he does, he sets off a minor Rube Goldberg Machine chain reaction with a bar of soap that triggers the actual passage entrance. When Fred remarks that he's never seen that on television, Velma can't help but quip "It must have happened in a soap opera."
• Lumber Mill Mayhem: In the episode "That's Snow Ghost", the titular ghost tries to kill Velma by tying her to a log and placing her on the sawmill conveyor belt with the buzzsaw at the end about to cut her in half, but Scooby saves her in time.
• Magic Skirt: In "Haunted House Hang-up," Scooby, Shaggy and Velma fall feet first into a well and Velma's skirt never goes up.
• Menacing Museum: The series premiere revolves around Mystery Inc. investigating the Black Knight in an ominous museum. Said knight turns out to be an art thief, stealing paintings from the museum and replacing them with freshly made duplicates.
• Mickey Mousing:
  • Rare, since most of the background music is simply tracked in and edited accordingly for later episodes, but the very first chase sequence with the Black Knight in "What a Night for a Knight" was scored specifically for this episode in particular, and matches one-to-one with the action, complete with a riff on the U.S. Air Force Theme when Shaggy and Scooby fly the biplane.
  • In the scene where the gang bribes Scooby in "Mine Your Own Business" to board a secret elevator, and when Scooby-Doo briefly acts like a chicken (when accused of being chicken), "Chicken Reel" briefly plays. When the music would be used in later episode, the "Chicken Reel" riff would mostly be out of place with the accompanying scene. In the same episode, Shaggy and Scooby pretending to be a train to scare the Miner '49er is underscored with "I've Been Working On The Railroad" a couple of times.
• Mirror Routine: Done a few times with the Monster of the Week and one of the main gang members, usually either Shaggy or Scooby. The titular villain in "Never Ape an Ape Man" even went as far as combining it with Latex Perfection.
• Monster Mash: "Gaggle of Galloping Ghosts" has the gang dealing with Dracula, Frankenstein's Monster, and a Wolf Man. All three of which turned out to be the same Villain of the Week.
• Morton's Fork
  • In "Which Witch is Which?" Shaggy suggests he and Scooby have a coin-toss to decide who checks on a shadowy figure outside; "Heads I win, tails you lose." Scooby falls for it and agrees (well, he is a dog).
  • The gang comes to a fork in the road in "Haunted House Hang-Up" and no consensus on which way to go. Shaggy suggests flipping a slice of bologna. To tell which side is which, the mustard side is heads. When he flips it, Scooby eats it.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: In the first season, they gang come upon two lawyers, Cosgrove Creeps and Cuthbert Crawls. They end up being the Phantom Shadows, trying to obtain the fortune left behind by their deceased client by scaring away the heirs (including Scooby). Shaggy even lampshades the coincidence of them being the lawyers tasked with overseeing their client's will in a haunted house.
• Never Say "Die": A Deadly Euphemism is much more common, but "A Tiki Scare is No Fair" doesn't even bother with that:
  Shaggy: Oh! My feet are killing me!
  Velma: It's a good thing we escaped the witch doctor, or that wasn't all that would be getting killed.
• Never Smile at a Crocodile
  • A crocodile unsuccessfully tries to eat Scooby and Shaggy as they swing over the castle moat in "Gaggle of Galloping Ghosts".
  • In "Which Witch is Which?", the gang come across a "Enter at your own risk" sign accompanied by a hissing crocodile.
    Scooby: "Risk?" Roh, boy.
  • In "Nowhere To Hyde", Scooby and Shaggy have a run-in with an alligator while trying to get away from the ghost of Mr. Hyde.
• No Antagonist: Charlie the robot in "Foul Play in Funland", who isn't evil at all, his circuits just went haywire. If anything, the "antagonist" is the sister of Charlie's creator; she deliberately messed with the circuitry because she felt a robot would scare the children who came to the park.
• Nobody Here but Us Statues: In an episode, Scooby, Velma, and Shaggy are being chased by an evil mummy in a museum. Scooby hides in a large jar, while Shaggy and Velma hop onto a platform and pretend to be a display of Marc Antony (wearing a centurion helmet and carrying a sword) and Cleopatra (with a purple cloak and feather in the hair). It momentarily works, but then the mummy smashes the jar to reveal Scooby inside, and then Velma's feather makes her sneeze. This became a common trope in the Scooby-Doo franchise as a whole from then on, repeating in multiple series and films.
• No Hugging, No Kissing: The show is about a group of friends travelling together. Despite it featuring two boys and two girls, there's no Ship Tease anywhere. Future Scooby-Doo installments stray from this precisely because of Urban Legends of something between Fred and Daphne in the 1969 series.
• Noisy Nature: The bats that flutter across the screen at the start of the opening credits all chitter their little heads off. Disturbed bats generally book it without emitting cries that humans can hear, as they're too busy echolocating so they don't run into one another.
• No Name Given:
  • Several of the monsters, such as the Hawaiian Witch Doctor or Zen-Tuo's undead servants, are not given names within the episode, save for maybe a nickname from one of the gang (e.g. Shaggy refers to the undead servants as "The Scare Pair").
  • Unlike the other villains in the series, the man in the werewolf costume from "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Werewolf?" is not given a name.
• No "Police" Option: In the episode with the Wax Phantom, the gang initially suggests calling the cops, but the station manager explains that the radio station is already in trouble due to an earlier publicity stunt, so involving the cops now might get them shut down.
• No-Sell: On two occasions, Velma was completely nonplussed by the Monster of the Week and their scare tactics.
  • In "Scooby-Doo and a Mummy, Too," the titular mummy advances on Shaggy, Scooby, and Velma, coming within inches of grabbing them. Velma's response? "Shoo! Go away!"
  • "A Gaggle of Galloping Ghosts" sees a vampire offering ominous threats to the gang, telling them to leave his castle or "never again see the light of day." An unimpressed Velma: "You stop that."
• Not Now, We're Too Busy Crying Over You:
  • In the episode "Scooby-Doo and a Mummy, Too", Shaggy did this over a stone statue of Scooby: "He was like a brother to me! (the real Scooby approaches him) Look, Scoob, you've been turned to stone!"
  • In the Scooby-Doo Show episode "The Tar Monster," we get a repeat performance: "I'll never forget you, old buddy, old pal. (The real Scooby approaches. Casually:) Oh hi, Scoob. Oh, he was like a brother to me!"
• Ominous Fog: Becomes a plot point in "Go Away Ghost Ship".
• One-Word Vocabulary: The Creeper only says "Paper!" over and over, as he wants the paper given to the gang by the bank guard as it reveals his true identity.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Fans didn't learn that Shaggy's first name was Norville until years later (he has a younger named Maggie in later series, but her nickname is "Sugie").
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Nicole Jaffe is Canadian, and in "A Tiki Scare is No Fair", she clearly says, "Soorry" in her Canadian accent.
• Ostrich Head Hiding: "Daydreamin'", the chase song for "Jeepers, it's the Creeper!", is about a man in love with an ostrich, and thus it involves ignoring everyone else's opinions by putting your head in the sand.
• Our Ghosts Are Different: For starters, they're all just people in costumes, but that's not to say the villains didn't get creative. Examples range from a floating white sheet to glowing blue alien with a skull head, and even a "ghost" who could actually walk through walls (by using a mirror-projected image of himself).
• Painted Tunnel, Real Train: During the chase sequence in "Don't Fool With a Phantom", Shaggy and Scooby paint a fake door on the wall before fleeing the room in another direction. When the Wax Phantom catches up to where they had been he opens the fake door...and promptly crashes into (and through) the very real brick wall behind it.
• Palate Propping: Used by Scooby to hinder a snarling bulldog in "What The Hex Is Going On". When the other dog objects to Scooby's intention to eat a large bone, Scooby stuffs it upright into his rival's mouth. It shatters the bone by sheer jaw strength, but not quickly enough to catch Scooby.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Plenty! Some examples include:
  • Shaggy and Scooby disguise themselves as the titular villain in "Which Witch is Which?" using nothing but a purple sheet and a mop, with Shaggy passing off the "What Are Little Boys/Girls Made Of" nursery rhyme as a witch spell. It works.
  • "Scooby-Doo and a Mummy, Too" combines this with Nobody Here but Us Statues. Shaggy and Velma disguise themselves as a museum display of Marc Antony and Cleopatra, respectively: Shaggy wears a centurion's helmet, and Velma puts on a green sheet and wears a feather in her hair. (36 years later, Velma would actually dress up as Cleopatra in the movie Scooby Doo in Where's My Mummy? as part of the "Scooby-Doo" Hoax she helps stage to ward off treasure plunderers from the Egyptian site she's helping to renovate.)
  • The best example—in terms of sheer ludicrousness—might be "Mystery Mask Mix-Up." Scooby and Shaggy are pursued by two ghostly figures, and run into a small room. About two seconds later, the figures open the door...and discover Shaggy and Scooby dressed as Chinese restaurant waiters. They quickly seat the ghosts at a table and proceed to serve them "chocolate chop suey with spare ribs a la mode." The amazing thing is that this disguise works, despite the fact that the ghosts saw Scooby and Shaggy enter the room.
• Pet-sonal Security: In "Never Ape an Ape Man" Scooby actually runs onto a bridge when the titular Ape Man is trying to topple the actress on the bridge, using his body to steady it, and actually delivering some jabs and kicks to the Ape Man.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Velma. She's the shortest but can lift all the other members of the group at once and was able to subdue a few villains, such as the Creeper.
• Platonic Declaration of Love:
  • In the episode "Decoy for a Dognapper", the perp, Buck Masters, tells the kids that "I wish you'd have minded your own business". Fred replies, "Catching dognappers is our business, Mr. Masters. After all, Scooby-Doo is a dog, and we love him very much."
  • In an extra (viewable on Scooby-Doo's Greatest Mysteries), the gang are finishing a series of interviews about various aspects of their lives and have just finished having a good laugh at Scooby scaring Shaggy with a monster mask. Fred says that he loves his teammates. Velma responds by telling him to knock it off.
• Playing Sick: A Running Gag is Scooby faking sickness or injury to get out of doing something scary. It's even in the theme song, in which the lyrics involve Scooby pretending he's got a sliver.
• Powder Gag: In "Mine Your Own Business", the mine suffers a Floorboard Failure, causing Fred to get dumped into flour sacks. When the gang finds him, his appearance gives a good scare to Shaggy and Scooby.
• Quaking with Fear: Shaggy and Scooby tremble like gelatine whenever they see a monster or ghost, even if it turns out to be a criminal in disguise. It's so prominent the theme song of the show notes that we can see how Scooby shakes and shivers.
• Railroad Tracks of Doom:
  • Seen in "Decoy for a Dognapper," when Shaggy and Scooby are sent on an old handcar down the tracks, and have to outrun an approaching speeding train once they reach a trestle. Fortunately, Fred comes to the rescue by throwing a switch track.
  • In "Foul Play in Funland," as Velma is blindly driving an out-of-control bumper car through the amusement park with Scooby (as she lost her glasses of course), they approach a railroad crossing with its wigwag signal ringing. Velma says she can't stop, and "the train will just have to look out for itself." Fortunately, Velma and Scooby manage to make it across the tracks in time, but Charlie the Robot is struck by the speeding amusement park train, but safely lands in one of the passenger car seats.
• Rapid-Fire Nail Biting: Spoofed in "Nowhere To Hyde", where Shaggy does this after Velma calls him out for being scared, but he's actually biting Scooby's nails.
• Rearrange the Song: Season 2 uses a new recording of the Larry Marks theme sung by Austin Roberts, who also performed the chase songs.
• Recycled Animation:
  • The show has frequently reused animation due to low TV animation budgets (typical of Hanna-Barbera), such as the gang's walk and run cycles, certain poses of the characters used when talking, etc.
  • Mr. Grisby from "Don't Fool with a Phantom" has the same character model as the ghost of Elias Kingston from "What the Hex is Going On?", only with white hair and a brown jacket instead of black hair with a blue jacket.
• Recycled Soundtrack: A great deal of the music underscore that does not correlate to the main Scooby leitmotifs was not actually freshly composed by Ted Nichols, reused instead from previous season Hanna-Barbera shows like The New Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Gulliver. This is especially prevalent in "Hassle in the Castle", which features very little of the newly composed themes.
• Remaster: Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! was the first classic Hanna-Barbera series to be restored in high-definition from the original negatives by Warner Bros. in 2004. As such, it was the only H-B show to be presented this way when Warner Home Video began releasing classic Hanna-Barbera shows on DVD that year (as the others used the 1990s Turner masters). While the remaster is largely identical to how the show originally aired on CBS (complete with Laugh Track and the original H-B closing logos), the early instrumental Ted Nichols theme song was removed from the early episodes in favor of the more familiar vocal theme, akin to how the show was often rerun since (save the USA Network's Cartoon Express block and earlier Cartoon Network airings in the early-to-mid 1990s, where the instrumental theme was intact on said early episodes). In addition to DVD and Blu-ray releases, this is also how the show is presented on streaming platforms and on MeTV Toons reruns (the first American network to air the restored version of the series, no less!).
• Removable Shell: "Scooby's Night With a Frozen Fright" features Galapagos tortoises whose top parts of their shells can come off for Scooby and Shaggy to hide under.
• Repeating So the Audience Can Hear: The gang would sometimes do this when it was a little too hard to make out what Scooby had just said.
• Replaced the Theme Tune: Ted Nichols' original instrumental theme for the series is utilized in the original 1969 broadcasts of "What a Night for a Knight" and "A Clue for Scooby-Doo", then quickly replaced by the more-familiar lyrical song in "Hassle in the Castle". Current syndicated and DVD-released versions of the episodes use the lyrical theme.
• Rhyming Title: Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!
• Rise from Your Grave: The zombie from "Which Witch is Which?" is brought 'back to life' by the eponymous witch.
• Room Disservice: The gang poses as room service to get into Mr. Magnus' penthouse in "Go Away Ghost Ship."
• Running Gag:
  • Scooby being bribed to do something with the offer of one (or often more) Scooby Snacks, usually after a scene in which Scooby feigns illness in order to avoid going into harm's way.
  • Established a number of gags that continue throughout the franchise, including Scooby and Shaggy's apparent cowardice, and Fred's traps that either malfunction or are triggered prematurely by Scooby and/or Shaggy.
• Rump Roast: In "Mystery Mask Mix-Up", Scooby and Shaggy are captured and tied up back-to-back by Zen Tuo and left to die in a storeroom filled with fireworks. When Scooby and Shaggy put out the fuse with their butts, they end up getting burned, and while hopping around the temple in pain during their escape, they unwittingly land on the arms of a statue that is actually the door to the secret room where the ghosts had Daphne, Fred and Velma locked in (the latter two trying to rescue the former, who was kidnapped by the ghosts so they could retrieve Zen Tuo's mask). After Shaggy and Scooby land on the statue's arms, they open the door, freeing their friends.
  Shaggy: Don't you know it's illegal to shoot off fireworks and wreck a storeroom!?
  Zen Tuo: We will build a new storeroom! (locks the tied up Shaggy and Scooby in)
  Shaggy: Like, who's going to build a new us?!
• Scooby-Dooby Doors: Trope Namer. Though used before Scooby-Doo, this series could've made it famous (and it wouldn't actually use this trope until the second season). It first appeared in "Nowhere to Hyde" although an early variant (without the chase aspect) appears in one of the first episodes, "Mine Your Own Business."
• "Scooby-Doo" Hoax: Once again, the Trope Namer. The frightening, seemingly supernatural mysteries they investigate turn out to be elaborate fabrications by the criminals they expose.
• Scooby Stack: In the episode "Haunted House Hang-Up", the protagonists line up behind an open door with each one's head above the other.
• Security Cling: Scooby often jumps into Shaggy's arms. Shaggy jumps into Velma's once. Velma also clings to Shaggy during a chase scene in "Mystery Mask Mix-up". And Daphne has jumped into Fred's arms in "Don't Fool With a Phantom" (the last series episode).
• '70s Hair: The characters were designed in 1969, but close enough. Fred's hair, in particular, conforms to the style of the early 70s.
• Shout-Out: Check it out here.
• Shut Up, Scary Thing!: In a scene from the episode "A Gaggle of Galloping Ghosts", Velma does this to a vampire (though he turns out to just be an actor).
  Vampire: Halt! You are not welcome in the castle! Go now, or abandon all hope of seeing the sun again!
  Velma: You stop that!
• Sickly Green Glow: Captain Cutler's "ghost" appears in a glowing green deep-sea diving suit and sets one of the fundamental colour motifs for the monsters to follow.
• Skull for a Head: The Space Kook.
• Smoke Out:
  • In the episode "Which Witch is Which?", the title witch appears and disappears in a cloud of smoke, and causes Daphne to disappear in the same way.
  • Velma causes herself to disappear in a cloud of smoke in "Scooby Doo and a Mummy Too".
    Velma: Pardon me; it's time for a smoke-screen exit.
  • In the episode "A Tiki Scare Is No Fair", the witch doctor appears and disappears in a cloud of smoke.
• The So-Called Coward:
  • Scooby might be a Cowardly Lion but he is still a fully grown Great Dane (just look how big they can get!◊) and can be quite intimidating if angry. So when he musters up his courage in "Never Ape an Ape Man", the Ape Man quickly backpedals with confronted with a snarling, barking 200 pound hound.
  • Similarly, the Puppet Master in "The Backstage Rage" ends up fleeing in panic from an angry Great Dane who is about to rip him to pieces. The gang actually has to rescue the guy from Scooby.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: The connection in season two between the "chase songs" and what was going on onscreen was nonexistent, with the exception of "Tell Me, Tell Me" in "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Werewolf?".
• Spooky Painting: The first of many appears in "Hassle in the Castle".
• Spooky Séance: The gypsy fortune teller provides one to the gang in "A Gaggle of Galloping Ghosts". Needless to say, it does nothing to deter their curiosity.
• Standard Snippet: "Mine Your Own Business" makes use of "Oh My Darling, Clementine" for its western mining town setting, and also introduces a cue with a riff of "Chicken Reel" that plays as Scooby imitates a chicken. This cue is often reused during the Scooby Snack "bribery" scenes to represent Shaggy and Scooby's cowardice.
• Starter Villain: The Black Knight, a suit of Animated Armor who kidnapped a historian, and was actually museum curator Mr. Wickles seeking to cover up his forgery scheme.
• Stop Drowning and Stand Up:
  • In "Haunted House Hang-Up", a chase ends with Shaggy, Scooby, and Velma falling into a well, leading to the following exchange:
    Shaggy: Help! Help, I'm drowning! Call the Coast Guard!
    Velma: Stand up. The water's only knee-deep.
  • Also, from "Foul Play in Funland", after the villain has upset their boat:
    Shaggy: Don't worry, I'll save ya!
    Velma: Thanks, Shaggy, but why don't we just walk out?
• The Straight Man: This is the reason why Fred and Daphne often disappear into the background, the writers preferred focusing on more interesting characters.
• Stranger Behind the Mask
  • In the episodes "Spooky Space Kook", "Hassle in the Castle" and "Bedlam in the Big Top", the villain at the end (the guy wearing the costume) was someone the audience had never seen before.
  • It almost happened again in "A Gaggle of Galloping Ghosts," but the villains had been seen before, disguised as a fortune-teller.
  • Subverted in "A Clue For Scooby Doo". When the villain is unmasked, the other characters don't recognize the villain's face...except for Shaggy, who shows that The Dog Was the Mastermind.
  • The episode "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Werewolf?" took this to the extreme—not only was the titular werewolf completely unknown (though he'd been identified as a wool smuggler), he wasn't even named.
• The Summation: Every time the monster is revealed to be fake, the gang explains why the masked man went through all the trouble he did, how he did it and how the gang managed to piece the clues together.
• Super-Persistent Predator: In "That's Snow Ghost", Fu Lan Chi's story involves him getting chased by a Yeti that was really adamant in trying to catch him, to a fatal result. And even then, it apparently came back as a ghost to keep chasing him!
• Surprise Slide Staircase:
  • In the episode "Never Ape An Ape Man", Fred has the rest of the gang run up some stairs while the Ape Man chases them. When the gang reaches the top Fred presses a button, the stairs fold down and the Ape Man slides down them and into a trap.
  • A late-90s Cartoon Network bumper has Shaggy and Scooby falling down one of these, with the flattened staircase revealing CN's checkerboard logo.
• Sweet Seal: Zigzagged in "Scooby's Night With a Frozen Fright". A trio of seals are seen bouncing balls on their noses, and they stand still so Fred, Daphne, and Velma can run across them without problems... but when the pursuing antagonist caveman tries to do the same, the seals start bouncing him around.
• Taken for Granite: The gang learns that the mummy of Anka turns anybody to stone that disturbs his resting place. The mummy (presumably) turns a professor and a doctor and Scooby to stone, but the gang soon learns that they were cast duplicates made of concrete.
• Talking Is a Free Action
  • Shows up very frequently—the whole gang, or one or more members (usually Shaggy and Scooby), would encounter one of the villains and panic/shout/generally babble before actually doing anything...all while the villain in question simply stood there instead of, say, attacking. There's a slight justification in that most of the bad guys were trying to scare off the kids, not harm them, but still, they're remarkably considerate about waiting for them to start running to begin the chase.
  • It's taken to a ridiculous extreme in "Mystery Mask Mix-Up"—and this time, there's no excusing it, as the villains are specifically trying to kidnap Daphne. When the jiangshi pursuing them first show up, Velma tells Scooby to "make like a watchdog." What follows is a two-minute sequence in which Scooby pretends to be a boxer, runs into a Chinese laundromat, talks with the owner, borrows a shirt press, and creates a smokescreen to provide an escape...all while the jiangshi in question stand absolutely still. It's later averted by the monsters themselves, who use the gang's chatting after crashing the Mystery Machine to kidnap Daphne...and then played straight by the Ghost of Zhen Tuo simply watching Shaggy brush off his face with the robe he's wearing.
• "Test Your Strength" Game
  • "Foul Play in Funland": Scooby and Shaggy compete to see who is stronger on a high striker. Scooby is the winner, until the Monster of the Week comes along and hits the high striker so hard he breaks it.
  • The high striker appears again on The New Scooby-Doo Movies, at Dick Van Dyke's carnival. Neither Dick nor Shaggy could ring the bell, but the ghostly strongman did.
• There Should Be a Law: Strangely, very little of what the villains do is actually illegal. This is recognized in one episode, where Velma comments the monster didn't do anything illegal. The exception is when one of them, desperate to cover up their ruse, decides to kidnap Daphne. That is illegal, and then they get busted for it. Even then, however, one or two of the villains who kidnapped Daphne were let off the hook because they didn't really hurt her and Daphne was okay with it.
• There Was a Door:
  • Shaggy and Scooby are trapped in a cabin with the only door locked and the key on the outside (and no manual lock on the inside), so naturally, the two of them HAVE to break out some other way. Shaggy chooses to leap through the window—in order to grab the key, unlock the door, jump back through the window he busted, and open the now-unlocked front door.
  • As Shaggy and Scooby escape a villain (a supposed ghost of a Chinese emperor), this exchange occurs as they board up a door to hide behind:
    Shaggy: Ha! He won't be getting through that door!
    [the entire wall the villain's behind lifts up like a curtain]
    Shaggy: ...And wouldn't you know he comes through the wall?
  • This also happens when the gang thinks they have trapped Charlie the Funland robot, only for him to bust through the back of the crate they caught him in, and then through a wall behind that. This clues the gang in that this time they are not dealing with a mere human in a mask. Fortunately for them, at this point Charlie's creator arrives to lend a hand.
• Tick Tock Terror: The episode "A Night of Fright is No Delight" has two green phantoms emerging from a grandfather clock as it ominously strikes midnight. The clock is in the mansion that Scooby, his pals and four relatives of a deceased Confederate colonel are spending the night (as part of a will stipulation).
• Tightrope Walking: The Ghost Clown makes Scooby Doo walk a tightrope under hypnosis in "Bedlam in the Big Top."
• Title Drop:
  • In one episode where Shaggy is a tied-up prisoner and about to become a Mad Scientist experiment, he yells the title as a yell for help.
  • Daphne was the first to use the title drop in-episode. She says it in "What a Night For a Knight" as Scooby wanders off and finds the eyepiece (a clue as to the whereabouts of Professor Hyde-White).
• Title Theme Tune: In the lyrics: "Scooby-Dooby-Doo, where are you?"
• Tongue-Out Insult: Shaggy and Scooby, serving as live bait, would often stick their tongues out at the ghosts in order to get them to give chase. A particularly memorable occasion was "Hassle in the Castle", when Scoob stuck his tongue out at the Phantom, with a robust "Nyah Nyah!"
• Toon Physics: Applied several times, sometimes characters (usually Shaggy and Scooby) could do things like hang from ceilings by jackhammers or leave things suspended in midair.
• Trip Trap:
  • The gang uses this to capture the faux ghost in Jefferson Stillwall's attic in "Haunted House Hang-Up". Fred and Shaggy get the ghost (who turns out to be Stillwall's greedy neighbor Asha Shanks) to chase him out the front door while Daphne and Velma use a rope to trip him up.
  • The gang tries this in "Hassle in the Castle" to catch the phantom of the episode in one of Fred's traps, but they wind up catching Scooby in it instead.
• Tunnel of Love: The gang goes through a carnival's Tunnel of Love in the episode "Foul Play in Funland" looking for an out-of-control robot, only for the robot to swim up and ram their boat.
• Uncanny Family Resemblance: Seen in "Haunted House Hang-Up," where the gang is investigating said house, supposedly haunted by the headless Ghost of Jefferson Stillwall. Later, he's revealed to be Jefferson's grandson Penrod, whom looks very much like Jefferson, albeit with less hair on top of his head, but still with practically the same face. Most notable is that Penrod was scaring people away because he was afraid someone would steal his grandfather's treasure, which the actual villain of this episode later attempts to do (while cheaply disguised as a Bedsheet Ghost).
• Unconventional Food Order: Shaggy orders sandwiches for the whole gang at the Malt Shop. Liverwurst a la mode. Two notable things about this; first, the restraunt owner does balk at having to make it, and second, this is the first, and only time we see that the whole gang might be eating this bizarre food combination.
• Video Will: A variant, Colonel Beauregard recorded his will into a record.
• Vile Vulture: The first shot of Gold City has a screeching vulture to signify its creepiness.
• Vocal Dissonance: At times, the Hawaiian Witch Doctor from "A Tiki Scare is No Fair" has a high-pitched voice, and at times, a deeper voice.
• Voodoo Doll: In one episode, the gang search a hutch owned by a witch and find a bunch of voodoo dolls that look like them, made by the witch to scare them away. Scooby decides to see if they actually work by poking a pin into the butt of the Shaggy doll. Shaggy actually yelps in pain and holds his butt, thinking that he's "been voodooed," but it turns out he just backed up into a fork.
• Voodoo Zombie: The zombie from "Which Witch is Which?" has apparently been raised from the dead by a witch using magic.
• Wall Crawl: In "Nowhere to Hyde" the Monster of the Week, the titular Ghost of Mr. Hyde, can do this. The real villain, Doctor Jekyll, was using suction cups, while the gang, at first, suspected his maid, who was an ex-circus star.
• Water Hose Rodeo: The episode "A Clue For Scooby Doo" has the gang on a barge setting a trap for the ghost of Captain Cutler using a fire hose and a container with soap. When it gets turned on, the hose slips out of Fred and Daphne's collective grips, leaving Shaggy riding it like a bucking mustang.
• Wax Museum Morgue: The last episode of the series "Don't Fool With a Phantom" takes place in one, although given that this is Scooby-Doo there are no actual dead bodies.
  Shaggy: But, like, we're already dummies! Right, Scoob?
  Scooby: Du-u-uh, right!
• Well Entry: In "Haunted House Hang-Up", Scooby Doo, Velma, and Shaggy fall down a well. Shaggy accidentally pushes open a secret door in the well's wall, revealing an underground passage. When they follow the passage, they eventually meet up with Fred and Daphne again.
• Went to the Great X in the Sky: Shaggy uses the line "great big boneyard in the sky" in "Scooby-Doo and a Mummy, Too" after seeing Scooby-Doo apparently turned to stone by the Villain of the Week. It turns out to be quick-mix cement.
• Wheel o' Feet: In the episode Mystery Mask Mix-Up, Shaggy even rides Scooby-Doo like he's a motorbike.
• Who Is Driving?: Velma loses her glasses as she and Scooby take off in an out-of-control bumper car in "Foul Play in Funland." Later in the episode, Velma is driving the jeep as the gang and Mr. Jenkins are in searching for his runaway robot. And where is Scooby sitting? Shotgun!
• Worthless Treasure Twist: In the episode "A Night of Fright Is No Delight" (January 10, 1970), the money Scooby inherits turns out to be Confederate currency. When the chest containing the money is opened, the characters' reactions are those of disappointment.
• Witch Doctor: Two prominent examples as both are featured in the theme songs of their respective seasons. Firstly, the Navajo inspired witch doctor from "Decoy for a Dognapper" and the Hawaiian inspired one from "A Tiki Scare is No Fair" with the latter being a more iconic example.
• Wolf Man: In the episode "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Werewolf?", and he is a ghost to boot. One, supposedly living, also makes an appearance in "A Gaggle of Galloping Ghosts".
• Would Hurt a Child: Over all the range of villainy across the series is wide, while some are pretty low key and just out to scare people off, there are certain ones that are willing to completely do away with the meddling kids if need be.
• Yellow Eyes of Sneakiness: A lot of the monsters in the show have yellow eyes (The witch, the zombie, the Phantom Puppeteer, the Creeeper, the Ghost Clown, etc.)
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!:
  • Scooby expresses this to Fred in both "Hassle in the Castle".
    Fred: Okay, Scooby. Go in and take a look around. We'll keep watch out here.
    Scooby: You're kidding.
    Fred: No, I'm not kidding.
  • Happens again in "Don't Fool With a Phantom".
    Fred: (after chipping Scooby out of wax he accidentally encased him in) Okay, Scoob?
    Scooby: You gotta be kidding!
• You Just Had to Say It: Of the "original speaker" variant, in "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Werewolf?" Shaggy comments, "I wish I knew how Mr. Hairy fits into all this." When Fred answers that they'll figure it out, Shaggy groans, "Oh, why don't I just keep quiet?"
• You Meddling Kids: And they would've gotten away with it, too. However, only one episode actually used the "meddling kids" phrase, "Scooby's Night with a Frozen Fright." (A few others said some kind of variation of it; Big Bob Oakley in "A Gaggle of Galloping Ghosts" calls them "blasted kids.") But later uses and parodies eventually made it a main part of the franchise. Averted with Bluestone the Great, who is actually enough of a good sport to give one final performance before he's taken away by the police.
• You Wouldn't Hit a Guy with Glasses: Velma tries this on the Creeper. He does bother to respond by removing her glasses before rearing back to punch her — then Velma kicks him in the shin for taking her glasses to do it.

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