Scrappy-Doo
Encyclopedia
Scrappy Cornelius Doo is a fictional Great Dane puppy
Dog
The domestic dog is a domesticated form of the gray wolf, a member of the Canidae family of the order Carnivora. The term is used for both feral and pet varieties. The dog may have been the first animal to be domesticated, and has been the most widely kept working, hunting, and companion animal in...

 created by Hanna-Barbera Productions in 1979 as the nephew of Hanna-Barbera cartoon star Scooby-Doo
Scooby-Doo (character)
Scoobert "Scooby" Doo is the eponymous character and the protagonist in the Scooby-Doo animated television series created by the popular American animation company Hanna-Barbera...

. Scrappy has appeared in a number of the various incarnations of the Scooby-Doo
Scooby-Doo
Scooby-Doo is an American media franchise based around several animated television series and related works produced from 1969 to the present day. The original series, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, was created for Hanna-Barbera Productions by writers Joe Ruby and Ken Spears in 1969...

cartoon series. Lennie Weinrib
Lennie Weinrib
Lennie Weinrib was an American actor, voice actor and writer. He is best known for playing the title role in the children's television show H.R...

 provided his voice for one season in 1979 and from 1980 on, it was performed by Don Messick
Don Messick
Donald Earl "Don" Messick was an American voice actor best known for his work for Hanna-Barbera. Perhaps his most well-known voice creations include Scooby-Doo, Papa Smurf, and Dr. Benton Quest....

 (who voiced Scooby). In the first live action theatrical movie he was voiced by Scott Innes
Scott Innes
Scott Innes is an American author, songwriter, voice actor, and radio personality.He became known as the new voice of Scooby-Doo in the Scooby-Doo direct-to-video movies made between 1998 and 2001. From 1999 to 2001, he also voiced Scooby's best friend and owner Norville "Shaggy" Rogers...

. Scrappy initially became a breakout character
Breakout character
A breakout character is a fictional character in different episodes, books or other media that becomes the most popular, talked about, and imitated. Most often a breakout character in a television series captures the audience's imagination and helps to popularize the show, sometimes inadvertently...

 for the series, but later was credited for the show's decline.

Character biography

Scrappy has a contradicted origin. Originally as shown in the introduction of the series episodes, Scrappy only met his Uncle Scooby after becoming a young pup. But in the December 1980 episode of Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo
Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo (1980-1983)
The Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo shorts represents the fifth incarnation of the Hanna-Barbera Saturday morning cartoon Scooby-Doo series . A total of 33 half-hour episodes, each of which included three 7-minute shorts, ran for three seasons, from 1980 to 1982 on ABC...

("Scrappy's Birthday") depicts Scrappy-Doo's birth at which both Scooby and Shaggy attend. Born at St. Bernard's Hospital to Scooby-Doo's sister Ruby-Doo on December 20, 1979. Scrappy idolizes his uncle Scooby and would often assist Scooby and his friends in solving mysteries (Scrappy saves Scooby several times from monsters when they were looking for the rest of the gang shown). With a highly energetic and brave personality, despite his small size, Scrappy was the exact opposite of his uncle; Scrappy would usually insist on trying to directly fight the various monsters Scooby and his associates encountered and generally have to be dragged away by Scooby. Related to this, one of Scrappy's catchphrases was, "Lemme at 'em! I'll splat 'em!" Another of Scrappy-Doo's catchphrases is, "Ta dadada ta daaa! (imitating a bugle
Bugle (instrument)
The bugle is one of the simplest brass instruments, having no valves or other pitch-altering devices. All pitch control is done by varying the player's embouchure, since the bugle has no other mechanism for controlling pitch. Consequently, the bugle is limited to notes within the harmonic series...

 playing "Charge!") Puppy power!", he is also quite strong, capable of smashing down solid rock walls. The character was developed by writer Mark Evanier
Mark Evanier
Mark Stephen Evanier is an American comic book and television writer, particularly known for his humor work. He is also known for his columns and blogs, and for his work as a historian and biographer of the comics industry, in particular his award-winning Jack Kirby biography, Kirby: King of...

, who has acknowledged basing his personality largely on that of the Looney Tunes
Looney Tunes
Looney Tunes is a Warner Bros. animated cartoon series. It preceded the Merrie Melodies series and was Warner Bros.'s first animated theatrical series. Since its first official release, 1930's Sinkin' in the Bathtub, the series has become a worldwide media franchise, spawning several television...

character Henery Hawk
Henery Hawk
Henery Hawk is a cartoon character from the American Looney Tunes series, who appeared in twelve cartoons. His first appearance was The Squawkin' Hawk, directed by Chuck Jones and produced by Leon Schlesinger. Henery's next appearance was Walky Talky Hawky which also featured Foghorn Leghorn and...

.

In Scooby-Doo Meets the Boo Brothers
Scooby-Doo Meets the Boo Brothers
Scooby-Doo Meets the Boo Brothers is an animated television movie produced by Hanna-Barbera for the Superstars 10 series. It was aired in August 1987.-Plot:...

, Scooby-Doo and the Ghoul School
Scooby-Doo and the Ghoul School
Scooby-Doo and the Ghoul School is a 1988 TV-movie produced for syndication by Hanna-Barbera as part of the Superstars 10 film package.-Plot:...

and Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf
Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf
Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf is a 1988 animated movie for television produced by Hanna-Barbera. It was the last to air as part of the Superstars 10 series...

, Scrappy is more toned down, as he is less feisty and a little more cowardly, but still much braver than Scooby and Shaggy. In all three movies he sometimes serves as the brains of the trio, figuring out the clues and where to go next. Also, the idea of Scrappy actually may not have been all that new to the series, as he "...bore a resemblance to Spears’ and Ruby’s initial idea for a feisty little dog", which was one of the early ideas for the Scooby Doo character himself along with the "big cowardly dog" ultimately chosen.

Voices

  • Lennie Weinrib
    Lennie Weinrib
    Lennie Weinrib was an American actor, voice actor and writer. He is best known for playing the title role in the children's television show H.R...

     (1979–1980)
  • Don Messick
    Don Messick
    Donald Earl "Don" Messick was an American voice actor best known for his work for Hanna-Barbera. Perhaps his most well-known voice creations include Scooby-Doo, Papa Smurf, and Dr. Benton Quest....

     (1980–1988)
  • Scott Innes
    Scott Innes
    Scott Innes is an American author, songwriter, voice actor, and radio personality.He became known as the new voice of Scooby-Doo in the Scooby-Doo direct-to-video movies made between 1998 and 2001. From 1999 to 2001, he also voiced Scooby's best friend and owner Norville "Shaggy" Rogers...

     (Live Action 2002 and other current media)


Others considered for the voice:

Mel Blanc
Mel Blanc
Melvin Jerome "Mel" Blanc was an American voice actor and comedian. Although he began his nearly six-decade-long career performing in radio commercials, Blanc is best remembered for his work with Warner Bros...

was apparently the first choice, according to Evanier. This would have been interesting, considering Scrappy's connection to Henery Hawk, who was voiced by Blanc. Blanc was reportedly interested, but eventually ruled out by Joe Barbera, possibly because of concerns about his price. The second consideration was actor Frank Welker
Frank Welker
Franklin Wendell "Frank" Welker is an American actor who specializes in voice acting and has contributed character voices and other vocal effects to American television and motion pictures.-Acting career:...

, who coined the catchphrase "Puppy Power." He would later change this to "Monkey Muscle" for the similar Donkey Kong Jr. character he would voice for TV's Saturday Supercade
Saturday Supercade
Saturday Supercade is an animated television series produced for Saturday mornings by Ruby-Spears Productions. It ran for two seasons on CBS beginning in 1983...

. The next choice was Messick, who was seen as giving the best audition, but still deemed "the wrong voice". Afterwards, other well known cartoon voices were considered or suggested: Paul Winchell
Paul Winchell
Paul Winchell was an American ventriloquist, voice actor and comedian, whose career flourished in the 1950s and 1960s...

, Howard Morris
Howard Morris
Howard Morris was an American comic actor and director who was best known for his role as Ernest T. Bass on The Andy Griffith Show.- Life and career :...

, Dick Beals
Dick Beals
Richard "Dick" Beals is an American voice actor. He has performed many voices in his career, which spans from the early 1950s into the 21st century...

, and even Marilyn Schreffler
Marilyn Schreffler
Marilyn Schreffler was an American actress, who provided voice-overs for several animated TV programs, mostly for Hanna-Barbera Productions.-Life:Born in Concordia, Kansas, and had an affinity for cartoons since age 6...

. Ultimately, Weinrib was chosen, and after the first season, Messick became the final voice for the rest of the series' run.

History and criticism

Scrappy-Doo was added to the cast of Scooby-Doo to save the show's ratings, which by 1979 had begun to sink to the point of cancellation threats from ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...

. After his addition to the show proved to be a ratings success, Hanna-Barbera restructured the show around Scrappy in 1980. The original format of four teenagers and their dog(s) solving supernatural mysteries for a half-hour was eschewed for simpler, more comedic adventures which involved real supernatural villains (the villains in previous Scooby episodes were almost always regular humans in disguise).

Scrappy remained an integral part of the Scooby-Doo franchise, on both TV and in Scooby-related licensed products and merchandising, through the end of the 1980s. He was also briefly the star of his own seven-minute shorts — the Scrappy and Yabba Doo segments of The Scooby & Scrappy-Doo/Puppy Hour
The Scooby & Scrappy-Doo/Puppy Hour
The Scooby & Scrappy-Doo/Puppy Hour was a 60-minute package show, a Hanna-Barbera/Ruby-Spears co-production in 1982 for ABC Saturday mornings...

. Teamed with his uncle Yabba-Doo and Deputy Dusty, he helped maintain law and order in a small town in the American west. In later years, the presence of Scrappy-Doo has been criticized as having had a negative effect
Jumping the shark
Jumping the shark is an idiom used to describe the moment in the evolution of a television show when it begins a decline in quality that is beyond recovery....

 on the various Scooby-Doo series of the 1980s. However, the gradual decline of Scooby-Doo has been credited to other factors as well, such as changes in format. Scrappy-Doo has become the symbol of an irritatingly overexuberant or cute character added to a series in an attempt to maintain ratings, a phenomenon also known as Cousin Oliver Syndrome. Due to the general perception of the character by audiences, Scrappy-Doo has not appeared in any Scooby-related spinoffs since the made-for-television movie Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf
Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf
Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf is a 1988 animated movie for television produced by Hanna-Barbera. It was the last to air as part of the Superstars 10 series...

in 1988, with three exceptions:
  • The first live-action Scooby-Doo theatrical film
    Scooby-Doo (film)
    Scooby-Doo is a 2002 American comedy film based on the Hanna-Barbera television cartoon series Scooby-Doo about a group of young detectives and their talking dog. It is the first installment in the Scooby-Doo live action film series...

     — where Scrappy played a decidedly negative and darker role as the main antagonist, wanting revenge on Mystery Inc., for abandoning him years ago (he was kicked out for continuously urinating on Daphne, being obnoxious, and the final straw was when he tried to vote himself as the leader of Mystery Inc.). When Velma is talking to a guy at the bar who likes her, she tells him that Scrappy was not a puppy, but had a glandular disorder. Although he nearly succeeds in performing the 'Darkopolypse Ritual', which would give a group of demons the power to rule Earth for the next ten thousand years, his plan is foiled and he and his minions are arrested because he underestimated the Mystery Inc. team, inviting them all to the theme park where he was conducting the ritual after they broke up years before simply to make them witness his triumph when he only needed Scooby present, intending to use Scooby's 'pure' soul to complete his ritual. At the conclusion of the film, Velma says that Scrappy's full name is Scrappy Cornelius Doo.

  • Scooby-Doo and the Goblin King
    Scooby-Doo and the Goblin King
    Scooby-Doo! and the Goblin King is the twelfth in the series of Scooby-Doo direct-to-video films produced by Warner Bros. Animation . This movie, along with the next film Samurai Sword were both produced and completed in 2008, but Goblin King was released first in time for the Halloween season...

    (2008) has a scene, clearly meant to be an ironic reference to the eventual unpopularity of the character, where a monstrous Mystery Machine crashes through a carnival stand containing dolls of Scrappy, and running over them. Like all the previous direct-to-video movies, Scrappy never made an appearance.

  • Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated (2010), in the episode "The Siren's Song", Fred and Daphne come across a statue of Scrappy in the Crystal Cove Haunted Museum among the statues of their defeated foes. Daphne remarks it's been a while since she's seen him before Fred pulls her away, reminding her they all promised never to speak of him again, again an ironic reference to his unpopularity. Also appearing is a statue of Flim Flam.


He is also the "trope namer" on TV Tropes
TV Tropes
TV Tropes is a wiki which collects and expands on various conventions and devices found within creative works. Since its establishment in 2004, the site has gone from covering only television and film tropes to also covering those in a number of other media such as literature, comics, video-games,...

 for the page "The Scrappy", a page dedicated to unpopular characters, be they considered annoying or otherwise.

Series

  • Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo (half-hour version)
    Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo (1979-1980)
    The original thirty-minute version of Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo constitutes the fourth incarnation of the Hanna-Barbera Saturday morning cartoon Scooby-Doo. It premiered on September 22, 1979 and ran for one season on ABC as a half-hour program. A total of sixteen episodes were produced. It was...

     (1979–1980)
  • Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo (seven-minute version)
    Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo (1980-1983)
    The Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo shorts represents the fifth incarnation of the Hanna-Barbera Saturday morning cartoon Scooby-Doo series . A total of 33 half-hour episodes, each of which included three 7-minute shorts, ran for three seasons, from 1980 to 1982 on ABC...

     (1980–1983)
  • Scrappy and Yabba-Doo
    The Scooby & Scrappy-Doo/Puppy Hour
    The Scooby & Scrappy-Doo/Puppy Hour was a 60-minute package show, a Hanna-Barbera/Ruby-Spears co-production in 1982 for ABC Saturday mornings...

     (1982)
  • The All-New Scooby and Scrappy-Doo Show
    The All-New Scooby and Scrappy-Doo Show
    The New Scooby and Scrappy-Doo Show is the sixth incarnation of the Hanna-Barbera Saturday morning cartoon Scooby-Doo. It premiered on September 10, 1983 and ran for one season on ABC as a half-hour program made up of two eleven-minute short cartoons. In 1984, the name of the show was changed to...

    (1983–1984)
  • The New Scooby-Doo Mysteries (1984–1985)
  • The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo
    The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo
    The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo is the seventh incarnation of the Hanna-Barbera Saturday morning cartoon Scooby-Doo, and the final first-run version of the original 1969-86 broadcast run of the series. It premiered on and ran for one season on ABC as a half-hour program. Thirteen episodes of the show...

    (1985)
  • Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated (2010) (cameo)

Telefilms

  • Scooby-Doo Meets the Boo Brothers
    Scooby-Doo Meets the Boo Brothers
    Scooby-Doo Meets the Boo Brothers is an animated television movie produced by Hanna-Barbera for the Superstars 10 series. It was aired in August 1987.-Plot:...

    (1987)
  • Scooby-Doo and the Ghoul School
    Scooby-Doo and the Ghoul School
    Scooby-Doo and the Ghoul School is a 1988 TV-movie produced for syndication by Hanna-Barbera as part of the Superstars 10 film package.-Plot:...

    (1988)
  • Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf
    Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf
    Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf is a 1988 animated movie for television produced by Hanna-Barbera. It was the last to air as part of the Superstars 10 series...

    (1988)

Appearances in other media

Scrappy-Doo appeared in a few Cartoon Network
Cartoon Network (United States)
Cartoon Network is an American cable television network owned by Turner Broadcasting which primarily airs animated programming. The channel was launched on October 1, 1992 after Turner purchased the animation studio Hanna-Barbera Productions in 1991...

commercial bumpers, reflecting on the negative criticism of the character. One such has him hanging outside Cartoon Network's office, ranting about how the other CN cartoons are getting better treatment than him, despite his creation being 20 years older than theirs. Ending with Scrappy remarking to the tagline (the best place for cartoons) with "Not for me! Not for me, man!"

Scrappy-Doo is a recurring gag in Harvey Birdman Attorney at Law. He first appears at the end of "Shaggy Busted" to utter his catchphrase, only to be cut-off halfway when Avenger grabs Scrappy in his talons. From then on, Scrappy's corpse appears in various episodes, usually being carried around by Avenger. He also appears in the Drawn Together
Drawn Together
Drawn Together is an American animated television series, which ran on Comedy Central from October 27, 2004 to November 14, 2007. The series was created by Dave Jeser and Matt Silverstein, and uses a sitcom format with a TV reality show setting...

episode "Lost in Parking Space, Part Two", wherein he and several other cartoon characters are brutally tortured. He appears in the "Laff-a-Munich" skit in the Robot Chicken
Robot Chicken
Robot Chicken is an American stop motion animated television series created and executive produced by Seth Green and Matthew Senreich along with co-head writers Douglas Goldstein and Tom Root. Green provides many voices for the show...

episode "Ban on the Fun". In the skit, Scrappy is kicked into a lake by Blue Falcon. And in January of the years 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011, he was made the King of Boomer-royalty in which each weekend, the channel "Boomerang" showed 2-hour installments of "Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo" all month.

On the soundtrack album, Family Guy: Live in Vegas
Family Guy: Live in Vegas
-Reception:The album received positive reviews from music sources and critics. Rob Theakston of Allmusic said that "[Family Guy is] back and raunchier than ever, sparing no expense and leaving no pop culture stone unturned" and "without the constraints of network censors, the profanity and heat are...

, Jason Alexander
Jason Alexander
Jay Scott Greenspan , better known by his professional name of Jason Alexander, is an American actor, writer, comedian, television director, producer, and singer. He is best known for his role as George Costanza on the television series Seinfeld, appearing in the sitcom from 1989 to 1998...

 reports that Scrappy is the product of a drunken encounter between Scooby-Doo and Daphne.

In the series finale of Batman: The Brave and the Bold
Batman: The Brave and the Bold
Batman: The Brave and the Bold is an American animated television series based in part on the DC Comics series The Brave and the Bold which features two or more super heroes coming together to solve a crime or foil a super villain...

"Mitefall!", Bat-Mite
Bat-Mite
Bat-Mite is a fictional character appearing in stories published by DC Comics. Bat-Mite is an Imp similar to the Superman villain Mister Mxyzptlk...

 attempts to get the show cancelled and introduces a thinly-veiled analogy to Scrappy in Punchichi, the nephew of Ace the Bat-Hound
Ace the Bat-Hound
The comic book character Ace the Bat-Hound was the canine crime-fighting partner of Batman and Robin in DC Comics of the 1950s and 1960s. Ace debuted in Batman #92...

.

See also

  • Jumping the shark
    Jumping the shark
    Jumping the shark is an idiom used to describe the moment in the evolution of a television show when it begins a decline in quality that is beyond recovery....

  • Scooby-Doo
    Scooby-Doo
    Scooby-Doo is an American media franchise based around several animated television series and related works produced from 1969 to the present day. The original series, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, was created for Hanna-Barbera Productions by writers Joe Ruby and Ken Spears in 1969...

  • Cousin Oliver
  • Younger and junior versions of cartoon characters

External links

  • "Scrappy Days", Mark Evanier
    Mark Evanier
    Mark Stephen Evanier is an American comic book and television writer, particularly known for his humor work. He is also known for his columns and blogs, and for his work as a historian and biographer of the comics industry, in particular his award-winning Jack Kirby biography, Kirby: King of...

    's recollections of the creation of Scrappy-Doo
  • The Scooby Story: The Facts on Scrappy
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