Trivia / Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island

• Acting for Two:
  • Though credited for voicing Snakebite Scruggs, Mark Hamill also voices Shaggy and Scooby's airport supervisor.
  • Jim Cummings voices Jacques, Morgan Moonscar, Confederate general Jackson Pettigrew, and a plantation worker. He was only credited for Jacques.
  • Frank Welker voices Fred, Simone's cats, Snakebite's pet pig Mojo, and multiple zombies. Welker was only credited for Fred.
  • In the Latin American Spanish dub, Scooby-Doo, Mr. Beeman, and Jacques are all voiced by Francisco Colmenero; and Ricardo Tejedo voices Fred Jones and Snakebite Scruggs.
• Actor-Shared Background: Jim Cummings actually did serve on a New Orleans riverboat when he was younger, and the time he spent in the city is what made him one of the few voice actors capable of doing a convincing Cajun accent. Jacques even looks a little like him.
• All-Star Cast: At least in voice acting circles. The cast features voice acting luminaries Frank Welker, BJ Ward, Mary Kay Bergman, Billy West, Tara Strong, Jim Cummings, Adrienne Barbeau, Cam Clarke and Mark Hamill.
• Celebrity Voice Actor:
  • Adrienne Barbeau provides the voice of Simone, continuing an active career in voice acting that launched six years earlier with Batman: The Animated Series.
  • Zombie Island would be the first of many Scooby-Doo films and series in which Mark Hamill does voice roles.
• Directed by Cast Member: The Latin American Spanish dub was directed by Genaro Vásquez, the voice actor for Beau Neville.
• Fake American: Canadian-born Tara Strong affects an American Southern accent for Lena.
• In Memoriam: To Don Messick, the original voice actor for Scooby-Doo who had passed away the previous year due to complications from his second stroke, just before recording began.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: The two Skycycle songs were never properly released (a hokey synthesized version appeared on the soundtrack for Scooby-Doo! and the Witch's Ghost). The only "clean" versions that exist are played during the end credits.
• Missing Trailer Scene: The earliest promos feature two scenes not in the final film:
  • Scooby is carried bridal style by a zombie and screams while looking at the camera. This shot is still used on most home releases of the movie on the back of the VHS or DVD case.
  • Scooby and Shaggy's first confrontation with the undead Morgan Moonscar takes place in the scary castle from the prologue. While this could be chalked up to the assets for the pit scene not being finished yet, Moonscar is also green in coloration suggesting the color of the zombies was not decided on yet.
• The Original Darrin: After being voiced by Carl Steven in A Pup Named Scooby-Doo, Frank Welker returned to voicing Fred for this film, and continues to do so to this day, with the exceptions of SCOOB! (Zac Efron) and Velma (Glenn Howerton).
• The Other Darrin:
  • Shaggy is voiced by Billy West (for the only time outside some commercials) due to Casey Kasem quitting the role when it was refused to make Shaggy a vegetarian.
  • Mary Kay Bergman voices Daphne, replacing Heather North.
  • Scott Innes voices Scooby due to Don Messick succumbing to complications from his second stroke, and also replaces Hadley Kay who voiced Scooby in some commercials and on his appearances in Johnny Bravo.
• The Other Marty: Heather North was originally planned to reprise her long-running role of Daphne, but during recording, she was replaced with Mary Kay Bergman after producers decided they wanted a fresher take on the role. North would still later voice Daphne two more times, in Scooby-Doo! and the Legend of the Vampire and Scooby-Doo! and the Monster of Mexico.
• Playing Against Type: Tara Strong usually voices Genki Girls or Keet boys. Even though Lena is probably the least evil of the three villains, it's easily the most evil role Strong has ever voiced.
• Recycled Script: The concept was originally a unfinished SWAT Kats episode, "The Curse of Kataluna" (which would've involved a succubus). Suddenly, the Darker and Edgier tone (and all the cat-related motifs) makes a lot more sense. (Parts of it were also recycled by the writer, Glenn Leopold, for the season two episode "Eclipse" for Jonny Quest: The Real Adventures.)
• Role Reprise:
  • Frank Welker returns to voice Fred's first (non-child) appearance since 1984. Welker is the only one of the original voice actors to do so (though Heather North was planned to return, Casey Kasem was sought to return, and it's heavily implied Don Messick would also have returned had he lived).
  • BJ Ward, who voices Velma here, previously voiced her in the Johnny Bravo crossover episode a year earlier.
• Wag the Director: Casey Kasem was going to reprise his role as Shaggy, but he'd recently gone vegan and demanded the character do the same. He was turned down and recast with Billy West, because a) they felt it would be too radical a character change for Shaggy, who was always depicted as eating everything and anything and b) some of the animation had already been started, featuring Shaggy eating crawfish and other non-vegan food. Casey was offered another chance at the end of production, when Billy West had already recorded all his dialogue, but he refused.
• What Could Have Been:
  • As noted above, Heather North, Don Messick, and Casey Kasem were originally going to reprise their roles as Daphne, Scooby, and Shaggy respectively. North was replaced because the producers wanted a newer take on Daphne, Messick passed away before he could record any lines, and Kasem was turned down because he wanted Shaggy to be rewritten as a vegan.
  • Tara Strong says that she and the other voice actors were originally going to speak in Cajun accents. She herself says she found the accent very difficult and Jim Cummings, who learned it around the time of his residency in Louisiana, said they didn't sound authentic, so they just went with typical Louisiana accents.
  • The creative team disagreed on what tone the story should take; director Jim Stenstrum pushed for real supernatural threats (as the normal 'bad guy in a mask' format could get tiresome for a feature length story), while writer Glenn Leopold felt that Scooby Doo's core remained simple, solvable mysteries. The film goes with a compromise, where there are genuine supernatural elements, but it's a mystery whether they're real for a while - and the villain is still revealed towards the end.
  • Shaggy initially got a fashion update like the other characters, with his t-shirt and pants becoming red and blue respectively and gaining sneakers (which would have looked identical to his appearances from The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo and the 3 Scooby and Scrappy 80's trilogy films). But they changed their minds, feeling his classic look was more timeless than Fred and Daphne's obvious 60s influences. This look would get repurposed for Cyber Shaggy come Scooby-Doo and the Cyber Chase.
  • If the early promos mentioned in Missing Trailer Scene are anything to go off of, the zombies initially were all a deep, sickly green color. In the final film, they're mostly the same shades of skin they were in life.

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