Mystery Incorporated
, not to be confused with the animated series Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, is a fan-made live-action adaptation of the Scooby-Doo mythos in the vein of Riverdale. After a successful Indiegogo campaign, the first episode was released to YouTube on April 27, 2022.
Set in modern times, Fred (played by Dade Elza) and Velma (Dayeanne Hutton) team up to try and solve the mystery of his parents and her father's murders by a mysterious entity. Daphne (Jessica Chancellor), the school's resident queen bee, Shaggy (Chris Villain), a drug dealer who wants to get out of the game, and his dog Scooby-Doo (Thor Von Schultz) end up getting pulled into the investigation as well.
This series provides examples of:
- Abusive Parents: Daphne's mom micromanages her diet and her Stage Mom tendencies basically forces Daphne into an Alpha Bitch role she doesn't want.
- Adaptational Angst Upgrade: Nearly the whole gang. Fred's parents are killed during the opening narration. Velma's father was killed prior to the events of the show and her mother became an alcoholic as a result. Shaggy has a strained relationship with his cop father and is being blackmailed into remaining a drug dealer. Daphne meanwhile is a Stepford Smiler who is being pressured into an Alpha Bitch role not only by her friends, but by her own mother.
- Adaptational Badass:
- All three of the Hex Girls are shown to have magical abilities, rather than just Thorn.
- Miner 49'er, being an actual magical entity, is significantly more dangerous than his original counterpart. The same case applies for the Black Knight.
- Adaptational Jerkass: The Hex Girls are quite rude to Shaggy when they first meet him. While they did mess with him and Scooby a bit in their first appearance in the animated movie series, they were ultimately a group of nice eco-goths.
- Adaptational Nonsapience: Scooby is not shown to speak with Shaggy talking for him in their conversations together.
- Adaptation Dye-Job:
- Shaggy and Velma are usually depicted with light brown and auburn hair respectively. Here they're played by Chris Villain and Dayeanne Hutton, who have black and dark brown hair respectively.
- Scooby is missing his distinctive black spots along his back, and his fur is more tan than brown. This is quite justified, as purebred Great Danes don't have that spotting pattern, nor do they typically have brown fur.
- The Alcoholic: Velma's mother has become this after the death of her father.
- Alpha Bitch: Daphne is an interesting example in that she doesn't want to be one but is pressured into it by her friend group and her own mother.
- Asmodeus: The demon Fred saw the night his parents died is named after the sin of Lust himself.
- Bad "Bad Acting": Shaggy tries to call Scooby to scare off the jocks trying to blackmail him in the first episode. Despite being a huge dog with police training, Scooby completely fails at being intimidating and the jocks end up doubling down on Shaggy.
- Batter Up!: During the opening narration Fred hears noise down stairs and grabs his baseball bat for protection when he goes to investigate. Unfortunately, his parents are already dead before he can get to them.
- Big Friendly Dog: Scooby, of course.
- Commonality Connection: Velma reaches out to Freddie because she knows what it's like to lose a parent and because he's looking up demonology like her mother does. While Fred seems to appreciate the thought he correctly points out that her having experienced grief doesn't mean she understands his grief.
- Colour-Coded for Your Convenience:
- As usual, Shaggy is associated with greens, Velma is associated with oranges, Fred is associated with whites and blues, and Daphne is associated with pinks and purples.
- Daphne's rival, Ophelia, is associated with yellow and has a line lampshading this trope by confirming she always wears yellow.
- Dagwood Sandwich: Shaggy makes one for himself and Scooby during the ending montage for episode 1.
- Darker and Edgier: Daphne has a Stage Mom and she's implied to be struggling with depression, Shaggy is a small time drug dealer who is being blackmailed and has a rocky relationship with his father, Velma's dad was murdered and her mother has turned to studying demonology and becoming an alcoholic to cope, and Fred's parents were both murdered (seemingly by the same monster that killed Velma's dad).
- Everyone Has Standards: Daphne allows herself to be pressured into an Alpha Bitch role by her mother and friend group, and she and her rival Alpha Bitch, Ophelia, actively antagonize each other. Daphne is also appalled when she finds out her boyfriend and his friends plan to spike Ophelia's drink so they can frame her for drug use and get her expelled. As it's about to happen, Daphne rushes over and smacks the other girl's cup away. Unfortunately, due to their rivalry, Ophelia thinks Daphne's just being a jerk and throws a drink in her face, completely unaware that Daphne had just saved her.
- Shaggy is a drug dealer but episode 1 makes it clear he wants to get out of the game, and he's otherwise portrayed as an OK guy.
- Genre Blindness: Fred and Velma find a demonology book with a creepy cover written in ancient latin and Fred decides its a good idea to pressure Velma, who knows Latin, to read it to him. Predictable results happen.
- Innocently Insensitive: Velma's first conversation with Fred nearly ends in this, as she accidentally puts her foot in her mouth and comes off as rude and condescending. His reaction helps her realize this and she's quick to explain her social troubles and apologize.
- Jerk Jock: Seth, Daphne's boyfriend, and his two friends. They're shown harassing both Fred (over the death of his parents) and Shaggy (to get drugs) at separate points, and even try to drug Ophelia in order to get her expelled. This is in contrast to Daphne's friends who are harmless tag alongs so far.
- Living Emotional Crutch: Scooby for Shaggy.
- Lovable Jock: In contrast to Seth, Fred is a relatively nice baseball player.
- Motor Mouth: Velma after the Innocently Insensitive moment mentioned in episode 1, as she tries to awkwardly explain herself to Fred.
- Mythology Gag: All over the place.
- When trying to convince Fred to not become like her mother, Velma brings up the case of Jonathan Jacobo, a man who was compelled to dress up as a ghost pterodactyl due to trauma-induced hallucinations.
- Velma mentions a filmmaker named Benjamin Ravencroft.
- The plot set up by the end of episode 1 seems to resemble that of The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, albeit with Fred and Velma releasing the entities (called the 13 pillars here) rather than Shaggy and Scooby. The book they read from even resembles the chest from that show, not to mention that the leader of the pillars is Asmodeus from Return of the 13th Ghost.
- The dealer Shaggy gets his supplies from resembles (and is listed in the credits as) Flim-Flam. Moreover, the drug that Shaggy eventually chooses to purchase is "Joy Juice", and Flim-Flam was trying to hawk off "Lots of Luck Joy Juice" in his first appearance.
- The first pillar is based on Miner 49'er, one of the more famous early Scooby villains. The other pillars are set to be based off of other popular villains with the second being the Black Knight.
- Shaggy's father works for the police like he did in A Pup Named Scooby-Doo.
- Shaggy, Velma, Daphne, and Fred all wear color-coded clothing like they did in the cartoon. Velma even wears her signature sweater.
- Fred's lawyer in the first episode is named Harvey. In IMDB he is full credited as "Harvey Birdman"
- While this incarnation of Scooby doesn't talk, Shaggy still speaks to him as though he does.
- Nephewism: The principal, the lawyer, and Fred's case worker propose this possibility to Fred, noting he can go live with his aunt and uncle until he's a legal adult. However, they also note that he could file for emancipation and continue to live in his parents home on his own.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Fred pressures Velma into reading a Latin book on demonology... and they proceed to accidentally open a portal to hell in the first episode.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Downplayed example. Daphne decides to smack the drugged drink out of Ophelia's hand. Due to their rivalry, Ophelia thinks Daphne is just being a jerk and acts aggressively as result as Daphne tries to explain. This annoys Daphne, influencing her to make a fat joke, which in turn leads to Ophelia grabbing someone's drink and throwing it in Daphne's face.
- Non-Human Sidekick: Scooby.
- Parental Abandonment: Velma's dad was killed prior to the beginning of the story, and Freddie's parents are both killed in the opening narration.
- Parental Neglect: Velma is shown to have to take care of her alcoholic mother despite only being a teenager.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: The cloaked monster that supposedly killed Fred's parents and Velma's dad.
- Retired Badass: Scooby was a police dog, so presumably he counts as this.
- Shout-Out:
- Among the drugs the dealer lists to Shaggy, he mentions jingle jangle from Riverdale.
- The opening narration is very similar to Jughead's narration in "Chapter 2: A Touch of Evil".
- The sound effect when the monster turns to Fred during the opening is the same as the noise used in many projects of The Slender Man Mythos.
- Stage Mom: Daphne's mother is a very blatant example of this.
- Stepford Smiler: Daphne. Her introduction scene shows her struggling not to cry as she prepares to talk to her mother before breakfast.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
- Due to Shaggy's status as the son of the sheriff, the jocks are able to hold his job as a drug dealer over his head to prevent him from going clean.
- Velma's mother turned to alcohol as a coping mechanism. When she notices one of her demonology books is missing she immediately turns to the bottle to alleviate her stress.
- Velma is able to list several articles that show Fred and her mother may have hallucinated the monster that killed her father and his parents. Fred isn't able to convince her to help him until he points out that a good argument has two sides that need looking into.
- Seth is able to get away with his behavior because his dad is the school principal. Fred's baseball coach even outright warns Fred not to mess with Seth because he won't be able to help him in that situation.
- Daphne being forced into a fake persona by her mother and peers is shown to not be good for her mental health.
- Fred tells Velma to meet him at 6pm instead of right after school because he's obligated to go to baseball practice. In addition, since they're both fairly straight laced, the idea of skipping doesn't seem to occur to them.
- When Daphne saves Ophelia by knocking her (drugged) drink away, she thinks Daphne is just being a jerk due to their rivalry. Daphne getting annoyed by this and insulting her weight only leads to her getting a drink thrown in her face.
- Prior to this, Daphne also realizes that there's a good chance that the finger will be pointed at her if Ophelia realizes what happened due to their rivalry. She points this out to Seth but he doesn't pay it much mind.
- Shaggy skipping school was noticed by his teachers, and the principal called his father as a result.
- Walking Shirtless Scene: An example seemingly not played for fanservice seeing as the scene involves Fred finding his parents' dead bodies.
- What You Are in the Dark: When Seth and his friends are trying to drug Ophelia so she gets kicked out of school Daphne decides she can't let it happen and smacks the drink out of the other girl's hand.
- X Meets Y: The Scooby-Doo franchise meets Riverdale.
