Western Animation / Scooby-Doo and Guess Who?

They’re back... and they’ve brought some friends!

Scooby-Dooby-Doo, and guess who?
We know you're one-in-a-million,
We can count on you, Scooby-Doo,
To catch and unmask that villain!

Scooby-Doo and Guess Who? is an American animated series based on the Scooby-Doo franchise and the thirteenth incarnation.

Faced with some of their toughest mysteries yet, Fred, Daphne, Velma, Shaggy, and Scooby-Doo will join forces with some of the biggest names in celebrity and pop culture including NBA superstar Chris Paul, recording artists Halsey and Sia, Ricky Gervais, Kenan Thompson, Bill Nye the Science Guy, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Mark Hamill, Wanda Sykes, Steve Urkel (voiced by Jaleel White reprising one of his iconic roles), Batman (reprised by Kevin Conroy), Sherlock Holmes, The Funky Phantom, The Flash, Wonder Woman, and many more!

Production started in 2017 and was announced in May 2018. The show is executive produced by Chris Bailey (Kim Possible), with Michael Ryan (Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated) serving as story editor.

In late 2018, it was renewed for a second season before the show premiered. The first season dropped on June 27, 2019, with episodes airing weekly until September 19. The series was also airing two weeks behind on traditional television broadcasting through Cartoon Network, every Monday at 10:30 am EST, until August 12, 2019. As of October 1, 2020, the show has been airing on Boomerang. On October 1, 2021, the series moved to HBO Max, where it aired its final episodes.

---

Tropes in this series include:

• 2D Visuals, 3D Effects: Done primarily on the Mystery Machine.
• 555: The Kenathon has the message "Call now 1-800-555-0199".
• Acting Unnatural: In "A Mystery Solving Gang Divided", Scooby and Shaggy act like this when they're tasked with baiting some ghosts.
  Shaggy: Like, geez, Scoobert, we'll have to leave this map right here in this old cannon so the ghosts can find their gold and rest in peace! MAP! (whispering) Act casual, Scoob.
  Scooby: Good idea, Norville! Yes, we are, uh, leaving!
• Actor Allusion:
  • The episode featuring Steve Urkel has him frequently earn the ire of a loud-mouthed, overweight man with a mustache, and having to deal with evil robots. There is even Sonic's "juicing/revving" sound effect] heard when Urkel reactivates his robot made in his own image. Steve's voice and inflections are even used for Princess Sonia Hedgehog, Sonic's sister in Sonic Underground.
  • Whoopi Goldberg's episode has her in a university of psychics and she references one of her famous roles was being a medium in Ghost.
  • Mark Hamill's episode has plenty of references of him being Luke Skywalker. One person asks him to show off his "robotic hand", Shaggy asks him to use the Jedi Mind Trick on Scooby, etc. In relation to his other famous role as The Joker, Hamill slips into one of said character's trademark laughs, in addition to him once again voicing the character alongside Kevin Conroy's Batman in "What A Night For A Dark Knight".
  • Kristen Schaal's episode has her using a grappling hook and eating hamburgers.
  • Alton Brown mentions how he's been a pirate, a space captain, and a dolphin trainer. Fans of Good Eats know that he's not making up any of that, nor is he a stranger to backstories involving fake relatives.
• Adaptational Heroism: In an interesting case, Mudsy turns out to have a case of this. To elaborate, see Batman Gambit below.
• Adaptational Nonsapience: Magilla Gorilla's appearance in episode three brings him down to a more "realistic" level and has him only making grunt sounds instead of talking.
• Adaptational Villainy: The culprit of episode 3 was Mr. Peebles, because he was so fed up with Magilla Gorilla.
• Advertised Extra: The second episode's featured guest is claimed to be Abraham Lincoln, but the real featured guests are the cast from The Funky Phantom, while Lincoln only appears in the show for about five minutes, before being revealed as Mudsy in disguise.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Max the robot in "Total Jeopardy!", who does not take being bested at Jeopardy! by not only Velma but also Shaggy very well. Though in the end, it turns out that the only reason Max went crazy is because he was being hacked by a Jeopardy! cameraman, who had invested a lot of money in the company who built the robot and decided to take matters into his own hands to make sure Max won.
• Alternate Continuity: The Flash episode shows that the series is not in continuity with the original series.
• Ambiguous Situation: In "Elementary My Dear Shaggy", it's never clarified whether Sherlock Holmes is an actor playing the part and taking Kayfabe a little too far, someone who lives it as his full-time lifestyle, or if it's even his real identity. Shaggy almost explicitly says that Sherlock Holmes is fictional, but then again, the gang themselves are fictional.
• Angry, Angry Hippos: Downplayed in "The Lost Mines of Kilimanjaro!" where Scooby and Shaggy get scared by a hippopotamus, though the hippo itself doesn't look particularly threatening.
• Animation Bump: The episodes animated by Snipple Animation tend to have more fluid and cartoony animation than the episodes by the Korean studios, which are more in line with the original series' Limited Animation.
• Art Evolution: While the character designs are based very closely upon the Gang's original designs, the designs have some subtle alterations, such as Daphne's hair having an orange outline, and Shaggy being slightly more angular. The animation is also much less stiff despite the throwback nature.
• Artistic License – Cars: The Metropolitan Police in London have never used a 2005-2009 Vauxhall Astra Sporthatch in day-to-day work (aside from a one-off publicity photo circa 2006-2007) despite "Elementary My Dear Shaggy" showing a series of police cars showing up in London alongside the Mystery Machine as being these. Even if it is trying to establish the setting is British (Vauxhall are an iconic British brand), the Metropolitan Police in London use BMW 5-Series F10 and Volvo V70 stationwagons. Real-life police would never use the Vauxhall as it has two doors and is impractical for day-to-day use, plus the 1.8-litre engine is under-sized for the daily driving demands of the police.
• Artistic License – Law Enforcement: In "Elementary My Dear Shaggy" British police are seen in 1970s/1980s uniforms with the traditional British helmet and blue uniform; modern police wear black clothing, bodycams and don't have helmets except for motorcycle police and mounted police. Also, the jail depicted is wrong; it would be a lock-up holding cell instead, not jail with a key.
• Bad "Bad Acting": Shaggy and Scooby do this while acting as bait in episode two. They both go further by referring to each other by their real names, Scoobert and Norville.
• Bad Future: When Malcolm McDowell invents a time machine, he takes the gang into two separate futures, one of which includes an army of giant spider robots patrolling a Lost World-like world, and one terrorized by an evil robot Scooby-Doo. Neither are real, just the result of an elaborate green screen movie soundstage.
• Balloon Belly: Kristen Schaal ends up with a bulging stomach in her guest appearance, as a result of stuffing herself in an attempt to eat like Shaggy and Scooby.
• Batman Gambit: Mudsy disguised himself as Abraham Lincoln's ghost so that both Mystery Inc. and the Funky Phantom crew would stop competing with each other and instead work together to solve the mystery.
• Bat Scare: Used in the opening credits, natch. More than once, Shaggy lampshades how the gang is always exploring creepy old places where swarms of bats burst out at them.
• Behemoth Battle: Just when the gang is about to trap the Allosaurus, a second dinosaur resembling a Ceratosaurus shows up and gets into a battle with the other theropod. Lampshaded by Shaggy and Scooby.
• Beneath Suspicion: In a twist from The New Scooby-Doo Movies, where the guest star was mainly just along for the ride, there have been at least five episodes where the guest turns out to be the monster.
• Big Damn Heroes: Magilla Gorilla makes his grand appearance saving Scooby, Shaggy, and Wanda from the quicksand trap and then knocking the fish monster into it.
• Big Eater:
  • Shaggy and Scooby as usual. They gain a rival in Jim Gaffigan during a racing/eating contest, and a female counterpart in Sia while they hang around in her house.
  • The episode with The Flash starts with him devouring a stack of hamburgers in a blink of an eye (although this is justified as he needs to consume all those calories to fuel his Super-Speed). In fact, the Flash decides to help Mystery Inc. unmask villains so that he (as Barry) can hang out and eat with Shaggy and Scooby.
• Big Fancy House: Sia's mansion is filled with fun contraptions like an indoor theater, a merry-go-round and plenty of contraptions to curb her appetite.
• Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti: The Snow Devil from "Scooby on Ice" resembles a Yeti, being an Expy of the original series' Snow Ghost who was supposedly a ghost Yeti.
• Big "NO!": Weird Al screams "NOOOOOOOOOOO!" in his episode when all of his accordion students leave.
• Bill... Bill... Junk... Bill...: The Batman crossover starts with Alfred checking the mail. Upon finding an actual letter among the bills (the one from Daphne), Alfred stops to wonder who writes letters nowadays.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Sia's vegan chef, the janitor at Urkel's museum, Pete and Pete the fossil hunters and Mr. Peebles are all among the nicer characters in their episodes but are guilty.
• Boxing Episode: "The Crown Jewel of Boxing!", guest starring Laila Ali.
• Boxing Lesson:
  • Wonder Woman trains Mystery Inc in Amazonian combat; first just Velma and Daphne, later Scooby and the boys too.
  • A literal case with Laila Ali, as Shaggy and Scooby ask her for some lessons to become tougher and braver. It doesn't work.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall:
  • At the end of his episode, Ricky Gervais prompts the villain to say the You Meddling Kids line, but then has him add "and Ricky Gervais" because he believes he has done a lot more "in this episode than any other guest star."
  • Neil deGrasse Tyson and Bill Nye discuss how the people who will be the lead colonists of other planets are the ones currently in middle school, then openly turn towards the camera and point to the audience saying "You!"
  • "A Haunt Of A Thousand Voices!" has Mystery Inc meet... their own voice actors, who are doing a very familiar sounding show...
• Brick Joke: The beginning of Whoopi's episode had her conduct a seance to find the location of a lost puppy. At the climax of the episode, Whoopi's psychic sense tells her to go right (instead of a left like Shaggy insists) because it leads her to the puppy she was trying to find.
• Broad Strokes: This series proves itself to be a Spiritual Successor to The New Scooby-Doo Movies in more ways then one. Certain episodes here are deliberate sequels to older episodes, while others deliberately ignore them. There are references to other episodes in others but also with contradictions. The Flash episode borders on Alternate Continuity with classic Scooby-Doo Where Are You cases being solved. However all this is pretty standard Hanna-Barbera continuity flux given in the 1970s, Scooby and the gang met Don Knotts twice with no previous recollection, but referenced meeting the Harlem Globetrotters before in their second and third episodes.
• Brutal Honesty: In "A Fashion Nightmare!", Tim Gunn doesn't hold back in voicing how awful he thinks Shaggy's fashion sense is and offers to help him out with looking and dressing better.
• The Bus Came Back: After disappearing in Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, the Hex Girls return in "I Put a Hex on You".
• Call-Back: In the Mark Hamill episode, Shaggy somehow has a photo of Hamill when he was parachute-jumping. When questioned as to where he got this, Shaggy says that they were hanging out with Wonder Woman at the time (which was episode 4). In the same episode, Mark Hamill knows of Mystery Inc. because of how they helped Batman out in his case three episodes prior.
• The Cameo:
  • In the Batman episode, at Arkham Asylum, the Arnold Wesker version of the Ventriloquist (with Scarface) and Poison Ivy make silent cameos.
  • The Funky Phantom episode features the Speed Buggy crew pulling up after having heard about the Mystery of the Week, at the very end.
  • Magilla Gorilla shows up in one episode.
• Cartoon Cheese: Averted in two instances, both times showing realistically-colored Swiss cheese.
  • In "When Urkel Bots Go Bad!", Steve Urkel's box of cheese that he uses to persuade the gang (and the judge) clearly shows a variety of cheese.
  • In "Scooby on Ice!", Shaggy and Scooby attempt to make fondue out of several different kinds of cheese.
• Cast as a Mask:
  • John DiMaggio portrays the ghost of Abraham Lincoln, who is revealed to be actually Mudsy, aka The Funky Phantom, voiced by Tom Kenny. They also do the same with the villain of the episode, with John voicing Jebb and Tom voicing his disguise the Ghost Sergeant.
  • Some of the monsters voiced by Dee Bradley Baker also pull this off, including the Fish Monster in "Peebles' Pet Shop of Terrible Terrors!"^* for Billy West as Mr. Peebles, The Minotaur in "The Scooby of a Thousand Faces!"^* for Phil LaMarr as the Curator, the Frankenfooder Monster in "The Feast of Dr. Frankenfooder!"^* for Alton Brown himself, and both the Creeper and Captain Cutler's Ghost in "A Haunt of a Thousand Voices!" ^* for both Kate Micucci and Grey DeLisle themselves. Grey also goes through with this a few other times; being the Janitor in "When Urkel-Bots Go Bad!" but with her Tecnomancer disguise voiced by Keith Ferguson (and later as the Hyde Monster in "The Dreaded Remake of Jekyll & Hyde!" for Grey's role as Tabitha), the Cafeteria lady's Nightmare Ghost disguise in "The Nightmare Ghost of Psychic U!" being voiced by Phil LaMarr, Nana's Fire Monster of Mount Etna disguise in "Fear of the Fire Beast!" by Kevin Michael Richardson, and the Store Clerk's disguise as El Hombre Serpiente in "Lost Soles of Jungle River!" as voiced by Jeff Lapensee.
  • Likewise the case for Fred Tatasciore, who voices the Spectral Speedster in "The Fastest Food Fiend!" for Frank Welker as Bill Tally, and the Ghost Monster in "The Movieland Monsters!"^* for Kari Wahlgren as Gemma.
  • Other monsters include the Wolfman in "The High School Wolfman's Musical Lament!"^* Kevin Michael Richardson for Christian Slater himself, the Ghost of Ester Moonkiller in "I Put a Hex on You!"^* Kari Wahlgren for Kimberly Brooks as Xander (Brooks would later do this as the Medusa Monster in "Scooby-Doo, Dog Wonder!" for David Kaye as Timothy Smallbottoms), the Elevator Operator Ghost in "A Fashion Nightmare!"^* Robin Atkin Downes for Rachel Kimsey as Marla, the Ghost Mascot in "The 7th Inning Scare"^* Stephen Stanton for Macklemore himself, the Mud Men in "Dark Diner of Route 66!"^* Debra Wilson for Eric Bauza and Ian James Corlett as the diner's Waiter and Janitor, respectively, the Green Man Monster in "Returning of the Key Ring!"^* Scott Menville for Jennifer Hale as the Garden department lady, and the Ghost of Tabb Tatters in "The Legend of the Gold Microphone!"^* Gary Anthony Williams for Sumalee Montano as the Librarian,
  • A downplayed instance occurs in "Elementary, My Dear Scooby", where the Screaming Skulls of London, while revealed to be two people (one voiced by Frank Welker, the other by Jeff Bennett), Welker is the only one providing the laughs for both men when in disguise.
• Cats Are Mean:
  • A mummified cat creature appears as the villain of episode 5.
  • Same can be said of Boo, Mudsy's cat, who takes pleasure in scaring Shaggy and Scooby. Downplayed in that he's still one of the heroes.
• Celebrity Paradox:
  • Characters from DC Comics exist in the same world as famous celebrities, Sherlock Holmes and another group of meddling kids. This makes it quite confusing in Mark Hamill's episode, seeing as the villain of said episode is The Trickster, whom Hamill has voiced, and Hamill voiced the Joker in a previous episode.
  • In "A Haunt of a Thousand Voices!", Scooby and the gang interact with their own voice actors.
• Character Catchphrase:
  • Mocked by Ricky Gervais, when he criticizes Scooby for just using his own name as his catchphrase. He likewise mocks Fred's new habit of saying "Hold the phone!"
  • Velma also picks up a new catchphrase, saying "Suspicious", whenever she notes something, well, suspicious.
  • Fred often uses "Hold on, gang!" when he's pulling some driving stunt with the Mystery Machine.
• Charles Atlas Superpower:
  • In episode 1, Velma points out that even though the caddy was small, he was still able to be extremely strong as the Swamp Monster due to years of playing golf strengthening him.
  • In the Wonder Woman episode, the minotaur's true identity is a former pro athlete which gives him the strength and skill to briefly fight Wonder Woman in hand-to-hand combat.
  • Laila Ali is strong and skilled enough to fight, and defeat, an army robot powerful enough to break through walls.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Simone makes various appearances throughout season 1, but completely disappears after "Scooby on Ice!", her only season 2 appearance.
• Clear My Name: "Now You Sia, Now You Don't!" has Sia being framed for jewel robbery committed by a demonic doppelganger of her.
• Cloudcuckoolander:
  • The man who appears to be Sherlock Holmes comes off as this, going so far as calling Velma "Watson" and Shaggy "Mrs Hudson".
  • Mudsy also has shades of this, as he misunderstands modern gadgets like memory sticks, which he thinks are "broomsticks for your brainy bits".
  • Kristen Schaal in her episode. It's as if she's channeling Mabel or Louise.
• Comic-Book Time: Discussed in "Elementary My Dear Shaggy" when Shaggy questions how old Sherlock Holmes really is and Sherlock claims he's immortal. Then again, the gang haven't aged a day in 52 years, so this trope is played straight, unless they're descendants of the originals. However, this is one of the features of the Scooby-Doo franchise, which can explain away why the gang seemingly don't age.
• Crossover:
  • The second episode has Mystery Inc. matching wits with the crew from The Funky Phantom.
  • The third episode involves the gang investigating a case at Peebles' Pet Shop from Magilla Gorilla. Both the titular character and Peebles make appearances.
  • Crossovers with Batman are nearly a staple between the two franchises, and they get to meet the Kevin Conroy version this go-round. And the comics feature plenty of team-ups with the characters for DC Superheroes, but this is their first animated crossover with Wonder Woman and The Flash.
• Crossover Relatives: Alfred Pennyworth is Daphne Blake's Honorary Uncle in the Batman crossover episode, "What a Night, For a Dark Knight!"
• Crazy-Prepared: The Hex Girls have a tranquilizer gun loaded up with several darts at all the concerts, in case Thorn suddenly goes berserk and starts smashing stuff.
• Cuteness Proximity: Not even the Princess of Themyscira is immune to the charm of Scooby-Doo.
• Danger Takes A Back Seat: In "Attack of the Weird Al-losaurus!", the Mystery Machine seemingly outruns the Allosaurus, but then it turns out it has caught up and is sitting in the back seat.
• Demonic Dummy: One of these, Crazy Karl, is the Villain of the Week in "Too Many Dummies!".
• Divergent Character Evolution: Played straight and inverted with the same character, even! Mudsy's mannerisms are more similar to Snagglepuss, borrowing his "Exit, stage left!" catchphrase twice, but he's dropped his old Lovable Coward schtick for the most part and started playing up his role as The Gadfly to better contrast Shaggy and Scooby.
• Distaff Counterpart: Wanda Sykes, as an African-American celebrity who has some personal history with Scooby, is this to Chris Paul, who similarly has some personal history with Shaggy.
• Does Not Know His Own Strength:
  • When Magilla Gorilla gives Fred a friendly slap on the back, he knocks Fred into a box.
  • When Wonder Woman tries to give Velma a hi-five, she knocks Velma down. Wonder Woman apologizes and says she is more used to hanging out with her similarly strong Amazon sisters.
• Dramatic Unmask: Played with in "What a Night for a Dark Knight," when Man-Bat is unmasked to reveal Robert Langstrom, but Batman denies it because he saw Langstrom locked up in an asylum a while back, and under the Langstrom mask is Alfred, but then he lets out a familiar crazed cackle, and is unmasked to reveal The Joker, who comments about wearing all those rubber masks, "Those masks were SO hot, and my face was living in the tropics! Not in a good way, if you know what I mean!"
• Epic Fail: Shaggy trying to use a tranq gun. He manages to knock out Fred, and then Luna, but not the two people he's supposed to be aiming at (well, not intentionally).
• Faking the Dead: In "Dance Matron of Mayhem", the culprit behind Madame Zobrinsky's Ghost is none other than Madame Zobrinsky herself, faking her death and scaring people away from buying her dance studio in the hope of finding a worthy successor.
• Fan Boy:
  • Shaggy and Scooby, the last people you'd ever expect to pick up a book, are revealed to be huge fans of Sherlock Holmes, even so far as pointing out specific stories featuring Holmes.
  • Shaggy and Scooby are also fans of Mark Hamill and keep asking for his autograph in his episode.
  • Steve Urkel is a big fan of Mystery Inc., even pointing out random facts about them.
  • Macklemore is revealed to be one for Mystery Incorporated. Leans a bit into Loony Fan territory when it’s revealed that he set up an elaborate monster hoax, complete with blowing up an empty baseball stadium, just because he always wanted to say the meddling kids line.
• Fictional Fan, Real Celebrity: In particular, the Mystery Inc. gang are huge fans of Sia, Bill Nye the Science Guy, and "Weird Al" Yankovic.
• Fire Alarm Distraction: In "Now You Sia, Now You Don't", Sia's doppelganger ghost pulls the fire alarm in a jewelry store, which she did in order to set off the sprinklers and slow down the gang enough for her to escape.
• Fish out of Temporal Water: Being from The American Revolution, Mudsy doesn't know how modern technology works. Particularly, he misunderstands memory sticks as "broomsticks for your brainy bits".
• Flower Mouth: Displayed by the giant tardigrade in an Eat the Camera close-up.
• Food Porn: Naturally, food is drawn in great detail thanks to Scooby and Shaggy being around.
• Foreshadowing:
  • In "A Mystery Solving Gang Divided!", there were some hints that the ghost of Abraham Lincoln was not who he said he was.
    • Fred points out that the Lincoln on the $5 bill has a mole where the ghost doesn't.
    • Lincoln says, "I'll never tell... a lie", at first, seemingly referencing his reputation as Honest Abe, but most likely, a reference to the famous quotation often attributed to George Washington, "I cannot tell a lie." Mudsy would constantly claim to have known George Washington and other famous Revolutionary War figures personally in his home series.
    • Finally, Lincoln says, "Ask not what a mystery can do for you, but what you can do for a mystery," which Augie calls him out on, since this was actually said by JFK.
  • In "Peebles' Pet Shop of Terrible Terrors!", when Mr. Peebles tries to see what has Mr. Jones scared, Mr. Jones scratches him.
  • In "The Scooby of a Thousand Faces!", the Minotaur has athletic skills matching with the Curator's status as an athlete.
  • Sia's Doppelganger In "Now You Sia, Now You Don't!" has Sia's exact moveset as Sia's trainer can easily pull this.
  • In “The Hot Dog Dog,” notice how, when the tree monster appeared, not once did it attack Big Eddy Eats
• Forging the Will: In "Hollywood Knights!", the gardener who works at the supposedly haunted mansion is trying to scare the late owner's daughter so nobody would challenge the will he forged to make himself the new owner.
• The Gadfly: Mudsy and Boo love messing with Shaggy and Scooby.
• Game Show Appearance: "Total Jeopardy" has Velma and Shaggy as contestants on Jeopardy!, with the late host Alex Trebek as the episode's guest star. Shaggy manages to win.
• Genre Savvy: Ricky Gervais, full stop. He never misses an opportunity to point out the holes in Mystery Incorporated's modus operandi.
• Gentle Gorilla: Magilla Gorilla, who can hold and cuddle a small kitten without hurting it.
• Goofy Suit: "The Hot Dog Dogs" has one, with Haggerty Hot Dog's mascot being someone wearing a dog costume in a hot dog bun whose paws and mask bear an uncanny resemblance to Scooby-Doo (but Scooby fails to see the resemblance).
• Hair-Raising Hare: A humanoid rabbit monster appears in the Penn & Teller episode.
• Hair-Trigger Sound Effect: Happens as a Running Gag in "The Feast of Dr. Frankenfooder." Whenever guest star Alton Brown or another character says "Frankenfooder", Dramatic Thunder crashes and a wolf howls. At one point in the episode, Alton says it when near an open window, and a wolf suddenly appears in said window making the howling.
• Hell Hotel: The gang stays at such a motel in "Too Many Dummies!", complete with a Psycho reference.
• Hero of Another Story: Various guest characters like the Funky Phantom gang and Wonder Woman, as well as the Speed Bugs based on their cameo, arriving just too late to help with the mystery.
• Heroes Love Dogs: Wonder Woman takes a liking to Scooby-Doo.
• Hidden Depths: The contractor from next door in "Quit Clowning" initially seems to just be a busy working man with ambiguous feelings about the TV station and all of the electrical shortages it causes his crew, but at the end of the episode is implied to be a big comedy fan based on the reveal at the end that he's been trying to get the TV station declared a historic landmark.
• Hidden Disdain Reveal: The Janitor from "When Urkel Bots Go Mad" spends most of the episode as the only person who isn't hostile towards him, due to the constant messes caused by his clumsiness keeping her employed. At the end of the episode though it turns out she finds him just as insufferable as everyone else.
• Hijacked by Ganon: In the Batman episode it appears the main villain is Man-Bat, a villain from Batman's rogue gallery the Mystery Inc hasn't faced before. By the end of the episode it is revealed it was actually Joker, Batman's Arch-Enemy and the most frequent foe he faces when teaming up with Scooby and the gang, disguised as Man-Bat.
• Howard Hughes Homage: "Hugo Howser", the eccentric owner/resident of the Las Vegas casino in the Penn & Teller episode, is a No Historical Figures Were Harmed expy.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Guest stars Jeff Dunham and Darcy Lynne Farmer in "Too Many Dummies!"
• Hurricane of Puns: Wanda Sykes apparently met Scooby at a dog show, a flashback of which shows Scooby attempting to compete. He starts by showing his boxing moves, ("I'm a boxer!") then by showing his pointing skills ("I'm a pointer!"), then doing his best impression of a toro ("I'm a bulldog!"), and finally, he eats a bunch of frankfurters at once ("I'm a hot dog!").
• In Medias Res: The first episode, after the cold open, begins with the gang unmasking "The Bee-Man of Alcatraz".
• Interclass Friendship: As opposed to The New Scooby-Doo Movies, in which Scooby and the gang kept running into a bunch of celebrities for no apparent reason, this show attempts to provide a reason by saying that the star of the week is somehow connected to one or more members of the gang.
  • Shaggy and Chris Paul are evidently old friends, with Chris even having saved his life once.
  • Scooby and Wanda Sykes. They met at a dog show and Wanda was impressed enough by his talents that she gave him every ribbon. She was also charmed enough to want to adopt him.
  • Sia and Daphne met at some kind of yodeling camp. This may count as a downplayed example, given that Daphne is usually portrayed as being the only member of the gang who's from a moneyed family.
  • Shaggy and Scooby are friends with rock superstar Axl Rose, and like Shaggy and Chris Paul, they also have a secret handshake. Velma even asks how on earth that happened. It turns out that they ran into Axl in a diner, where they shared a pie. Given that Axl travels and eats in diners a lot (and Shaggy and Scooby just like eating), they became bonded over their quest to find the best pies in America.
  • It's never said how they met, but Daphne is friends with actor/director/producer Sean Astin, enough that she refers to him as just "[her] friend Sean" and tries her best to keep the gang's lunch with him normal.
• Impossible Hourglass Figure: A bit, due to the series sticking to the original designs - which were more stylized than they usually appear today (see Top-Heavy Guy). Velma in particular gets an extreme hourglass, while Daphne is shaped more like a bell.
• It Only Works Once: Invoked in "The Hot Dog Dog!". Big Eddy Eats admits he cheated his way into winning the previous year's hot dog eating competition by giving Joey Chestnut a basket of muffins so Chestnut would be too stuffed to eat hot dogs and says he used the monster costume this time because nobody would fall for the muffin trick twice.
• Jungles Sound Like Kookaburras: Played straight in "The Lost Mines of Kilimanjaro!", though it could be somewhat justified in that the show makes heavy use of the classic Hanna-Barbera Stock Sound Effects library, which includes the classic kookaburra call (labeled on the library as "Birds, Jungle: Afternoon Jungle Birds Calling, Animal").
• King Kong Copy: A giant Killer Gorilla serves as the Monster of the Week in "The Lost Mines of Kilimanjaro!".
• Lampshade Hanging:
  • The show calls out the similarities between Mudsy's and Snagglepuss' voices by having Mudsy quote the latter's "Exit, stage left" line twice.
  • Ricky Gervais frequently points out the gang's quirks.
  • Darci Lynne Farmer brings up the question as to how Scooby is talking.
  • Morgan Freeman's Documentary-style episode features short interview clips in which the gang's members comment on Once an Episode gags, their respective uses of a Catchphrase, etc.
• Latex Perfection: Many of the ghost and monster disguises utilize this sort of technique, of course, but there are also a couple of interesting variations...
  • As mentioned with Dramatic Unmask, "What a Night for a Dark Knight" has the culprit The Joker wearing rubber masks of Alfred and Kirk Langstrom under his Man-Bat costume. The Joker lampshades this, naturally, saying the masks were really hot, "and my face was living in the tropics! Not in a good way, if you know what I mean."
  • In "A Mystery Solving Gang Divided!", this is how the Funky Phantom disguised himself as the ghost of Abraham Lincoln.
• Leeroy Jenkins: Wonder Woman is convinced that the minotaur is real, and keeps attempting to slay it with her sword.
• Like Is, Like, a Comma:
  • Like, Shaggy does this, like, same as always!
  • Inverted with the Funky Phantom, even! He likes to use his Verbal Tic as a period or an exclamation point.
• Loves Secrecy: Velma tends to be cryptic about her conclusions and keep them to herself until The Reveal (she has this trait in all the Scooby shows, probably implying that she derives pleasure from baffling others). Lampshaded by Ricky Gervais:
  Ricky: Velma, you can't just say it and keep it a secret... I mean, if she understands the mystery, just say who the bad guy is, just blurt it out, and we can all go home.
  Shaggy: Mr. G, that's not really how we do things.
• Mean Character, Nice Actor: In "Fear of the Fire Beast", Steve Buscemi has his hands full trying to explain to people that he's really a Nice Guy in real life and that he's not at all like the villains he plays in films. He establishes his nice guy credentials towards the end by rescuing a chipmunk from a fire even though he had a fear of chipmunks.
• Major Injury Underreaction: In "The Lost Soles of Jungle River!", Fred's reaction to a piranha nibbling at his toe is to get startled by it, despite red-billed piranhas having strong bites and razor-sharp teeth.
• Mirror Routine: Seen in "The Sword, the Fox and Scooby-Doo!" when the Fox Monster is right on the other side of a Japanese paper wall Scooby is walking along, and he has his silhouette from the wall act like Scooby's shadow.
• Misplaced Wildlife: There are no chipmunks in Sicily.
• Monster Clown: The Ken Thompson episode features a ghost clown.
• Mr. Fanservice: George Takei takes off his shirt while fencing with Duke Doombringer
  Takei: Well Shaggy, when you have abs like these, it's nice to show them off once in a while.
• Ms. Fanservice: In the Penn & Teller episode, Daphne dresses as a magician's assistant revealing both cleavage and fishnet-clad legs.
• Musical Episode: "The High School Wolfman's Musical Lament."
• Multiple Demographic Appeal: The series is aimed at kids and adult fans, with cameos from characters from old shows, like the 1980's character Urkel.
• Mythology Gag: Now has its own page...
• Never Smile at a Crocodile:
  • The alligator monster from the Halsey episode.
  • A giant sewer gator briefly shows up in the Hex Girls episode, where it manages to scare the gang AND the Monster of the Week.
• Noodle Incident: Chris Paul and Shaggy apparently knew each other prior to the series, with Chris having once saved Shaggy's life, and intent on having Shaggy pay him back. Chris shared a pizza with Shaggy, who hadn't eaten in three or four hours.
• Not Himself: As the result of an apparent curse, Thorn and Luna stop acting like goths and instead start acting like socialites. Dusk is utterly terrified.
• Not Me This Time: In Batman's episode, Batman goes to Arkham Asylum to confront the Man-Bat...but he's been in his cell the entire time. This causes the Caped Crusader to realize that the Mystery Gang is in a trap by whoever's masquerading as said Man-Bat.
• Off the Rails: The Flash episode has most of the events of the original series got changed by the Flash's presence.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • The New York Underground episode has Shaggy react like this when he finds out he's tricked to perform a poetry slam with Halsey by Scooby.
  • Shaggy when he goes on Jeopardy! in the Alex Trebek episode and realizes that not all of the categories are food related (as they had been in auditions).
• On One Condition: In "The Nightmare Ghost of Psychic U!", the titular university's founder made a will saying that, if it closes, the property goes to his nearest living relative.
• Once an Episode: Upon meeting the guest star for the episode, expect the Mystery Gang to say who said person is in unison. This gets into Overly Long Gag with Halsey's episode as she clarifies that Halsey is just a Stage Name and they repeat her introduction but also adding her real name into it.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Halsey's real name is only mentioned when she tells it to the Mystery Gang and they add it while repeating her introduction.
• Only Sane Man: For the Funky Phantom gang, Mudsy and April (the latter to a lesser extent). Mudsy is the only one of the Funky Phantom Crew to want to cooperate with Mystery Inc from the start and April does slightly less arguing with the gang than Skip and Augie and is the first to share one of their clues in the end).
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: In the first episode, when Scooby yells in the announcer's tent, Frank Welker's regular voice slips through.
• Our Minotaurs Are Different: A minotaur appears in the Wonder Woman episode.
• Our Werebeasts Are Different: The Monster of the Week in the Halsey episode is a weregator. According to legend, it is a man who turned into an alligator due to eating too much alligator-based dishes.
• Phrase Catcher: The other characters tend to call the gang "you kooky kids".
• Piranha Problem: In "The Lost Soles of Jungle River", Fred gets a piranha gnawing at his toe after dipping his feet into the Amazon river.
• Post-Stress Overeating: Scooby and Shaggy hide in the pantry to escape from Sia's doppleganger. When the others find them afterwards, they are chomping down on fruits out of fright.
• Psychic Powers: The basis of Whoopi's episode is that she wants to become a medium for a real. She actually does have some talent for it like being able to sense that Fred, Daphne and Velma were in danger of being frozen over.
• Puppy-Dog Eyes: In "Returning the Key Ring", Sean Astin tries to stop Shaggy and Scooby from walking away when things get spooky, but is having no success...until he breaks out "the sweet, sad eyes" as Shaggy puts it.
• Real After All: Episode 2 is notable for featuring real ghosts, and The Funky Phantom, even! Mystery Inc. insists otherwise though, believing it's really good special effects.
• Red Herring: There are many examples of this that drive the audience away from the real suspect:
  • In the Wonder Woman episode, a grumpy janitor is suspected of being the minotaur because he's unfriendly and snorts the same way the minotaur does. It's not him.
  • In the Penn & Teller episode, the demolition boss seems be be the culprit when he was not seen when the Ghost attacked his employee and shows to hate Penn & Teller for exposing how magicians do their tricks, but he never appeared again and was not the culprit.
  • In the Steve Urkel episode, we're initially led to believe the museum director is the Technomancer due to openly showing his dislike for him, as well as the fact they have the same voice actor. It's actually the janitor.
  • In "Movable Mystery" Big Pete, always disappeared when the Gargoyle shows up,he is just getting pastries offscreen.
  • Simone can sometimes show up sporadically in an episode as someone with an axe to grind against an establishment but she never ends up being the monster.
• Refuge in Audacity: In the first episode, Chris Paul dribbles a hot dog.
• Related in the Adaptation: Played with in "What A Night For A Dark Knight." In this show's continuity, Alfred Pennyworth is revealed to be an old family friend of the Blakes (Daphne's family), and was close enough to Daphne to the point of where she considers him an Honorary Uncle.
• Revisiting the Roots: This series returns the gang to their original designs and is done in the Limited Animation style that put them on the map. Even the theme song is adapted from the classic Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! theme.
• Retraux: Same as above, but also with designing all the other characters and guest stars in the same early 70s Iwao Takamoto/Alex Toth-influenced style ala the older shows, and even using many of Hanna-Barbera's classic Stock Sound Effects (even the original Mystery Machine driving sound effects), something many Warner-produced Scooby-Doo productions avoid doing.
• Rewatch Bonus:
  • In the Penn & Teller episode, Hugo Houser has a very familiar voice after viewers find out that Teller was the culprit.
  • Once you know who the culprit of the Steve Urkel episode actually is, it suddenly makes a lot of sense why the museum janitor frequently thanks Urkel for keeping her job secure early on; she isn't so much talking about her job as a janitor as she is talking about her scheme to smuggle gold out of the museum, and the rest of the museum staff is so busy reacting to Urkel's various accidents and disasters that it distracts them from said scheme. It also puts a blink-and-you-miss-it moment where she visibly struggles to get the (covered) garbage can she is pushing around moving in a new light; why would a simple garbage can be so heavy to push unless there was something much heavier than janitor supplies or trash in it?
• Rhymes on a Dime: Most of the dialogue in Halsey's episode is spoken in rhyme and involves poetry in some way.
• Running Gag:
  • In the Penn & Teller episode:
    Penn: Really, Teller? [*insert trick that Teller just did*]? Seen it a million times.
  • In the Steve Buscemi episode, he keeps meeting people who mistake him for the bad guys he portrays in movies.
• Same Content, Different Rating: The show is fairly light-hearted as your typical Scooby-Doo show, yet it carries a TV-PG rating, a first for the franchise. However, HBO Max lists the show's rating as TV-Y7. It's likely due to the fact that some of guest stars are from actors or characters from other media that isn't suitable for kids (eg Penn and Teller, Ricky Gervias) and likely made to attract older audiences as well.
• Sarcasm-Blind: In "What a Night, For a Dark Knight!", Shaggy sarcastically agrees to go to a "spooky abandoned department store in the middle of the night in one of the toughest towns, like, ever". Fred (who's driving at the moment) replies with "That’s the spirit, Shaggy. Let’s hit it!" and turns the wheel to the left to get to the store, much to Shaggy's annoyance.
  Shaggy: (frowning) One of these days, Scoob, I’m gonna have to teach Freddy the meaning of sarcasm!
  Scooby: Yeah! [Beat] What’s sarcasm?
• Schizo Tech: Despite being animated in the style of the original show, SD&GW is obviously set in the 21st-century—many of the characters (including the gang) are seen using electronics such as smartphones and tablet computers.
• Scooby-Dooby Doors: Inevitable, and when it's normally featured, it starts out normal, but gets crazier as it goes on, usually with the gang and guest-star(s) wearing random silly costumes.
  • In the first episode, it's done with underwater caverns.
  • Also done in the third episode with storage shelves.
  • And in the fifth episode with museum display cases.
  • Halsey's episode has them in the sewers underground.
  • Mark Hamill's episode has them in a Japanese restaurant where they constantly open and close the sliding doors as the pass.
  • Malcolm McDowell's episode uses time portals.
  • Morgen Freeman's episode uses jail cells. Lampshaded by Freeman who points out the impossibility of the gang and the monster entering one cell and coming out from another.
• "Scooby-Doo" Hoax: As expected from the Trope Namer, only with at least one real one with The Funky Phantom.
• Self-Deprecation: In "Too Many Dummies", Jeff Dunham says that Crazy Carl was once owned by the most evil ventriloquist who ever lived, at which point Walter turns and looks at him.
• Self-Parody: In the first episode, the formula of Scooby has become so cliché, that it actually starts with a random unmasking and the gang leaving in the middle of the You Meddling Kids-line.
• Sewer Gator:
  • The Monster of the Week in Halsey's episode, and it's a weregator to boot.
  • An actual sewer gator shows up as a one-off gag during the Scooby-Dooby Doors sequence in the Hex Girls episode.
• Sequel: The Sandy Duncan episode is, in a very direct Mythology Gag, an explicit sequel to the original Sandy Duncan guest appearance nearly forty real life years prior in The New Scooby-Doo Movies. The events of the earlier episode happened in the past, with the plot being a film studio remaking the movie that was the focus of her first appearance.
• Shout-Out: Now has its own page...
• Shown Their Work:
  • In "Elementary, My Dear Shaggy!", kippers are correctly depicted as smoked-orange herring cut in butterfly-fashion (in contrast to most kippers in cartoons which are drawn like regular fish).
  • The Allosaurus in "Attack of the Weird Al-losaurus!" has a small horn above each eye, which many cartoons (or at least older ones) tend to leave out.
  • The giant gorilla from "The Lost Mines of Mount Kilimanjaro!" correctly walks with its thumbs kept off the ground. Subverted, however, when its hands can form clenched fists for a Primal Chest-Pound, which real-life gorilla hands can't do.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: Ebb and Jeb in the second episode. One is burly and mustached, the other lanky and clean shaven. One believes in ghosts, while the other one doesn't. One wants to steal the civil war treasure and the other hopes to return it.
• Slasher Smile: The Fox monster.
• Smoke Out: The Knowledge-keeper in Halsey's episode tries to escape by using green smoke bombs...but after the smoke dissipates everyone can see her utterly failing in escaping.
• Snakes Are Sinister:
  • A cobra menaces Scooby and Shaggy in episode 3. It should be asked why a pet shop would even have a potentially deadly cobra.
  • A snake-man is the Monster of the Week in "The Lost Soles of Jungle River!".
• Spaghetti Kiss: Scooby and Shaggy have an accidental one in "Fear of the Fire Beast." They promptly fight over the spaghetti.
• Spiders Are Scary: In episode 3, Scooby and Shaggy accidentally knock a tarantula terrarium off a shelf and promptly freak out from having the spiders crawl over them.
• Spiritual Successor: To The New Scooby-Doo Movies and Scooby-Doo! Team-Up.
• Spooky Séance: The opening of Whoopi's episode has her trying to find a lost dog through seance...and she accidentally summons a nightmare ghost instead.
• Stalker without a Crush: Shaggy and Scooby's interactions with Mark Hammil come across this way. They have a picture of him from a private sky-diving trip he took, as well as photos that he'd thought were locked in his car along with giving excuses as to how he obtained them.
• Story-Breaker Power: In "One Minute Mysteries", The Flash showed that with his powers, he had what it took to lock up every last Monster of the Week that the Mystery Gang faced in a nanosecond, depriving the show of any drama. The rest of the gang outside of Shaggy and Scooby were exasperated by this after a while.
• Strong Family Resemblance:
  • In "The Nightmare Ghost of Psychic U" Headmaster Williams is the spitting image of the portrait of school founder Maximilian Fielding. It isn't a big surprise when the gangs research finds out that Williams is one of the three descendants of Fielding (presumably his grandson, given how Flavius, who looks to be a 20 years or so younger, is Fielding's great grandson).
  • In "The Last Inmate" Velma is revealed to have realized that the camera-woman was hiding something due to spotting her resemblance to the picture of the warden.
• Suddenly Fluent in Gibberish: Daphne apparently knows how to speak Cockney rhyming slang and mime. The latter is most likely a Mythology Gag to Be Cool, Scooby-Doo! (she became a mime in one episode).
• Suddenly Speaking: At the end of Penn & Teller's episode, Teller tells Penn and the gang why he pulled off the hoax of the week. But this isn't really so sudden, as some have heard Teller speak before, usually with his hand covering his mouth.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Averted in "Quit Clowning!" While Kenan Thompson does have a former acting partner who he's long since overshadowed (their recent reconciliation aside), Simone is a different gender and race than Kel Mitchell, likely to avoid such comparisons.
• Swamp Monster: "Revenge of the Swamp Monster!" features one as the Villain of the Week, but like many monsters turns out to be a civilian in a disguise.
• Telepathic Sprinklers: Happens a couple of times, caused by activating a fire alarm pull station...
  • In "Now You Sia, Now You Don't", Sia's doppelgänger ghost pulls the fire alarm in a jewelry store, causing all the fire sprinklers to activate in order to slow down the gang.
  • In "The Crown Jewel of Boxing" when the evil Robot is wreaking havoc in the new boxing museum, Velma decides to short it out by pulling the fire alarm, setting off all the sprinklers that cause the robot to short-circuit. (You'd think Velma would know that pulling a false fire alarm is a serious offense, though...)
• Terror-dactyl: A pterosaur, resembling a Pteranodon with a serrated bill, serves as the Monster of the Week in the Billy Dee Williams episode. Its inaccuracies are justified by not being a real pterosaur.
• This Is Unforgivable!: This is Sia's reaction when she finds out that the culprit, her trainer and chef, has been sneaking bacon into her home. She can forgive jewel robbery and being framed for a crime she didn't commit, but certainly not betraying her vegan household.
• Throw the Dog a Bone:
  • Simone in Quit Clowning doesn't get much respect as a comedian, can't get Kenan to let her work with him and inadvertently Spoils a trap while trying to do a clown routine but at the end of the episode Gets to pie the culprit in the face and gets complimented for the comedic timing.
  • This trope is also the motive of Steve Buscemi's Nana in "Fear of the Fire Beast". She had enough of everybody thinking Steve was the villains he played in his movies, so she came up with the Fire Monster of Mount Etna to show everyone he was actually a hero.
  • In "Scooby on Ice!" Simone is banned from taking part in the International Ice Games dressed up as a clown until Johann Stieber, the official who was enforcing the rule, turns out to be the culprit and is arrested.
• Took a Level in Badass: Wonder Woman gives Daphne and Velma warrior training. Eventually, she is convinced to give the training to Fred, Shaggy, and Scooby too. They put their skills to good use against the minotaur.
• Top-Heavy Guy: Just like Impossible Hourglass Figure above, Fred gets shades of this due to being based on his original design.
• Universal Group Reaction: "I Put a Hex on You", the Hex Girls episode, had the entire audience react in surprise to the identity of the culprit behind the ghost of "Esther Moonkiller" as Xander, the President of the Hex Girl's Fan Club. The audience even demanded in unison to know her motivations.
• Unlucky Childhood Friend: Maybe not in a romantic sense but in "Quit Clowning" Simone clearly feels left behind by Kenan since High School Drama Club and wants to still be part of his act.
• The Unsmile: Thorn pulls one while 'cursed'. It scares Daphne.
• Vocal Evolution: It's been a good 20 years since Jaleel White last played Steve Urkel, so naturally his famous nerd voice sounds much deeper and noticeably aged in his guest appearance.
• We Used to Be Friends: The villain of the Hex Girls' second episode is a friend of theirs who they used to make music with, but she had a fear of crowds so bad it brought on hives. So the Girls dumped her, and her jealousy at their success drives her mad.
• What Are Records?: In "The Internet on Haunted House Hill!", when Velma says the titular house is haunted by the ghost of a guy who used to run a newspaper, Scooby asks what newspapers are.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: In "The 7th Inning Scare," the gang and Macklemore go to a baseball collectible store run by an old man. After a while, the monster seemingly gets the old man and soon enough, the store gets blown up. It's never revealed what happened to the old store owner and whether or not he even survived the explosion.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Used in the Wonder Woman episode - the villain there is a minotaur, which Wonder Woman believes is a real monster and is thus intent on hunting down and destroying. The Mystery Inc gang, who suspect the minotaur is just a person in a mask, continually have to stop her.
• Wolf Man: The Monster of the Week in Christian Slater's episode.
• Writers Cannot Do Math: Simone went to high school with both Kenan Thompson and Christian Slater, who at the time of the first season were 41 and 50 respectively, and Simone appears to be in her 20s.
• You Meddling Kids: Coupled with whoever is accompanying them for the episode. Lampshaded by Ricky Gervais when he gets the villain to say this very line. In the George Takei episode, Velma lampshades it when somebody says the line before the unmasking. Morgan Freeman says the line himself in place of the culprits, who don't mind because his narration is just that cool.

---