I'm not sure how common of knowledge this is to Scooby fans, since it's rarely talked about, but one thing that has always bothered me a ton is that there's quite a bit of debate around the order of many episodes of Scooby-Doo. Certain DVDs and other sources list episodes in one order, yet other sources claim a slightly different order. In this post, I will highlight all the inconsistencies in episode order within the Scooby-Doo franchise. Perhaps the most controversial of the episodes with uncertain order. Many people believe "A Clue for Scooby-Doo is the second episode of the series, due to the different title card like the first episode had. However, "Hassle in the Castle" is listed as the second episode on several DVD sets. While it is likely "A Clue for Scooby-Doo" was indeed produced first, if I had to guess, "Hassle in the Castle" most likely aired second while "A Clue for Scooby-Doo" aired third, which would explain the confusion. Shows often don't air in the order they are produced in if the show doesn't have any overarching plotline from episode to episode. I want to make clear that "Hassle" being second and "Clue" being third is just my own theory. I have no official confirmation to back this up. "Spooky Space Kook" and "Go Away Ghost Ship" are two more episodes with uncertain order. Some people believe "Go Away Ghost Ship" aired fourteenth, while others believe "Spooky Space Kook" was the fourteenth. There's also no consistency from the DVD sets either...some sets list "Space Kook" as fourteenth while others list "Ghost Ship" as fourteenth. Personally, I believe "Space Kook" is fourteenth and "Ghost Ship" is fifteenth, just because it's listed that way on the original Where Are You DVD set. The twentieth and twenty-first episode are also highly debated in the Scooby franchise. Some say "Jeepers It's the Creeper" is episode 20, others believe "Scooby's Night with a Frozen Fright" is episode 20. Again, I go with the original DVD set, which lists "Creeper" as episode 20 and "Frozen Fright" as episode 21. The New Scooby-Doo Movies is all in the correct order. There's nothing really debated with that series, so let's move on to The Scooby-Doo Show. "The Creepy Heap from the Deep" is a very odd one, because it's not two episodes switched around. "The Creepy Heap from the Deep" is said to be either episode 20 or 24. It's a very random misconception which I'm not sure how it came about, as it's not on any idea. I guess personally, more places seem to say it's episode 20 than 24, so that's my belief. Amazon and Boomerang list it as episode 20, so I trust that. iTunes lists it as episode 24...kind of...they list the airdate as being after "Creepy Cruise," but it and "Creepy Cruise" are switched around creating more confusion. I choose to trust the other two sources, as iTunes's order seems really confused, given they list "Creepy Heap from the Deep" as airing on October 29, 1977 and "Creepy Cruise" as airing October 22, but have those episodes switched around. (I have no idea if I'm making any sense, so if you're confused about the iTunes explanation, look at the page and you'll see what I mean). iTunes also completely spoils "The Curse of the Viking Lake" and has an incorrect description for "Hang in There, Scooby-Doo" about the gang meeting dinosaurs and cavemen. Skipping over the 1979 Scrappy series which has no issues, we now get to The Richie Rich / Scooby-Doo Hour, The Scooby and Scrappy-Doo Puppy Hour, and The New Scooby and Scrappy-Doo Show. You may as well just give up trying to decipher the order of this, because every site lists every short in in a different order. For consistency, I go with Amazon and Boomerang's order for everything except episodes 1-21. For those episodes, I go by The Richie Rich / Scooby-Doo Hour Volume 1 DVD. The New Scooby-Doo Mysteries is pretty much fine, with the exception of the shorts "The Dooby Dooby Doo Ado" and "Showboat Scooby" being switched around. I personally choose to go by Amazon and Boomerang's order, which has "Dooby" first and "Showboat" next. There isn't really too much "debate" among the fandom with this series, more of just an interesting note to point out. For some reason, Boomerang lists these episodes in kind of an odd order on their streaming service, and I also remember they always aired them in this order on the television network as well in reruns. Just quick skimming through this because their order is so convoluted, they first aired episodes 1 and 2, then jumped to episodes 5 and 6, went back to episode 4, then jumped to 8, went back to 7, jumped to 10, went back to 9, went way back to 3, then finally aired the final three in order, episodes 11, 12, and 13. I just thought that was interesting enough to note here. Now we're getting back into some understandable simple episode switches! "The Schnook Who Took My Comic Book" and "Wanted Cheddar Alive" are the first ones which are commonly debated from A Pup Named Scooby-Doo. Some people believe "Schnook" is episode 3, others think "Cheddar" is episode 3. The Volume 1 DVD and the Season 1 DVD disagree on this matter. I'm going by the season sets again for this one, which says "Cheddar" is episode 3 and "Schnook" is episode 4. Another day, another uncertain order. "Snow Place Like Home" and "Now Museum, Now You Don't" are both believed to be episode 7, depending on who you ask. Volume 2 lists them one way, and the Complete Season 1 DVD set lists them another. Personally, I go with the season set again here, which lists "Snow" as episode 7 and "Museum" as episode 8. There are a lot of uncertainties in A Pup Named Scooby-Doo, but there's luckily no confusion within season 2, so we jump right to season 3. "Wrestle Maniacs" is listed as episode 24 on the volume 6 DVD, while "Horror of the Haunted Hairpiece" is listed episode 24 on the season set. Again, I go with the season set on this one. The end of A Pup Named Scooby-Doo is especially befuddling. "The Were-Doo of Doo Manor" is listed as the 26th episode on the season set (albeit incorrectly as "The Weredog of Doo Manor," while volume 7 lists it as episode 27. I've even seen some sites list it as the series finale, episode 30. This creates more confusion with "Mayhem of the Moving Mollusk," which is episode 26 on the volume 7 set, but the series finale on the season set. To make things more confusing, the three shorts ("Catcher on the Sly," "The Ghost of Mrs. Shusham," and "The Wrath of Waitro") also get wrapped up in this confusion, with volume 7 listing those three episodes as the last of the series. At risk of sounding inconsistent, those three shorts being the last of the series make sense to me, so I choose to go with the volume order on this one: "Mollusk" 26th, "Were-Doo" 27th, and the shorts as 28th, 29th, and 30th. In What's New, Scooby-Doo?, the only confusion is between episode 2, thought to be both "Space Ape at the Cape" and "3-D Struction" depending on who you ask. Neither the season set nor volume sets, nor any official source that I know of, list "3-D Struction" as episode 2, so "Space Ape at the Cape" is episode 2 in my mind, whereas "3-D Struction" is episode 3. C'mon, it even has 3 in the title lol! Nothing is switched around in Get A Clue or SDMI. Be Cool doesn't have any ordering issues per se, but in worry of this becoming an issue down the line all the aforementioned episodes have, the two shorts "Pizza O'Possum's" and "The Curse of Half-Beard's Booty" technically did air last in pretty much all countries. Despite this, the two-part "Professor Huh?" is the clear finale that wraps up the series, whereas the two shorts do not do this at all. What specifically happened here is that these two shorts were made as a "test run" for a third season that didn't end up being made. The head writer, Jon Colton Barry, was not involved in the writing of these shorts. In fact, he's publicly said both of these shorts are too off-model, completely disowning "Pizza O'Possum's" for the poor representation of video game addiction in the episode. I think, despite the fact that we know the order it aired in, these shorts can get an exception as they should have clearly been placed 50th, since it has been confirmed by the head writer that "Professor Huh?" was the intended finale. Let's give a warm welcome to our latest addition to the "confused order" club, which is "Space Station Scooby"! With the reveal of the back cover of the season 1 DVD, "Space Station Scooby" was listed as episode 14, despite being listed on all streaming services as episode 26 and airing as episode 26. Would "The High School Wolfman's Musical Lament!" have been a better finale, like it's listed on the set? Yeah, IMO it would have, given the references to past villains. But with this one, it's not really a "clear" finale. It's an ideal one, but it doesn't need to be last, so I'd say the airing order stands here. I can totally see the order of this one becoming another one where people get confused down the line due to the inconsistency, so that's why I'm adding it to this post here and now, on the day it was announced so there can be no confusion lol.
Hope you enjoyed this fun little post! This makes me wish there was some sort of official guide that could clear up all these ordering issues, but sadly, there is not. There is the two-part Scooby-Doo Character Reference Guide written by Joe Locicero, published in 1995, that lists orders for all these episodes. However, they also put some episodes that no one was confused on the order in a different order than is thought by the general fandom, so I wouldn't really count this as an official, all-knowing source since it confuses things even further that no one had been confused about before. Maybe someday we'll get some official confirmation of the order, but I'd say as the years go on, that chance gets less likely. I think studio records will continue to get confused (as we see now with the Guess Who season 1 DVD), and it will get harder and harder to figure out the orders. I'd say our only chance is if someone has images of old TV Guides that list episode names for each of these weeks we're confused about, but that's a bit slim. Fingers crossed that maybe we'll find information to make all this confusion will become confusing as the years go on!
25 Comments
Jayden
1/16/2021 02:04:20 am
This was so much fun to read through!
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1/16/2021 04:58:18 pm
I'm so glad! :) I actually stayed up until midnight last night writing this, which I must say turned out to be a great way to spend a Friday night haha.
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Jayden
1/28/2021 01:05:50 am
I enjoy reading these since I know you put effort into them. Good job!
Becker
1/16/2021 05:16:34 am
I thought TSDS season 3 and especially season 1 also have order issues.
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1/16/2021 04:57:29 pm
I knew about unofficial sources having confusion about the order of season 1, but I didn't think any official sources did, so I didn't include it. However, looking at iTunes, it looks like episodes 15 and 16 are switched around on there! The order issues never end haha.
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John Locke
1/16/2021 01:07:41 pm
This is a long and complex problem not helped by, errors, lack of resources to judge and false information being propagated through the net. Also some releases have gone by "production order" not "Release order" (Muppet Show season 1 springs to mind, they didn't have the '1st episode' till I think like episode 5).
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1/16/2021 04:53:11 pm
You'd think that Internet would make things easier, but it's honestly just made it harder because people are able to put false orders out there, and streaming services differing in the way episodes are ordered makes things even more confusing. Oh boy, I'm not sure I even want to look into how bad The Prisoner is lol. You bring up a good point about the fact that TV guide listings may not even survive at this point. With all the acquisitions of properties by various companies, it makes us not even really able to trust WB to get the order right (as demonstrated by the DVD sets getting the orders different). That's why I don't fully trust that 1995 guide I mentioned in the post.
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John Locke
1/16/2021 05:52:47 pm
Yea the internet is a great source of information but it also needs sources, Overall I think it's really just down to someone caring enough to do the legwork and getting the access, my thought is as long as we get the complete series it's not as bad. Minus the odd blip from like the X-men animated series releases where I was scrambling from volume to volume to find what came next in the "internet order" some of which were actually produced for season 5 but plotwise fit in season 3 and others just released randomly onto dvd sets. 1/16/2021 06:36:21 pm
I'd honestly love to clear this up if I could, even if it meant doing a lot of legwork. I wouldn't really know where to start though, since there are so many conflicting official sources. Saved By The Bell had a similar to thing to what you were talking about with the season 3 vs. season 5 issue. SBTB had a few episodes where two episodes obviously fit in season 1 because the actors looked so much younger than they were by the end of the series, but for some reason, these episodes were aired as season 5 (or season 4, depending on the source you find). Just goes to show that many series have this issue of confused episode order and it's not just Scooby.
John Lock
1/17/2021 01:27:12 am
It's crazy when these things happen, the easiest way to tell would probably see if you can find the production order, but that does not tell the complete story, as production order and airing order can differ (see my point about Muppet Show, the 5th episode on season 1 was meant to be the first as it had them getting the theater and meeting the characters) Some shows start with a pilot, but that may not even be the first episode aired (Firefly), so I guess the place to start would be figure if you want to go for Production order or Airing order, as both can be different, see X-men and Saved by the Bell. 1/17/2021 10:34:12 am
Thank you! I'll have to try to look into all this stuff when I get a chance :)
Matt
1/16/2021 01:16:20 pm
Really enjoyed reading through these. I do not know about the airing order but I definitely believe A Clue was made before Hassle because of the intro. One thing that I noticed was my season 1 dvd set of A Pup actually has Schnook before Cheddar and Museum before Snow so that is probably my opinion there. But at the same time I’m not sure I can even trust the dvds not to have errors in the episode order
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1/16/2021 04:50:29 pm
Hmm...maybe I got that switched around with the season sets for Pup. It gets super confusing with all the different orders on different releases haha. It's kinda sad we can't even trust the DVDs for the right order.
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Scoob16
1/16/2021 03:28:15 pm
I knew about most of these switches, but the one that really caught my eye was the 13 Ghosts because I'm pretty sure that's the order they aired the episodes in my country, Greece, back in 2009! And I always found it weird...
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1/16/2021 04:49:30 pm
Crazy to know they aired that way in Greece too! I first saw these back in 2009 as well on Boomerang in the US, which is what I was going off of when I said that the Boomerang TV network aired them in that order too.
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Fred’s Ascot
1/17/2021 05:37:51 am
Hey! Please check your Twitter DM :)
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Shadowscooby
1/17/2021 11:54:15 am
Hey guys speaking about episodes order, I don’t know if you guys are familiar with the Scooby Doo we love you website that got taken down. That website had Scooby doo stuff but not as much as this site does. A clue for Scooby doo was before hassle in the castle. Go away space ship was before Spooky space kook. Jeepers it’s the Creeped was before Scooby’s night with a frozen fright. That’s Scooby doo where are you. The Scooby doo show creepy heap from the deep was last of season 2. 13 ghosts were in correct order. A pup named Scooby doo Wanted cheddar alive snow place like home is before now museum now you don’t. Horrors of the haunted hair piece was before wrestle maniacs. Were doo of doo manor was before mayhem of the moving mollusk. What’s new Scooby doo 3 d struction was before Space ape at the cape. E scream was before reef grief but we now the reef grief came before. As for pizza o possums and half beards booty I say those come before Professor huh because Professor huh was the series finale. Space station Scooby we can all agree the is the season 1 finale.
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1/17/2021 05:31:58 pm
I'm very familiar with Scooby-Doo, We Love You, and I loved that site so much! It's still archived on the Internet, but yeah, sadly it's been taken down by the owner. I'm not really sure where or how they got their information. Interesting about them placing Reef Grief before E-Scream, I didn't remember that they'd done that.
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Justin
1/17/2021 12:01:37 pm
To be honest I think Mayhem of the moving mollusk is the Pup named Scooby doo season finale, because in that episode the gang caught a real famous monster and started to become famous.
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1/17/2021 05:32:34 pm
That's a really interesting theory that I hadn't thought of!
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sdf
1/17/2021 02:36:14 pm
This is so interesting. Thank you for your work
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Shadowscooby
1/18/2021 11:32:59 am
Speaking of episode order, the Alex Trebek episode I know is was to be 46 but they aired it early because of his passing, I still consider that episode 41 because I watched it before the new episodes. As for Jason Sudeikis on that German site it was right under Sandy Duncan so I agree with that episode being 40.
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1/18/2021 09:48:49 pm
Yeah, I didn't include that one just because the order is pretty uncertain right now given Jason Sudeikis hasn't even aired in the US yet, nor has the other episodes in between that and "Total Jeopardy!".
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