We briefly interrupt our Laff-A-Lympics theme for an announcement about wave 2 of the Jada Toys figures. Some new images of Scooby-Doo, the Sea Beast, and Space Kook figures were unveiled at WonderCon over the weekend. Scooby's figure is shown holding a sandwich, and an unmasked version of the Space Kook was shown for the first time. I've included a photo of the Sea Beast here, although just a slightly different angle of the image we already got last summer. Thanks Existingperson and Juan for the info!
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 Longtime readers of the blog know I'm a huge advocate for unreleased episodes being put out on physical media. I used to get really excited about any new DVD compilations to see if we'd get any new episodes. After the pandemic, Warner Brothers has completely fallen off with putting out any new DVDs. Our last compilation set was the 50 Cartoon Collection in 2019. That's why I'm so excited that they're finally releasing the complete series of Laff-A-Lympics! My first exposure to the series was owning the four VHS tapes released in 1996. For those that are unaware, Hanna-Barbera released one VHS tape for each of the three teams, plus one generic one titled "Heavens to Hilarity." Each VHS had two episodes. I only saw the eight episodes on the VHS until two volumes came out in 2010. I eventually saw season 2 on Boomerang, although I'm pretty sure it was around 2012 when the Spooky Games DVD came out. It's kinda wild to think I saw half of Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated before I ever saw all of Laff-A-Lympics! Given it's been 14 years since the last set, I'm so excited they've finally released the rest of the series! In celebration of the DVD coming out tomorrow, I wanted to do a special project to celebrate. If you like sports stats, this post is definitely for you lol. This is basically a post highlighting all the basic team stats for the series. To start, I wanted to calculate how many times each team won the Laff-A-Lympics! Here's how it breaks down: Scooby Doobies - 14 Yogi Yahooeys - 7 Really Rottens - 2 Tie between all three teams - 1 Oh, but we're not done there! Let's break it down even further to see how many times each team won a competition. The Scooby Doobies won almost double the amount of events of any other team. Scooby Doobies - 46 Really Rottens - 29 Yogi Yahooeys - 28 Scoobies and Yogis - 6 Scoobies and Rottens - 2 There was also that one episode ("Africa and San Francisco") where the judges were apparently feeling a mean streak and disqualified every team lol. That event is not counted here, hence the odd number of events. Finally, let's take a look at how many events each team member participated in. It's a four-way-tie for the player in the most events! Yogi, Captain Caveman, Grape Ape and Daisy Mayhem were all in 19 events over the course of the series. Mr. Jinks and Blabber from the Yogi Yahooeys only participated in three events, which is the least number of events of any member. Yogi Bear - 19 Captain Caveman - 19 Grape Ape - 19 Daisy Mayhem - 19 The Great Fondoo - 18 Dinky Dalton - 18 Dynomutt - 17 Mumbly - 17 Blue Falcon - 16 Dread Baron - 16 Scooby-Doo - 15 Doggie Daddy - 15 Dirty Dalton - 15 Orful Octopus - 15 Tinker - 14 Shaggy - 14 Quick Draw McGraw - 14 Babu - 14 Taffy Dare - 14 Wally Gator - 13 Scooby-Dum - 13 Huckleberry Hound - 12 Speed Buggy - 11 Magic Rabbit - 11 Hokey Wolf - 10 Dee Dee Skyes - 10 Brenda Chance - 9 Mr. Creepley - 9 Dastardly Dalton - 8 Sooey Pig - 8 Boo Boo - 7 Yakky Doodle - 7 Cindy Bear - 6 Augie Doggie - 6 Mrs. Creepley - 6 Pixie - 5 Snooper - 4 Dixie - 4 Hong Kong Phooey - 4 Junior Creepley - 4 Mr. Jinks - 3 Blabber - 3 This took a while to calculate out, although thankfully the spreadsheet from this 2021 collaborative project I did made it a lot easier than it could have been! I hope you enjoyed checking out these stats. This is our last Laff-A-Lympics themed post for the week (because of the way the release fell, I stacked all the posts at the beginning of this week). However, there's still a lot of other miscellaneous content to look forward to this week! I'll be making a post on other topics every day for the rest of the week. Don't forget to pick up your copy of Scooby-Doo! Laff-a-Lympics: The Complete Series, which is out today!   Over the course of the Laff-A-Lympics, there are 48 different event locations. For today's fun fact, I took the time to calculate out how many competitions took place on each continent. Since many of the competitions take place in the US, I would have expected North America to have had the most competitions! However, calculating it out, Europe is the continent that had the most competitions. What's even more interesting is that it essentially comes down to a technicality. Russia is both in Europe and Asia. It's never said which part of Russia the events take place in, so I double-counted Asia and Europe. South America has a surprisingly low number of competitions. The continent was only visited one time during the series. Here's the full rundown of how many times each continent is visited: Europe - 14 North America - 13 (worth noting that 10 of these are in the US!) Asia - 10 Africa - 4 Australia/Oceania - 3 South America - 1 If you enjoyed this stats-based fun fact, you're in luck! To celebrate the release of Scooby's All-Star Laff-A-Lympics: The Complete Series tomorrow, I'll be posting a special project I've been working on over the last couple weeks! With a series as formulaic as Laff-A-Lympics, it was hard to think of a topic for an article. I thought it would be fun to do a more non-traditional post providing basic stats for each team, including how many Laff-A-Lympics competitions were won by each team, how many events each team won, and a character breakdown of how many events each character participated in throughout the series. Objectively it's not a huge amount of info, but it took a while to calculate out, so I'm excited to share the post with you tomorrow!   Kicking off our Laff-A-Lympics Week (and Other Random Content) is our first team poll for this series! Not only will we be doing the three teams, but we'll also be doing an announcers poll featuring Snagglepuss, Mildew, the unseen announcer voice (Don Messick), and all of the guest commentators. Obviously, since this is a recurring characters poll series, Scooby and Shaggy don't count for this poll. I was expecting the results for the Mystery Incorporated poll to be pretty close! However, Sheriff Stone easily pulls off the win for last week. He received nearly double the votes of any other option here. Here are the full results: Who is your favorite recurring character from Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated? Sheriff Stone - 18 Professor Pericles - 10 Cassidy Williams - 6 Mr. E - 6 Janet Nettles - 3 Marcie - 3 Harlan Ellison - 3 Alice May - 2 Mayor Jones - 2 Skipper Shelton - 2 Charles Wheatlesby ("Cachinga") - 2 Rick Spartan - 1 H.P. Hatecraft - 1 Brenda - 1 Colton Rogers - 1 Nova - 1 0 votes: Brad Chiles, Judy Reeves, George Avocados, Nan Blake, Barty Blake, Angie Dinkley, Dale Dinkley, Paula Rogers, The Freak, Dylan, Chen, Ethan, Gary, Natasha Fenk, Mary Anne Gleardon, Evil Entity, Ed Machine, Horatio Kharon, Cold Open Family, Ernesto and Francilee Jackson   When it comes to new content, the Scooby franchise has been in a dry spell for what feels like forever. It's so exciting that we're finally getting a brand new series set that was previously unreleased! To celebrate the release of Scooby's All-Star Laff a Lympics: The Complete Series Blu-Ray on Tuesday, I wanted to do something speciaL
Starting this Sunday, we'll be celebrating Scooby's All-Star Laff a Lympics Week on the blog! I have a number of fun things planned throughout the week. This Sunday's poll will be Laff a Lympics themed, to go along with our ongoing recurring characters poll series. Monday's fun fact will also be Laff a Lympics themed, and I have a special post planned to celebrate the Blu-Ray release on Tuesday. As of currently, I only have those three posts planned for Laff a Lympics. However, I have posts on other topics planned for every day of this week! I've got our usual monthly article I'll be sharing, as well as a couple of special bonus polls scattered throughout the week. There were a lot of random posts I'd been wanting to make for a while related to our poll series, so this week seemed like a great week to do them lol. Laff a Lympics isn't exactly a series ripe with topics to talk about, but hopefully you all enjoy our Laff a Lympics/hodgepodge of misc. content week coming up, haha!  The 2020s have thus far been surprisingly light for Scooby-Doo content. Throughout this lighter period, one of the pieces of media that I've considered to be underrated gems are the few young adult novels we've gotten! The Daphne & Velma series are a standout piece of media from this decade, in my opinion. Especially given the television series at the time, Scooby-Doo and Guess Who?, had more limited characterizations, I thought it was really cool to see the franchise adapted specifically for a young adult audience. I was honored to have a conversation with Morgan Baden, the writer of books 2 and 3 from the Daphne & Velma series, over email! She shared so much cool info about her writing process for The Dark Deception and Buried Secrets, as well as her memories of growing up with Scooby and other mystery books. You can read our conversation below: ScoobySnax.com: You’ve mentioned in other interviews that you grew up watching Scooby-Doo. Did you have a favorite episode or movie? If not, were there any Scooby series you remember watching frequently? Morgan Baden: I’m a child of the 80s, so while the original “Scooby-Doo, Where are You” cartoon was old at the time, its reruns were on TV pretty regularly. My sisters and I (and eventually our baby brother) loved them! I still remember entire scenes from those episodes. I credit those original Scooby-Doo episodes with installing in me a lifelong love of spooky stories! ScoobySnax.com: You’ve mentioned in other interviews that Veronica Mars and The Babysitters Club were big inspirations for the series. Were there any other detective/mystery book series or TV shows you took inspiration from when writing the series? Morgan Baden: To me, there’s no greater story premise than a group of friends trying to solve a mystery. R.L. Stine’s Fear Street series was always bouncing around in my head when I was writing Daphne & Velma. Sweet Valley High’s Super Thrillers spin-off, too! But I think “Veronica Mars” is the closest in terms of tone and vibe for sure. Which reminds me, I’m due for a rewatch… ScoobySnax.com: The first book in the series was written by a different author, Josephine Ruby. Did you find that continuing a series started by another author made it easier or more difficult than if you would have written the full series on your own? Morgan Baden: I used to ghostwrite, so I’ve been trained on how to mimic voice while also infusing my own wherever possible, and on how to pull at threads that were started by other writers. That experience was really helpful when writing books 2 and 3 in this trilogy. Josephine Ruby did an excellent job setting up the plot and establishing the characters while also leaving tons of room for me to expand! ScoobySnax.com: Which of the two books was your favorite to write, and why? Morgan Baden: Each of them was satisfying in different ways! With The Dark Deception, I got to build on decisions made in the first book while setting up some key moments that needed to pay off in the final book. Operating in that middle space is fun! For book 3, Buried Secrets, I wanted to introduce more characters and, with them, more tensions. Bringing a movie production to Crystal Cove and dissecting what kinds of drama – pun intended – would accompany it was a blast. I really enjoyed building out the tension and drama between all the characters. Especially Velma and Fred! ScoobySnax.com: I love how the series was able to include Easter Eggs to past Scooby content! When adding in Easter Eggs, did you try to reference aspects that had personal significance to you, or did you lean more towards references that would best serve the story? Morgan Baden: A little of both! When writing in a world that’s already so well known and so beloved, you have to be careful. You want to balance all the elements that fans already know and love about the characters while also staying true to your own ideas and interests. ScoobySnax.com: I You did an excellent job creating a darker atmosphere in Buried Secrets! Did you find it natural to make the series darker, or did it require experimentation with tone and atmosphere? Morgan Baden: The stakes needed to be higher in Buried Secrets, and my editor encouraged me to go darker. Once I got that green light, I didn’t look back. If I ever get the chance to continue the series, I’ll go even deeper and darker and keep raising those stakes. ScoobySnax.com: I Because this series is written for a teenage audience, the series is able to explore more mature character arcs that we don’t see in the original series. Which character arc was your favorite to explore? Morgan Baden: Because the characters are teens, we wanted to make sure the relationships reflected real things teens go through: family stuff, friendship changes, and of course, some romance. I loved getting to explore all three of those for different reasons. Digging into the family dynamics for each character was exciting and helped make Daphne and Velma, and even Shaggy, more real; more grounded. Romance is always fun for me, so exploring what a Velma-Fred relationship might look like had me grinning as I wrote. But above all, the friendship between Daphne and Velma themselves was probably the most satisfying. Teen girls are complicated; there are so many layers to those friendships, especially when you have as much history as those two characters do. ScoobySnax.com: I really enjoyed how the series explored coming-of-age topics for a young adult audience. What message(s) do you most hope that readers will take away from Daphne and Velma’s lives in this series? Morgan Baden: Being a teenager has gotten more and more challenging for each generation as the world around us changes so significantly. I hope readers see themselves in these characters and also see the empathy and admiration I hold for them. ScoobySnax.com: What was your favorite memory, and what was the biggest challenge of creating this series? Morgan Baden: I wrote Buried Secrets at the height of the COVID pandemic. I had no childcare – in my region of the U.S., daycares and schools were virtual for months and months – so my husband and I swapped hours throughout the day to try and get our work done. It was exhausting. The world was dark and scary and stressful, but writing this book was fun and energizing and hopeful. I can’t think of my experience writing these books without also thinking of how challenging those days were, and how lucky I was to be able to escape into them. ScoobySnax.com: What memorable responses or feedback have you received about the series? Morgan Baden: The Dark Deception came out a few months after the COVID pandemic hit the U.S., and as most readers know, the pandemic really hurt the publishing industry. Buried Secrets was then delayed for quite some time due to industry turmoil, and then eventually released only as an ebook. So it’s safe to say this trilogy hit a lot of roadblocks. Despite them, though, readers continue to find the books and constantly reach out to me about them. It’s been amazing. The Scooby community is so passionate and eager and helpful and hungry for more, and I have absolutely loved getting to know so many of you all through these books. I’m grateful for every DM, every email, and every review! ScoobySnax.com: Are there any current projects (or books you’ve worked on since publishing Daphne & Velma) that you’d like to share about? Morgan Baden: If you like the four-friends-rallying-around-a-project concept, you all might enjoy my new middle grade series! Famous Anonymous was just released in September 2025, and it features two sets of middle school siblings who accidentally become famous on social media…only they’re in costumes in their videos, so no one in real life knows it’s them. They have to navigate what it means to be secretly famous, and how that impacts their friendships and their lives. The sequel, Famous Anonymous: Undercover Summer, comes out this July, wherever you buy books! To conclude our interview, I wanted to share a couple of cool pictures Morgan shared with me! The first picture features Morgan's copies of the Daphne & Velma series. Although the third book was never in paperback due to printing issues, Morgan was able to get a custom copy printed from her ebook!   That wraps up my interview with Morgan! I want to give a huge thank you to her for taking time out of her busy schedule to do this interview. It was so fun getting to read her answers, and learn more about her experience writing these books. Hope you all enjoyed the interview!
 Today marks 600 weeks that I've been posting weekly Scooby fun facts on here! It's hard to believe it's been that long, but I still have so much fun coming up with these every week.
To celebrate this milestone, this week's fun fact is contributed by a very special guest writer. Morgan Baden, the author of the last two Daphne & Velma novels, was kind enough to share a fun fact about a surprising roadblock she encountered just as she was about to finish the final novel in the trilogy. Fun fact: my husband accidentally spilled water on my laptop just as I was writing the final chapter of Buried Secrets! It totally fried and ultimately died. Sob! I was on deadline and ended up finishing the book on my husband’s desktop, with its ancient keyboard that he’s used for decades. (Literally. Letters are peeling off.) Because we have a good automatic backup system, I didn’t lose much of my work, but it was enough to be stressful. Luckily, I turned in the book on time…and got a new laptop a few days later. A big thank you to Morgan for contributing this week's fun fact to celebrate 600 weeks. I'm excited to share that Morgan and I did a full interview, which will be posted on the blog very soon! Be sure to check back this Friday for the rest of our conversation about the Daphne & Velma novels!  Ted Nichols, who composed much of the score for Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?, has sadly passed away at 97. Nichols also conducted, composed and arranged music for other iconic Hanna-Barbera cartoons such as The Flintstones and Josie and the Pussycats. His music was used throughout the Scooby-Doo franchise through The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo.
Nichols was passionate about music throughout his entire life. He began playing the violin when he was 10. He played in the U.S. Navy Band after being enlisted in 1946. Later, he became commanding officer of the U.S. Air Force's Bandsman Training School. He held a wide variety of music-related jobs after leaving the armed forces. After graduating college with a degree in music, Nichols directed youth symphonies and college bands. He'd also go on to sing with the Dapper Dans of Disneyland in the late 1950s. When he got a job as a minister of music for a church, he met William Hanna, and the rest is history. Nichols died from a long battle with Alzheimer's. He passed away in his home in Auburn, Washington on January 9. However, the announcement from The Hollywood Reporter just came yesterday. Thanks to Scoobies for sharing the news!  We've got a super long list for this week's poll! To keep it at a manageable level, I only included characters that had significant speaking roles (more than a few lines) in more than one episode. Characters that made cameos or are shown in flashbacks are not included here.
Before revealing the results, I wanted to share an announcement. Tomorrow will mark 600 weeks of posting fun facts! In typical fashion, I've got something special planned to celebrate! Tomorrow's fun fact will be written by someone who was worked on a Scooby project. Because they will be writing it, tomorrow's fun fact will likely be posted much later than usual. It may be towards evening CST before it's up. Hope you're excited for tomorrow's fun fact! I know I am...for once, even I don't know what cool thing I'm going to be learning on here tomorrow, lol! Last week was super close between Robi, Uncle Albert and Phibes. Each option was only one vote apart! Robi barely pulls off the win for this series. Who is your favorite recurring character from Get a Clue? Robi - 12 Uncle Albert - 11 Dr. Phibes - 10 Agent 2 - 5 Sparky - 2 Chef Francoise - 1 Kevin - 1 Mark - 1 0 votes: Ricky, Menace, Phibes clones, Agent 1, and General Macardle We got more votes than I thought we would for the Velma poll. We ended up with 24 total. We only had three options get significant votes, and Gigi is our winner! She advances to the final round alongside Robi. Who is your favorite recurring character from Velma? Gigi - 7 William Jones - 4 Aman Dinkley - 3 Lamont Rogers - 2 Sheriff Cogburn - 2 Amber - 1 Amanda - 1 Brenda - 1 Diya Dinkley - 1 General Don - 1 Krista - 1  Photo credit: Deadline Update 3/24: Paul Walter Hauser has officially been cast, according to Deadline. He will be a regular character in the series. This confirms What's on Netflix's previous scoop that he will play Scooby's old owner; however, Deadline's article does not mention that this will be his role. Thanks Becker for the info! Netflix has given us an extremely exciting update on the upcoming live-action show! Deadline has confirmed that the entire gang has been officially cast. Abby Ryder Fortson will play Velma, Maxwell Jenkins will play Fred, and Shaggy will be played by Tanner Hagen. Along with the casting announcement, a new description for the series has been shared: During their final summer at camp, old friends Shaggy and Daphne get embroiled in a haunting mystery surrounding a lonely lost Great Dane puppy that may have been a witness to a supernatural murder. Together with the pragmatic and scientific townie, Velma, and the strange, but ever so handsome new kid, Freddy, they set out to solve the case that is pulling each of them into a creepy nightmare that threatens to expose all of their secrets. While this bit hasn't been officially confirmed, an insider source has reported to What's on Netflix that Paul Walter Hauser has also been cast as Scooby's old owner. The series is rumored to begin filming next month in Atlanta, and will wrap on September 10, 2026. The working title for the series is reported as Scooby-Doo: Origins. However, working titles often change, so the title will likely be different when the series is actually released. All of the info from What's on Netflix comes from an undisclosed "insider," so take all the info in this paragraph with a grain of salt. Variety also revealed that Toby Haynes has signed on as executive producer, and will direct the series premiere. ProductionList confirms that filming begins April 27! (Thanks to Becker for finding this info) On her Instagram, Mckenna Grace posted a story showing us that the whole group has already begun working together. Check out the photo below:  |
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