While exploring an idea for another potential article, someone sent me a link that shared a bunch of examples of real-life Scooby-Doo hoaxes where people dressed up as fake monsters. I thought this was such a cool concept that I'd never explored before, so I wanted to highlight some of the most interesting examples. Obviously this isn't an exhaustive list of every instance in the world where someone has tried to pull off a Scooby-Doo like hoax, but I pulled out the most interesting ones that I found and wanted to share them with you all.
As far back as the 1200s, a castle near modern Luxembourg was abandoned due to legends of it being haunted by sinister sounds and eerie lights. King Louis IX hired some Carthusian monks to rid the place of ghosts, but the monks reported back that the "hauntings" were nothing but a group of criminals trying to scare people away from their hideout. In 1926, an ape-man was sighted on an old farm in North Stonington, Connecticut. Two young girls had recently inherited the farm from their father who tragically passed away. The neighbors theorized that someone was trying to scare the young girls into selling their father's farm, and planned a stakeout to catch the ape-man. It was then discovered that the girls themselves were the ones who created the ape man legend. They created a homemade ape man suit, because they were being pestered by solicitors. The girls wanted to scare the solicitors into thinking the place was unsellable due to being haunted. In a similar case, Ray Wallace was the boss of a logging crew who was the first person to ever sight Bigfoot's footprints in 1958. After Ray died, the Wallace family divulged that Ray actually faked the whole thing in hopes of scaring away hooligans who were pranking his work vehicle. Ivan T. Sanderson, a private investigator, uncovered some evidence that the Jersey Devil of 1909 was actually just real estate developers who dressed up to incentivize people to sell their properties by tricking them. During the Vietnam War, the US used an exercise called Operation Wandering Soul to scare away their enemies. The US Military used tape recordings of eerie moaning and creepy voices to weaken their enemy's morale. The tactic saw varied success. Sometimes the enemy would be frightened away, but other times, the enemy would quickly realize it was a recording and attack anyway. A British ghost hunter was called by a hotel owner to investigate a haunting. The ghost hunter found no signs of anything, but the hotel owner begged him to just "make up a haunting" because he felt the image of owning a haunted hotel would drive up business.
8 Comments
Thanks Shadowscooby for suggesting this week's poll idea!
"Happy Birthday, Scooby-Doo!" won our birthday episode poll last week with 39 votes! Pirates Ahoy was decently close behind in second with 24 votes. For third place, we had a tie between "Scary Christmas" and "Cher, Scooby and the Sargasso Sea," each of them getting six votes. "Scrappy's Birthday" came in last place with three votes. Back in 2016, I wrote up a post giving my reviews of all the Christmas and winter Scooby-Doo episodes. However, I never specifically ranked them from least favorite to favorite, so I thought it might be fun to revisit those reviews and rank each of the episodes! I'm just going to stick with the Christmas episodes for this ranking, and I'll save the winter ones for next week! :) 5. Scooby-Doo! Haunted Holidays I honestly love all of these episodes so much that it's hard to choose one. When I think of Christmas episodes, this one is the least memorable of the five here, but it's by all means still very good. I thought the Sinister Snowman was a really cool villain, especially his ability to shapeshift! The ending with Santa is also very heartwarming. 4. Scary Christmas The comedy in this episode is top notch. Fred continually bringing the gang back to the "Big Sad Eyes Orphanage" was really random and hilarious. It was interesting how this episode's Daphneism allowed us to get to know her on a little more personal level too, since we discover her insecurities with having her birthday overshadowed by Christmas. Fred's fixation on not wanting to solve the pterodactyl mystery because it isn't Christmas related is also hilarious. Definitely a must-add to any holiday special marathon! 3. Scroogey Doo Before this episode came out, I'd wanted a Scooby-Doo episode that parodies A Christmas Carol for years. The story just fits so well with the Scooby-Doo formula. On top of that, A Flintstone Christmas Carol is one of my favorite Christmas specials of all time, so I always wanted a Scooby-Doo version of the story. I know we kind of got that with The Nutcracker Scoob, but I was really happy when Jon Colton Barry announced that he'd be doing a Be Cool, Scooby-Doo! adaptation of the Dickens tale. I really like how JCB and Tom Konkle wrote this story, where in addition to Scrooge being visited by the three ghosts, there is sort of a mystery around why Scrooge is the way he is, and why these ghosts are really visiting him. I thought they incorporated the style and absurdist nature of Be Cool very well into this classic story. Fred's grudge against raccoons and Scrooge worrying what would happen if he got menopause were my personal favorite jokes of the episode haha. 2. A Scooby-Doo Christmas This is such a classic episode and it was very close to being my favorite Christmas special. The Headless Snowman is a very creative villain. The ending is also super cute with Shaggy and Scooby giving each other presents. 1. The Nutcracker Scoob
Since I was a kid, this was always my favorite Scooby-Doo Christmas special. When I was younger, I remember when Cartoon Network used to play this every Christmas and I would always enjoy sitting down to watch it. Even though it's not a full-on adaption of A Christmas Carol, I love how this episode is kind of an amalgamation of that and The Nutcracker. That scene of Scooby, Shaggy and Scrappy dressing up as elves is absolutely adorable. However, I think the most adorable scene of the episode is Snowball dancing at the end of the episode lol. I really liked the villain as well; they were very cool-looking! I hope you enjoyed reading these rankings. If you want to share your rankings for the Scooby-Doo Christmas episodes in the comments, I would love to see them! A Nancy Drew book from 1957 called The Haunted Showboat has an extremely similar premise as The New Scooby-Doo Movies episode "The Haunted Showboat" from 1973. Nancy Drew #35 follows Nancy and her friends solving the mystery of a haunted showboat. The showboat is being renovated for a big gala event, but a ghost attempts to stop the event. Without providing any spoilers, the culprit's motivation also involves making money illegally as it does in the Scooby-Doo episode.
It's my birthday today, so I thought it would be fun to do a poll about the birthday episodes! I didn't include "A Terrifying Round with a Menacing Metallic Clown" since it was just a brief flashback of Velma's birthday that was just a few seconds.
In terms of last week's poll results about the best sequel episode, Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed blew everything else out of the water with 46 votes. "The Dreaded Remake of Jekyll and Hyde" got second place for 13 votes, while "Cher, Scooby and the Sargasso Sea" and Curse of the 13th Ghost tied for third with 10 votes each. Curse of the Lake Monster got fourth place with 3 votes. Return to Zombie Island came in last with only one person voting for it. At long last, after ranking the movies and series, I've ranked all the Scooby specials! I don't feel any of them are super strong and the rankings were pretty easy to do unlike the series and movies, but nonetheless, I hope you enjoy my rankings. 11. Ghastly Goals This one earns its spot as dead last for not only a boring storyline, but also bad animation. As I mentioned in my recent post about my top 10 least favorite Scooby-Doo episodes, the plot felt very underdeveloped and it felt like they were really stretching the mystery. The animation also felt a bit lazy to me, as many of the crowd shots were just a blur of color, and the backgrounds were sometimes sloppily drawn during close-ups. 10. LEGO Scooby-Doo: Knight Time Terror This one was very middle-of-the-road for me. It's definitely a quality increase from Ghastly Goals, but the plot itself felt a bit underdeveloped and rushed. I liked Haunted Hollywood much better. There's honestly nothing more I really have to say about this one because it's just that mediocre haha. 9. Mecha Mutt Menace There was a bit of a noticeable quality drop from some of the earlier 2012 DTV specials and these 2013 ones, but this one isn't bad like Ghastly Goals by any means. I thought the Mecha Mutt was a decent villain and the plot of the gang being at the Space Station was neat. I did not care for Daphne being jealous of Fred, however, as that plot had just been in Scooby-Doo! Stage Fright, and as a result, it felt like overkill here. I liked the special overall though. 8. Spooky Scarecrow I liked this special well enough, but it's probably my least favorite Halloween episode of the selection we have so far. The plot about the witch casting a spell on a scarecrow to make it come to life was cool, but I kind of wish we would have gotten the witch as a villain as well of the scarecrow. This episode felt like it needed a little something extra, because I feel like this same plot has been done much better in "The Frickert Fracas," "A Scooby-Doo Halloween" and "Eating Crow." 7. Beach Beastie I know that some people feel this is the best of the DTV specials, and while I do agree it's quite good, I would say I like Spooky Games and Haunted Holidays a bit better. I really like how unique Aquazilla is as a villain, and I thought his shapeshifting abilities were used in a very cool way here. I liked the plot of the gang going to Fred's uncle's resort, and the fact that his uncle was voiced by Adam West! The plot of Scooby having a crush on a little dog was also cute. I also thought it was neat how they carried over plot points from Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, like Fred's house and trap obsession. 6. Behind the Scenes Shorts I've always thought these were really cute. This was a neat idea on Cartoon Network's part to make these goofy little interviews. I've always been amused at the part in the sixth interview about Fred singing showboat to calm the gang lol. 5. Night of the Living Doo I've always found this one to be a bit weird, but in a good way. This was a cool parody of The New Scooby-Doo Movies, even though the culprit and monsters were very strange. It felt sort of like The Scooby-Doo Project in terms of its rough reused animation, but I think it worked very well for what it was. 4. Scooby-Doo! Spooky Games I really enjoyed this special! I liked the plot of the gang being invited to an Olympics-like game and having to solve the mystery of the giant statue Fortius coming to life. This was definitely among the more interesting and better quality DTV specials in my opinion. 3. Scooby-Doo! Haunted Holidays I still watch this special every Christmas, and I think it's my favorite of the DTV specials. This special also feels a bit darker than the others with the gang being locked in the creepy toy factory during the snowstorm. The Sinister Snowman was a super creepy villain, and it was neat how he could shapeshift. I also like how it's hinted the Santa Claus that showed up at the end may have been the real Santa. That was really cute. 2. Scooby-Doo, Where Are You Now? I did a full-length review of this here, but I thought the humor in the special was really good. Even though the animation was a bit strange mixed with live-action and I don't typically like that sort of thing, it worked well here. Even if there wasn't really any new information for a Scooby super fan like myself, the interviews with the writers and producers were really fun. The only thing I didn't really like about this special was the unnecessary Scrappy bashing, which felt out of place and very mean-spirited. 1. The Scooby-Doo Project
I think there are one or two people on here that have had this in their top 10 Scooby episodes ever. While I won't go quite that far, I did really like this special and think it's the best the franchise has to offer. It was super clever of them to make a parody of The Blair Witch Project, and I thought making it kind of a satire of the franchise worked really well. The humor was super clever here. Like Where Are You Now, even though the animation was a bit weird mixed with live-action elements, I thought it worked really well. It was quite intense that the special ended with the gang missing. That about does it for my special rankings! I'll be posting my ranking of every Scooby-Doo movies next month, but in the meantime, but if you happen to feel inspired to share yours in the comments, I'd love to see them! The New Scooby-Doo Movies episode "Sandy Duncan's Jekyll and Hydes" has a reference to Charlotte's Web in it. In Charlotte's Web, Charlotte the spider weaves the words "some pig" into a spiderweb to prevent her pig friend Wilbur from being killed. The newspaper in which Mr. Hyde cut the letters out of for Sandy's ransom note has a picture of a pig with the words "some pig" as the headline. While this could be shrugged off as simple coincidence, Hanna-Barbera produced and released the first-ever Charlotte's Web film on February 22, 1973, just a few months after "Sandy Duncan's Jekyll and Hydes" aired. This undoubtedly confirms that this was intended as a reference to Charlotte's Web.
It's also worth noting that the paper the ransom note is cut out of, The Daily Bugle, is a reference to the newspaper in Spider-Man. Here are the results for last week's poll:
What is your favorite Scooby-Doo episode/film featuring Frankenstein's monster as the villain? A Gaggle of Galloping Ghosts - 23 Scooby-Doo! FrankenCreepy - 20 A Halloween Hassle at Dracula's Castle - 7 Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf - 5 Chickenstein Lives! - 5 That's Monstertainment - 3 Scooby-Doo and the Ghoul School - 3 The Feast of Dr. Frankenfooder! - 3 Who's Minding the Monster? - 2 Scooby's Peep Hole Pandemonium - 0 Super Scary Movie Night - 0 Two listings have popped up on Amazon UK for new Scooby-Doo films. The first listing is for Scooby-Doo and Krypto Too!, which Amazon UK says will be released in the UK on September 25, 2023. The second listing is for a completely new Scooby-Doo film that has not yet been announced. The film is titled Scooby-Doo and the Haunted High Rise, and Amazon UK lists a date of October 1, 2023, only a week after Krypto Too's release. It's likely one of those dates will probably be changed, since I don't think they would release the films one week apart, but it seems like we may be getting two Scooby DTVs again next year. A big thank you to Thomas for finding these links and sharing them with me!
The Scooby-Doo, Where Are You Now! special showed some very early designs for Scooby, which shows him as a much smaller dog. In Iwao Takamoto's autobiography, My Life with a Thousand Characters, he disagrees with Fred Silverman's story that Scooby-Doo's name came from the song "Strangers in the Night" by Frank Sinatra. His reason for disagreeing is that there were designs for a dog Scooby long before "Strangers in the Night" ever came out. Given Takamoto's book came out in 2009 - 12 years before the general public knew about these designs from Scooby-Doo, Where Are You Now! - it is possible that these are the designs Takamoto was referring to. This would mean Silverman's story about Scooby's name is incorrect. As most fans likely know, one draft of the original Scooby-Doo series was a knockoff of The Archies. Given the Archies had a song released in 1969 called "Feelin' So Good (S.K.O.O.B.Y. Doo)," this further complicates things a bit. This may be further proof that there was a previous version of Scooby before Fred Silverman's "Strangers in the Night" story could have happened.
A big thanks to Lance for suggesting and helping research this week's fun fact! |
AuthorWildwindVampire Categories
All
Archives
July 2024
|