I decided to do a bit of a different kind of post, and break down my top 10 least favorite Scooby-Doo episodes of all time. I didn't necessarily have a list in mind when I first came up with the idea for this post...I just had a mental list of episodes I felt were bad, so it was a fun exercise trying to condense my list into 10 episodes. That being said, you may be surprised to know Curse of the 13th Ghost, Return to Zombie Island and Arabian Nights are not on this list. The two 2019 sequels were poor in the sense of having numerous glaring continuity errors, and the fact that they were made as sequels to two of the most acclaimed pieces of Scooby-Doo media of all time. However, on their own, I didn't find the plot of either film to be particularly egregious or irredeemable. The problem for me was more that they didn't respect the tone or content of the original, but I think they could have been good if they were standalone DTVs unconnected to the originals. With Arabian Nights, my major gripe with it is that it's advertised as a Scooby film, but Scooby's only in 13 minutes of it. On its own, I've grown to think of it as a decent enough Hanna-Barbera crossover. I have no facts to base this on, but given the title card just says "Arabian Nights," it makes me wonder if "Scooby-Doo" was later slapped onto the title to sell more VHS tapes/DVDs, and it wasn't intended as a Scooby product at all when it originally aired. This top 10 list for me is reserved for the episodes/films that are irredeemably bad. Granted, these are only my own opinions, and I know some people may very well love these episodes, so I don't want to frame this post as if I'm hating on these episodes/films or saying that they're so bad that there's no way other people could possibly like them.

Honorable Mention: Ghastly Goals
Compared to the other five specials, this one had a significant drop in quality. Although the villain was cool-looking, the mystery to me felt quite underdeveloped, and the plot felt thin. The animation quality was also really poor. If you look closely, some of the shots of the crowd are just a complete blur. There are definitely worse plots in some of the direct-to-video Scrappy shorts, which you'll see later in this list, but I really did not care for the plot or mystery in this episode and found it boring.

9. Scooby of  the Jungle
​While I do like most of The New Scooby and Scrappy-Doo Show episodes much better than The Richie Rich / Scooby-Doo Show, this one was a dud for me. The plot was pretty boring and strange, and the villain, Randar, was quite lackluster. The episode feels a bit rushed as well in the sense of certain details related to the animation. Oddly, some of the lions and zebras appear the same size as the elephants, which makes no sense (not to mention that lions and zebras don't live in the jungle, but whatever haha). Another scene makes this rise above the rest, and it's kind of uncomfortable to talk about, but when Randar captures Daphne, somehow she is suddenly wearing a Tarzan outfit, despite not being in one before. For my own comfort, I choose to believe maybe there was a scene in between that got edited out and they forgot to explain the outfit, but it's still weird and uncomfortable to watch.

8. A Mystery Solving Gang Divided
I really wanted to like this one because I loved The Funky Phantom when I was younger, but I didn't like this at all and it gets to the point of unwatchable for me. They completely take the Funky Phantom gang out of character, making them all arrogant jerks. I wouldn't have minded if they changed their characters a little, but it felt like they made them into completely different characters. The fact that most of the episode was just the gangs arguing detracted from the mystery and wasted the potential they could have had with the villains. I thought the villains of this episode (and Abraham Lincoln's ghost) were pretty cool, so it's a shame we only get to see them once before the trap is set.

Certain aspects of the plot also seemed rushed and awkward as a result. Augie believing in Abraham Lincoln's ghost without any question seemed odd, since the whole series is about them catching fake ghosts, so it seemed like they rushed that part of the plot rather than developing it (which was a shame, because they certainly could have cut some of the arguing to make room for that). There were also some weird lines that felt awkward and forced, such as Lincoln saying "You must take responsibility for tomorrow!" It didn't fit with anything that was going on in the episode, and it feels like the writers forced it in as a positive message for the kids, but it didn't work. That being said, I don't mean to imply what I listed in this paragraph were the main problems with the episode (I would actually consider them to be quite trivial issues). I'm more trying to get at the fact that the constant arguing took away from the plot, because it dominated the episode so much that other aspects felt awkward due to being underdeveloped.

7. The Ransom of Scooby Chief
This very much feels like a backdoor pilot for the Scrappy shorts that were to come for the next three years. While the plot was at least somewhat more structured than those shorts were, I personally found the episode to be quite boring. Carl and Tony weren't very good villains to me, and I found them more annoying than evil. I'm sure it maybe had something to do with Marla Frumkin suddenly leaving, but it was also weird how Velma has no lines in this episode. I didn't particularly enjoy Duke and Annie's characters either.

6. LEGO Scooby-Doo: Blowout Beach Bash
This is another one that suffers from quite a weak mystery and plot, IMO. It seems this movie is a bit divisive among the fandom, because I've seen some people say they prefer this to Haunted Hollywood. Haunted Hollywood was miles better than this for me, and I thought the LEGO theme fit much better there. Some of the LEGO stuff felt a bit forced here, and the mystery didn't feel all that engaging to me here. However, what made this worse than Ghastly Goals was the songs. Some of the songs were incredibly obnoxious to me, especially the first one. The song could have been tolerable, but the song structure being them saying a short phrase followed by "blowout beach bingo bash!", and then another short phrase followed by "blowout beach bingo bash!" (and the cycle repeats) was really annoying, especially given they sing it for five minutes straight. The annoying songs and the boring plot made this one a skip for me, and I actually haven't watched it since it first was released in 2017.

5. South Seas Scare
I just mentioned that I don't really like these Scrappy shorts due to the way they're written, but this is another one I don't find enjoyable. My main issue with this one is regarding the ending. The writing already falls into the "random chaos" category, and at the end, Scrappy just randomly picks up the Lava Monster and throws him into a volcano, which makes zero sense. If Scrappy could have just randomly picked up the monster at any time, why didn't he just do it at the beginning of the episode so the entire situation could have been avoided? To me, that felt like lazy writing because they couldn't think of a good ending. I actually thought the Lava Monster was one of the coolest villains in the series, so it's a shame they used him in an episode with an ending that's so lazy IMO. The rest of the episode is about the same quality as the rest of the Scrappy shorts, but the cop-out ending is what made this one rise above the rest as being one of the worst episodes.

4. Scooby's Swiss Miss
I don't tend to care for these Scrappy-Doo shorts very much, because they all tend to be random comedy romps that lack structure. However, there are a few that stand out as particularly bad. This one is a very weird one to watch, because it centers around Scooby being chased around a ski lodge in the Swiss Alps by a bulldog, because the bulldog thinks Scooby is flirting with his poodle girlfriend (which he's not). However, the poodle girlfriend continues to make passes at Scooby, which causes even more jealousy from the bulldog. It's very Tom and Jerry-ish with the bulldog trying to find different ways to hurt Scooby, and I don't really care for Tom and Jerry. The ending is also a bit unnerving, for lack of a better word. The bulldog ends up getting injured due to his antics, and winds up in a cast and crutches. The end of the short has the bulldog getting married to the poodle, with the poodle giving up Scooby and embracing the injured bulldog as her husband, saying "well, at least he can't run away!" Basically, the poodle is saying that she will literally do anything to be in a relationship, even if it means emotionally abusing her partner by forcing him to stay when he's immobile. The ending leaves me feeling really uncomfortable and if you haven't seen this, I don't recommend watching it. 

3. Picnic Poopers
The plot of this short is extremely uninteresting to me to the point of being substanceless. The plot revolves around a teenager and his bulldog pulling rude pranks on Shaggy, Scooby and Scrappy in the park, hoping that he'll ruin the town picnic games. The plot itself isn't what I would look for in a Scooby episode, but what makes this one so terrible is that the characters and the plot in general is just really obnoxious. It's very dull watching these two bullies playing pranks on the guys to keep them from winning. Maybe it's entertaining for those who like Tom and Jerry, but this is so boring to me. What makes it even worse is that they had just done this same plot two episodes ago with "Muscle Trouble," and it wasn't great there either. This plot doesn't really have anything going for it, and the fact that it's a completely unoriginal rehash of what they just did two episodes ago makes this one easily earn its title as worst in the franchise for me (both figuratively and literally, since the title is also extremely awful lol).

We also get this strange scene with someone holding up a sign that says "hooray for guys" with no context whatsoever lol. Was he rooting for Shaggy, Scooby and Scrappy, the bullies, or just the male gender in general? We'll never know lol.

2. Hoedown Showdown
This is another antics-heavy Scrappy short. I really dislike this episode's jokes about Southern people being dimwitted hillbillies. I could ignore it if it were just a few jokes, but the fact that the entire episode is just gag after gag about the same stereotypes makes this episode annoying to watch. If there's anybody out here that likes the episode, you could make the argument that Boo Brothers has the same jokes about Southern stereotypes with Billy Bob. In that film, the jokes were kept at a minimum and it was just one character who happened to be very stereotypical in his behavior. However, with this episode, they basically write the entire plot as one big joke around how stupid these "hillbillies" next door are, and it makes this episode drudgery to get through. It gets even worse when we discover the reason for this feud between Shaggy's family and the McGurk family is because one of them, Bubba, doesn't like taking baths, but Shaggy's cousin wants him to take one because he smells. You can't make this stuff up lol. I can think of about a million things I'd rather watch than the McGurk Brothers screwing around for seven minutes straight, so this one's a big no from me.

1. Scooby Dooby Guru
We've made it to the worst Scooby-Doo episode ever in my opinion. I had previously considered it to be "A Mystery Solving Gang Divided!," but when thinking about this list, I realized I kind of thought of the Scrappy shorts as more of a single entity of content I didn't enjoy, and hadn't really deeply thought about ones that I found specifically bad. I rewatched a couple of the ones that I remembered I didn't care for for this list, and wow, a few of them were far worse than I remember. There have been episodes that have elements of poor representation before, such as "Jeepers, It's the Jaguaro" as I mentioned earlier in the post, but this is the only episode I feel where the plot itself is so horribly stereotypical that the whole episode is just flat-out racist. The plot revolves around the guys visiting the Taj Mahal in India. While there, they accidentally knock over a priceless statue. The guard, who is Indian, goes into a blind rage and begins chasing them. What's especially bad about this episode is that the writers rely on some of the most ridiculously incorrect stereotypes of Indian people you could possibly imagine. After the guys knock over the statue, the plot revolves around the guard randomly jumping on an elephant, and rides it chasing the gang around the city. The guard's voice is also an awful impression of how someone from India would sound. I could go on about all the bad stereotypes in this episode, but my point is that even the slightest bit of research would have told them these stereotypes were grossly incorrect. People in India aren't just jumping on random elephants on the street and using them to chase people around town. Besides the bad stereotypes, Shaggy, Scooby and Scrappy are unlikeable jerks in this episode. They accidentally knock over the priceless statue in the Taj Mahal, and instead of offering to pay for it or even apologizing, they just run away. A lot of people have called things like Curse of the 13th Ghost and Return to Zombie Island a "disgrace to the franchise," but this episode is the real disgrace IMO. It's just embarrassingly bad in every way, both in the sense of being racist, as well as Shaggy, Scooby and Scrappy being jerks and taking no responsibility for this awful thing they did.

That about does it for my worst list, and I hope you enjoyed reading it! If anyone else would like to share their worst lists in the comments, I'd love to see them!

Scooby-Doo has had a wide variety of theme songs over the years. In the following post, I'm going to share my personal rankings of the theme songs from least favorite to favorite, as well as an explanation of why I ranked it there. I will forewarn you that I have an extremely unpopular opinion, so you can look forward to that haha.

16. Scooby-Doo and Guess Who?
I don't think I've talked about it much on here, but I really do not like the Guess Who theme song. It feels like a cheesy cover of the original Where Are You theme to me. The guy's voice sounds like he's kinda trying to sound like the original theme song, but it doesn't sound good at all. To be honest, I didn't even listen to theme song for more than a few Guess Who episodes, it's just so terrible to me I couldn't justify wasting time listening to it. The theme sequence itself isn't really that good either. It seems very generic to me. I realize my opinion on this is probably stronger than most people's will be, but yeah, the guy's voice just sounds obnoxious and this song comes off like a bad parody of the original.

15. The Scooby and Scrappy-Doo Puppy Hour
Honestly, this theme song takes generic to a new level. I'm sure it took them a grueling two minutes in the writers room to write this song, given the only lyrics are "Scooby! Scoobity-Doo! Scooby! Scoobity-Doo!" lol. The theme sequence itself is fine, but it only makes it fall further into the category of being generic. There isn't really much going on here besides Shaggy and Scooby running into a mad doctor, Scrappy, Yabba and Dusty running around, and then some random shenanigans with some puppies from The Puppy's New Adventures. Although I do have a lot of criticisms of these theme songs from the 80s, I do want to assure you this whole post isn't just me complaining. I like all of the theme songs beyond some of these generic 80s ones.

14. The New Scooby and Scrappy-Doo Show
Our next theme song has the exact same lyrics of "Scooby! Scoobity-Doo!" lol so essentially I'll just be discussing the theme sequence. I like the monster building in the intro, but otherwise, it's mainly just recycled monsters from Where Are You chasing Shaggy and Scooby. I guess at that time, it was probably kind of cool to have them reference those old villains, because they hadn't been seen in a while, but I didn't find this particularly notable at all.

13. The Scooby and Scrappy-Doo Show
We have a slight step up from "Scooby! Scoobity Doo!", since the lyrics to this are "Scooby! Scrappy Dappy Doo! Scooby! Scrappy Dappy Doo!" lol. The theme song doesn't really leave much to analyze, but what I do like about this theme sequence is that it sort of gives background (kind of?) as to how Scrappy came to stay with Scooby. I will say though, it's really sad somebody just shoved him with a box with eyeholes and threw him on a train. Poor Scrappy lol.

11. Be Cool, Scooby-Doo!
Now we're getting to a theme song I actually like haha. If you've made it this far, thank you for listening to my criticisms. It's just an instrumental, but I think this is a case where it works well. It sort of showcases all the characters through their brief appearances: Velma's using a magnifying glass, Shaggy and Scooby are running from the monster, Fred's acting as the leader driving the Mystery Machine, and you even see Daphne showing off her quirkier personality trying to trick that spider. It's not my favorite theme song since there are other far more nostalgic ones, but it's short, it's effective and it's to the point.

10. Laff-a-Lympics
So there are two different versions of this theme song...one for Laff-a-Lympics and another for the package show Scooby's All Star Laff-a-Lympics, but I'm going to rank the original. I really liked how the theme song gives you a brief explanation for how the games work. It's done in a very simple way where it's just the announcer telling you, but I think it works well. I think it may have come off cringey if it was some person singing the rules to the ​Laff-a-Lympics, so this worked well for what it was. If I were ranking the Scooby's All Star Laff-a-Lympics theme, it would have been much lower, probably between The New Scooby and Scrappy-Doo Show and The Scooby and Scrappy-Doo Show. The other intro felt more cobbled together and didn't really explain the competition as well, because too much time was spent introducing Scooby and Captain Caveman (I believe they were spotlighted because their shows aired alongside Laff-a-Lympics). The ending also comes off as very lazy, given it's a crowd saying "Ready set let's go" and Scooby just responds "Yeah!" lol. It makes me laugh to think what could have been going on in the writers room that day.

Writer #1: Oh no! It's five minutes to 5 and I need to get home to my family, but we need to finish this theme song! How should we have Scooby conclude this?
Writer #2: Eh, just have him say "yeah" and call it a day.

9. Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated
This is a much simpler theme song given it's just another instrumental like Be Cool, Scooby-Doo, but it's definitely effective in showcasing each member of the gang and their personality. Honestly that one sentence is all I have to say about it, which is why this was placed squarely in the middle.

8. A Pup Named Scooby-Doo
This is where it gets a bit hard to rank the rest of them, because they're all good in their own way. I would rank A Pup Named Scooby-Doo next. It's a cute little catchy theme song that's perfect for the kiddy series, and I like the different scenes shown in the intro. The guy who's singing has a very unique voice.

7. The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo
I hate ranking this one so low, because as I said, all of the remaining theme songs are so good. I like Vincent Price's monologue at the beginning, though I feel after the beginning the song runs out of steam where it's just instrumental again. I do really like the scenes shown in the intro, though. Zomba running after Shaggy and Scooby looks super creepy! I wish that ghost with multiple eyes and mouths would have been one of the 13 ghosts; it's genuinely one of the creepiest villains of anything in the show. It would have been nice if that ghoul could have gotten a full episode rather than just a brief cameo in the intro. Like with the first Scrappy series, I like how this intro tells a story of how the Demon Chest was opened and gives an overview of the series. That's what I feel was missing from some of the generic 80s themes where it's a bunch of random stuff; it doesn't feel all that representative of the show or the characters.

6. Shaggy & Scooby-Doo Get a Clue
And here's where you all are probably saying "how did this get so high?!?" I know 95% of people find the theme song intolerable because of the guy's obnoxious voice, but I never really minded this one. In fact, I'd even say I enjoy it. It has an in-your-face feel to it, but it works kind of well with the ridiculousness of the show. It's also pretty catchy and the theme sequence is visually interesting to look at with all the different versions of the characters popping up on screen. I don't know, I guess this song has just always been sort of a guilty pleasure of mine haha.

5. The New Scooby-Doo Mysteries
I've always had a soft spot for this one and consider it to be the best theme song of that 80s era by far. I love how groovy and funky it sounds. It really encapsulates that 80s era, and the song itself flows really smoothly with the scenes in the intro. I really like the incorporation of the monsters doing the Thriller, but since "Thriller" had just come out, I do wonder if it felt cringey to fans at the time. I mean, it'd essentially be the equivalent of having Scooby do the Whip/Nae Nae dance in a theme song lol. Which would actually work if the lyrics were changed to "watch me Scoob, now watch me Shaggy" haha. That being said, I definitely do not want anything like that to ever happen, because a theme song like that would surely beat Guess Who for the worst theme sequence of all time lol.

4. The New Scooby-Doo Movies
Remember when I said it was getting hard to choose at this point a few rankings ago? Here's where it gets really hard to choose. I ultimately went with The New Scooby-Doo Movies because I like the other three better, but at this point, all of the theme songs remaining are iconic. The song itself is super catchy, and the theme sequence flows really well. I've always found it interesting how in the edited version for the DVDs, they not only edit out The Addams Family, they edit out all the guest stars, even ones that they had the rights for. Another thing that fascinates me is that instead of replacing The Addams Family part with the Haunted Horseman, in the end credits for both of the Batman episodes, they replace it with the gunslinger instead. I've always found that very strange and I wonder why those two episodes specifically were different.

3. The Scooby-Doo Show
This is such a catchy song and is honestly pretty much everything I could want in a theme song. At this point, it just comes down to personal preference for the other two. I love that they included Scooby-Dum in the intro. That huge ghost wizard was super-creepy looking and I wish they had included him in the series! Speaking of which, I also find it interesting they included an early design of Mamba Wamba at the end of the intro. Strange they wouldn't have just changed it when they updated the design.

2. Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?
This is the classic theme song and it was so hard not to put it first, but me not placing it there certainly doesn't mean I don't love it. This is such a catchy, memorable theme song, and the scenes they picked out for the theme sequence were excellent. Although each of the seasons have a different artist singing the theme song, I like both for different reasons. Larry Marks's version is just the classic in my mind, and I like how unique George A. Robertson's voice sounds as well.

1. What's New, Scooby-Doo?
Simple Plan absolutely killed it here. Their vocals sound incredible here, and it was such a cool idea to make a rock version of the theme song. The theme sequence itself flows from scene to scene so nicely, and it didn't even need to use any scene that happened in the show. That huge purple monster is genuinely something out of a nightmare, and I think it would have been cool if the robot were the villain in an episode too. I would say that about the other dinosaur creature, but it feels like we kind of got a version of that in "3-D Struction." I like that an instrumental version of theme song is used for the credits, it works really well IMO.

Those are my rankings for the Scooby-Doo theme songs, but I'd love to see yours as well if you want to share them in the comments! I hope you enjoyed reading this post!

It's hard to believe that Scooby-Doo has been around for 53 years today! To celebrate, I'd like to look back on a post I did three years ago on this day, ranking each of the series in order. Back then, only a few episodes of Guess Who have aired, and my opinions have changed a bit, so I thought it would be fun to revisit this list and update it a bit.

16. The Richie Rich / Scooby-Doo Show
​This is still my least favorite series of the franchise. I much prefer the mystery element of Scooby, so given these episodes are all just comedy romps, this series has never really appealed to me. The 7-minute runtime doesn't allow time for any meaningful plot to develop, and the writing often felt rushed.

15. The Scooby & Scrappy-Doo Puppy Hour
​This ranking hasn't changed either. Not really much to add here, since it's pretty much the same issue I had with the last one, but this is slightly above The Richie Rich / Scooby-Doo Show since there's sometimes a recurring plot of them being on cases for Shaggy's Uncle Fearless, which saves the adventures from being completely pointless. The Yabba-Doo shorts are fine, but they run into the same issue of not enough time and mostly just a comedy romp.

14. Scooby's All Star Laff-a-Lympics
I think it was a really cool idea to have the Hanna-Barbera characters compete against one another in a "Battle of the Network Stars" type competition. All of the different event ideas were cool, and it was fun seeing what the characters would do in different scenarios. However, the plot does get kind of "comedy romp"ish, which as I said, isn't quite what I'm looking for in Scooby even if it is entertaining. The repetitive plot does get a bit tiring after a while, in the sense that it's always just the Rottens cheating and the other two teams having to find a way around whatever obstacle the Rottens have put in their way. It's something that I enjoy watching from time to time, but it isn't something I'd rewatch regularly.

13. Shaggy & Scooby-Doo Get a Clue!
​Unpopular opinion: Shaggy and Scooby-Doo Get a Clue! gets way too much hate. While it's not a traditional Scooby series by any stretch of the imagination, it's a lot of fun for what it is. The theme song never particularly annoyed me like it does for other people, and while Shaggy's voice is a bit jarring at first, you quickly get used to it. The humor is pretty fun at times, the characters are really interesting and well-developed, and the situations they find themselves in are ridiculous, but it's fun. This is one of those series that you kind of have to go into with the expectation it's not going to be like other Scooby series, but I really appreciate this series for what it is. 

12. The Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo Show
Now we're getting to the series I really enjoy. There are some really solid episodes here, and it sort of feels like a fourth season of The Scooby-Doo Show in some ways. The one issue I have with this series is the portrayal of Scrappy. While I don't hate him, he's very in-your-face here in a way that he isn't in some of the later shows we haven't gotten to yet, and I'm not the biggest fan of it. I also don't like how at times, Fred, Velma and Daphne begin to feel a bit like background characters because Scrappy is being placed front and center. Don't get me wrong, I by no means hate this series and find it quite enjoyable, but this one aspect brought it down from where it could have been.

11. Scooby-Doo and Guess Who?
​Up until this point, all of the shows had been in the same order that they were in the original post. However, Guess Who moved a bit down for me. I've talked quite a bit about my opinion of Guess Who in previous posts. At the time of this last ranking, I'd only seen 12 episodes (knowing me, it was actually probably less than that because I likely wrote the post in advance lol), and I was talking about how the nostalgia felt a bit forced. I think I was optimistic the show would find itself when I wrote that post, but I would say my opinion of it has lessened since then. I found the show was very bland, and while I did feel the forced nostalgia got better after the first season, liking episodes was often dependent on your enjoyment of the guest star. "A Mystery Solving Gang Divided!" and "Ollie Ollie In-come Free!" were good examples of that - the guest stars were so in-your-face obnoxious that it made the episodes unenjoyable, at least to me. On the other end of the spectrum, sometimes the guest stars would seem a bit awkward in the role - Jim Gaffigan, Bill Nye, and Neil deGrasse Tyson being examples. That would also make the episodes not as enjoyable as they could be, because certain dialogue would feel awkward or forced. I was really looking forward to the Kacey Musgraves episode, because I love Kacey, but in my opinion it kind of fell flat because she didn't really feel into the role. I would still agree with what I said three years ago that the show didn't ever feel like it brought anything distinct to the table - it felt very safe and like nothing new was really explored. The mysteries sometimes weren't as developed or interesting as they could be because too much focus would be put on the guest star. Don't get me wrong though, there were some amazing episodes here - "I Put a Hex on You!" and "The Legend of the Gold Microphone!" in particular - but overall as a series, there were others I liked better.

10. The New Scooby and Scrappy-Doo Show
​The re-addition of Daphne felt like it brought mysteries and structure back to the table, and the added four minutes of runtime made the plots not seem so rushed like they did in the 7-minute shorts. Scrappy also feels a bit more toned down in this series, where he isn't always the center focus and other characters feel like they have time to shine.

9. The New Scooby-Doo Mysteries
​Although it's basically the same series as the above one, I loved that this brought back full-length episodes some of the time. There are some solid episodes here that are among my favorites of the franchise - "A Halloween Hassle at Dracula's Castle," "The Nutcracker Scoob," and "Happy Birthday Scooby-Doo!" There were certainly a few duds here, but the majority of the episodes were great.

8. The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo
I love how in the previous article for this, I apparently wrote "I'll probably be surprised when re-reading this article in a year!" I will confirm I was indeed surprised, both that I ranked this so high previously and to see that random note from myself written three years ago lol. I remember that I'd rewatched this series around that time, so that could have been why this got so inflated. I absolutely love the premise of this series. It's such a cool idea to have Scooby and the gang searching for 13 of the most terrifying ghosts in the world, and some of the ghosts were truly amazing (Maldor and Zomba being my two favorites). My main reason for this ranking decreasing from 2019 is because I wish this series would have had a stronger consistency with the tone. At times, I feel like this series couldn't really tell if it wanted to be dark or silly. We'd get really dark premises like the gang trying to stop a witch from destroying the world, but then it would be executed in a really goofy way, like the gang chasing a witch version of the Three Stooges. At times, it sort of feels like there were two different creative visions for the show that got amalgamated into one, and while it worked sometimes, other times it didn't. I feel like the writing got less strong as the series went on as well. Those who know me know how much I dislike Rankor. He was such a cool-looking villain, but if he's one of the thirteen most powerful ghosts in the world, why is he taking orders from some random monster club and going in the chest willingly?!? I'm still not over how flat-out stupid that scene is even 12 years after watching it for the first time lol.

Overall, I really liked the dark and edgy vibe this series was going for, and the comedy was definitely fun at times. Although it went down a bit for me since the last ranking, I still enjoy this series and wish it would have had a second season to wrap things up.

7. A Pup Named Scooby-Doo
A Pup Named Scooby-Doo is such a fun, quirky little show. Although the gang's personalities are quite different from any previous incarnation, I love all the different characterizations of Fred, Velma and Daphne. Fred is super funny, and it's interesting to see Velma in a shier role. While I wouldn't say bossy Daphne is my favorite characterization, Kellie Martin does such a good job with it and I think it fits very naturally with this series. The zaniness of this series can be off the charts at times, but it's so much fun and I have a great appreciation for this show.

6. What's New, Scooby-Doo?
Ugh, I hate that this didn't make top 5, and it was a really difficult choice. I love the updated feel of this show, and it felt like a really natural return to the classic gang adventures, which we hadn't seen in a full series at that point since the 70s. I think a lot of shows introducing technology can be sort of cringey, but this incorporated everything flawlessly in a way that felt consistent with the Scooby-Doo formula. The consistency across seasons in this show is arguably probably the best of any Scooby series, and the mysteries and monsters are top notch.

5. The Scooby-Doo Show
Interestingly given I was just talking about consistency, this is perhaps the show with the most inconsistent tone across seasons, which ironically is kind of part of the appeal of it. Season 1 is such a classic and the writing is solid all throughout. Season 2 is collectively my favorite season in Scooby history. The season had such a dark, eerie tone to it that remains unmatched to date. I personally love darker episodes, so this season was incredible to me. I wish it would have been longer! Season 3 focused more on globetrotting, and many of the episode focused more heavily on the Shaggy and Scooby antics rather than the mystery. While I've mentioned before the heavy focus on antics isn't my favorite (I'm more interested in the mystery aspect of the franchise), I do still really appreciate this series for it introducing us to the gang traveling to different countries on a consistent basis (since them visiting other countries had been much more sporadic previously), which later comes into play more consistently again in What's New, Scooby-Doo?. I liked that we got to meet a lot of the gang's relatives in this season, especially Scooby-Dum, who I have always loved as a character. Although all three seasons are very different, there are so many classics in this series and that makes this series top tier for me.

4. Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated
This is where it gets really tough for me, because the remaining four series are all incredible in their own ways. I love the darker tone of this series, and the overarching plot is done so much better here than it was in The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo. The format of a mystery-of-the-week along with the gang slowly figuring out the overarching mystery worked so well. I thought the Easter eggs and callbacks to old series were great. The  mature writing (besides the relationship drama) worked really well here, and I would love to see another series like this someday.

3. Be Cool, Scooby-Doo!
I know this series has a terrible reputation among some fans, but when you give it a chance beyond the animation, I would argue this series has the most clever writing of any Scooby show to date. The random, absurdist humor is exactly my preferred style of comedy, so this series really resonated with me. I love how this series developed the characters further, particularly Daphne. Daphne's authentically weird, quirky antics were amazing, and it made her such an interesting character. The only thing I wish is that Jon Colton Barry (the head writer) had more creative control over the first season and the last half of season 2. I felt that this series hit its strongest point when JCB was able to exert full creative control over the plots and characters in the first half of season 2. The characters were always on point, and the monsters and mysteries were so well-developed in season 2. That's not to say they weren't in season 1, but I felt the first half of season 2 was the strongest when it came to character development and mysteries. The smart, witty writing fit so well here and I think if you give yourself a chance to get used to the animation, you'll find this show is really enjoyable. The most common complaint I hear is about the animation, and I know it's a bit jarring, but the writing here is far too amazing in my opinion not to give this series a chance. 

2. Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?
So, this used to be my favorite series, and it's still very close. This series started it all, and created so many of the tropes we've grown to love. These original adventures are always going to be the classics in my mind. It was very close, but my current favorite series is now...

1. The New Scooby-Doo Movies
I think part of this is driven by nostalgia, because my parents recorded these episodes on VHS tapes, and I would watch these episodes over and over when I was a kid. I loved the addition of the guest stars to the formula, and the extended run time allowed for some great character interactions and engaging mysteries. A lot of my favorite episodes from the franchise come from this series - "The Loch Ness Mess," "The Mystery of Haunted Island," and "Guess Who's Knott Coming to Dinner" to name a few. I really liked how fluid the tone of this show was. Every episode felt like a new adventure, and the guest stars brought such a variety of different tones to the table. Someone brought this up to me recently and I hadn't really thought about it before, but the episodes also always take the guest star out of their element and put them in a unique situation, and I think that's part of the charm of this series. The two episodes from this series that I'm not as big of a fan of ("The Phantom of the Country Music Hall" and "Mystery in Persia") are the only two episodes that don't really take the guest star out of their element. In his episode, Jerry Reed is just performing a concert in a music hall, and "Mystery in Persia" honestly feels more like a Jeannie episode than a Scooby-Doo episode. The fact that this series puts the guest stars in such quirky situations makes for a ton of fun, and that's ultimately why this series is currently my favorite.

Thank you so much for reading these rankings! If you want to share your own, I'd love to see other people's rankings in the comments, even if it's just an updated version of them if you posted on the original comment thread.

A recent fun fact post talked about how "Scooby on Ice!" from Scooby-Doo and Guess Who? was not the first time that Tara Lipinski has done voice work for Scooby-Doo. Unbeknownst to most, she also voiced Grey in the What's New, Scooby-Doo? episode "Camp Comeoniwannascareya." This inspired me to do a deep dive project on all the guest stars from The New Scooby-Doo Movies and Scooby-Doo and Guess Who? to discover if any of them had previously had roles as other characters on the show (and I was surprised to discover quite a few of them did!). This post highlights all the guest stars from these two series that have had previous roles in other episodes before or after their first appearance in the franchise. I included both real-life celebrities and voices of fictional characters, such as The Addams Family and Wonder Woman; however, I did not include ones that were extremely famous voice actors (for example, Casey Kasem plays Alexander of Josie and the Pussycats, so it's obvious he's had other roles in the show).

Janet Waldo, most famous for voicing Jane Jetson, played both Grandmama Addams and Josie in The New Scooby-Doo Movies. However, she would later voice several notable characters in The Scooby-Doo Show, including Scooby-Dee from "The Chiller Diller Movie Thriller," Lisa Vanaugh from "Vampire Bats and Scaredy Cats," and Arlene Wilcox from "To Switch a Witch."

We probably all know that Don Knotts would go on to voice the groundskeeper in the video game, Scooby-Doo! Night of 100 Frights.

Jackie Joseph, who voiced Melody, went on to voice a very random Scooby-Doo character almost 20 years later...Velma's Aunt Thelma from "Scooby Dude."

This one is perhaps more well-known, but Tim Conway would later go on to voice Fred's dad, Skip Jones, in Scooby-Doo! Pirates Ahoy. He also voiced Professor Alexander Graham in the Scooby-Doo! Night of 100 Frights video game.

Moving on to the Guess Who guest stars, Rachel Kimsey voiced Wonder Woman. Later in the series, she'd also voice Marla and the chef from "A Fashion Nightmare!"

If you thought Sandy Duncan and Cher were the only guest stars to have roles in both The New Scooby-Doo Movies and Guess Who, you would be wrong! Mark Hamill appeared as as himself in Guess Who, but he had previously voiced one of Jeannie's masters, Corey Anders, in "Mystery in Persia" of The New Scooby-Doo Movies. Mark Hamill previously voiced Snakebite Scruggs in Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island; Steve in Scooby-Doo and the Alien Invaders; Shifty in Night of the Living Doo; Deacon, Babyface Boretti and the store owner in Scooby-Doo! Camp Scare; and Zip Elvin in Scooby-Doo! Moon Monster Madness. Mark Hamill has also provided several voices of the side characters and villains in What's New Scooby-Doo?, Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated and Be Cool, Scooby-Doo!. His What's New roles include Captain Guzman and Emperor Caesar Salidicus in "Pompeii and Circumstance," as well as Tommy's father in "A Scooby-Doo Christmas." He voiced Crybaby Clown and the Drill Sargeant from "The Night the Clown Cried" and "The Night the Clown Cried II: Tears of Doom" in SDMI, in addition to voicing General Stall in Be Cool, Scooby-Doo's "Area 51 Adjacent." Moreover, in Guess Who, he also voiced The Joker in "What a Night, for a Dark Knight!" and the Trickster in "One Minute Mysteries!".

In addition to appearing as himself in Guess Who, George Takei also appeared as the White Wizard and Mr. Wang in SDMI. The Old Samurai in Scooby-Doo and Samurai Sword was also voiced by Takei.

Malcolm McDowell had previously voiced the Sly Baron in Scooby-Doo! Moon Monster Madness in 2015 before appearing in the first season of Guess Who.

Ending right where we began, Tara Lipinski voiced Grey in "Camp Comeoniwannascareya" from What's New, Scooby-Doo?.

I hope you enjoyed reading this article and learned something new about some of the guest stars! I'm treating this as a running list, and will update this post as guest stars from either of these shows make voice appearances in other episodes.

Over the years, members of the gang have been pigeonholed and retconned into fitting certain stereotypes; Shaggy as a stoner and Velma identifying as a lesbian being the two most prominent examples. However, one stereotype is often thrust upon a member of this gang, but has not been explored in much depth over the years. Fred is sometimes labelled as a jock, despite not really displaying any athletic ability and being quite quirky at times.

In many of the earlier series, although Fred is the leader of the gang, he displays a number of quirky traits. He seems to really enjoy being the glue that holds the gang together, and is the type of person who enjoys structure. Typically, at least in the early episodes, he's the one who always suggests the gang split up. If you look closely in the early episodes, he's almost always got his hands in his pockets, which is an interesting little quirk in itself. Occasionally, he'll seem somewhat fixated on things, for example, in "The Ghost of Bigfoot," he mentions going skiing at least a dozen times. In these early episodes, we never see Fred wanting to play sports or displaying the traits of the stereotypical 'macho man.' However, it's perhaps worth pointing out that when Frank Welker first auditioned for the role, he was told to "think Jack Armstrong! Channel the All-American Boy!", which he revealed in a recent interview.

It is also worth noting, however, that Fred seems to go through a bit of a phase in season one of The New Scooby-Doo Movies. In the first episode of the series, he makes an odd joke out of nowhere about women, saying "This desert is like a woman...it goes on and on and on!" Besides this, his general behavior in some episodes is very odd. One example of this is in "Wednesday Is Missing," in which Daphne asks where a door goes. Fred tries to open the door, and when he realizes it's locked, he says "we'll never know!" in a very serious voice. In "The Haunted Horseman of Hagglethorn Hall," Shaggy says that he doesn't know if he has the spine to deal with the hauntings, to which Fred very sassily replies "What spine?" Perhaps most prominently in "The Phantom of the Country Music Hall," he acts as if he's only half listening to what Jerry says, which I detailed in my review here. Fred also lashes out at Shaggy inexplicably when Shaggy is scared of a dummy head falling down the stairs, shouting "You oughta be ashamed of yourself!" While perhaps the writers just had a different vision for his character in this season, it could be argued in-universe that Fred was perhaps going through some sort of mental health issues in this season, further showing his three-dimensionality beyond the two-dimensional "jock" stereotype.

Fred's quirkiness goes into overdrive in A Pup Named Scooby-Doo, which represents him as a conspiracy theorist. In the series, Fred is regularly very invested in various conspiracy theories posed by his favorite magazine The National Exaggerator, which his Uncle Eddie owns. He is shown to have a lot of anxiety about these theories, regularly becoming alarmed about what he reads in the magazines.

The closest we've ever seen to Fred fitting this "All-American Boy" stereotype is What's New, Scooby-Doo? A recurring joke throughout the series is that Fred can bench 220 pounds. However, we still never see Fred display an overt interest in sports, besides in "Toy Scary Boo" in which Fred asks Shaggy if he watched the game last night. It may also be worth noting he wears a football helmet to cover a poodle haircut he's accidentally given in "Homeward Hound." Still, Fred is never directly shown to have an interest in playing sports. I would argue a more accurate depiction of Fred from What's New is someone who's interested in travel. Repeatedly through What's New and some of the DTVs around that time, Fred attempts to learn some aspect of the language of the place the gang is visiting, but the running joke is that his translations are awkward and often incorrect. He seems to have a wide variety of interests in this series, but he's never explicitly stated to enjoy sports.

Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated provides an interesting case study, because the jock stereotype is being thrust upon Fred by his father, Mayor Jones. Mayor Jones continuously laments that he wishes Fred could be more like normal boys his age, at one point suggesting he join the soccer team. However, Fred remains interested in building elaborate traps. SDMI almost feels like a commentary on that stereotype that Fred is a jock.

Speaking of commentaries, Be Cool, Scooby-Doo! provides an excellent one on Fred. In this series, Fred's leadership style expanded upon. Fred's shown to be someone who likes rigid structure, and becomes frustrated when something does not go according to plan. In one episode, "Trading Chases," he becomes so frustrated with the gang not listening to him that he switches places with a tour guide to lead a bunch of kids. Although Daphne's often given the "quirky" label in this series, I would argue Fred has his fair share of quirks. You could argue that Fred was retconned for this series, but I believe Jon Colton Barry simply amplified and expanded upon traits that were already there. Even in the early series, Fred could be a bit of a control freak and enjoyed structure. He definitely wasn't the "average boy."

Scooby-Doo! The Mystery Begins provides an interesting contrast here, because this is one of the few pieces of Scooby-Doo media where Fred is officially confirmed to be a jock. In this film, Fred is on the football team, hangs out with all the kids who are into sports, and struggles with making genuine friendships where he can feel open about everything. At one point, when Daphne asks how Fred could possibly be friends with a selfish jerk who's bullying Shaggy on the school bus, Fred defends himself by saying that they're just friends because this guy happens to be on the football team. Despite this defense, Fred seems genuinely uncomfortable with the fact that someone he considered a "friend" was being cruel to another person. This alludes to the fact that Fred may be having issues being in tune with his emotions and open with others.

Ultimately while I think it's an interesting plot point to explore, Robbie Amell's portrayal didn't really fully feel like Fred. A lot of people attribute it to him not being blonde, but I think part of it has to do with the writing. Making Fred a jock plays into the stereotype of the "average American boy" who likes sports, is tough and unfeeling, and can't be vulnerable with others. In my opinion, this demonstrates a superficial understanding of Fred's character. Fred is not really shown to be a leader in this film, his love of structure isn't really touched upon, and he doesn't really have of the quirks that make Fred seem like himself. The fact that Fred's character in this film feels a bit off, given it's heavily based around being a jock, goes to show that Fred doesn't really fit the jock stereotype.

A second interesting contrast comes from another live-action movie, the original Scooby-Doo from 2002. Freddie Prinze Jr. portrays Fred as the stereotypical "frat guy": full of himself, aggressive, and not in touch with his emotions at all. This made Freddie's portrayal of Fred come off almost as a parody of the character. Like Amell's peformance, it didn't really fully embody Fred as a character. It's also worth noting that the 2002 film drew upon a lot of stereotypes in general - there's a scene in which Shaggy and Scooby are having a cookout, which begins with a shot of the outside of the van in which you can see smoke coming out. The joke here is that Shaggy and Scooby are supposedly getting high in the van, but once the scene pans in, you can see it's just a cookout. There's another scene which was ultimately cut from the movie where Velma makes out with Daphne, which plays upon the stereotype of Velma being lesbian. These two portrayals of Fred provide further evidence that traditional stereotypes of being a jock (Amell) or hypermasculinity (Freddie Prinze Jr.) doesn't really fit Fred, since it comes off as a bit unnatural. 

If Fred doesn't really have the traditional characteristics of a "jock," then why do some fans see him this way? I would argue that interpretation of Fred is an oversimplification of his character based on stereotypes. Physically, he looks like the average "all-American boy," in the same way that Shaggy looks like a hippie, and a common stereotype about hippies is that they smoke marijuana. Similarly, many people assume that Velma might be lesbian because she has short hair and isn't interested in traditionally "girly" things. All of these character interpretations are based on mere stereotypes from the gang's physical appearance. However, when you really get to know the characters through the plethora of episodes and movies, you can clearly see the characters are actually quite three-dimensional, and so much more than the two-dimensional stereotypes that the general public has imposed on them.

There's a lot of Scooby content out there that entered production, but was ultimately never shown to the world. From an official Scooby film fully animated in anime style to a movie that would have essentially been the result of mashing-up two DTV ideas into one, there's so much Scooby content we could have seen but never got to. Many of these ideas aren't necessarily common knowledge, so I wanted to highlight all of them in this post. The scope of this article only covers projects that were started and never completed, not existing projects that were significantly reworked (such as SCOOB! for example, which, fun fact, was originally going to be written by Be Cool writer Jon Colton Barry). I'm approaching this article as a new project that is a work-of-progress, rather than a finalized post. If there's any Scooby content that you're aware of that was officially confirmed to have entered development that I don't have here, please feel free to let me know and provide a link to a reliable source where you saw the info!

Of course, we have to start with all the original versions of the show that Scooby could have been. The first of these was House of Mystery, which was heavily based on The Archie Show, which was popular at the time. The series would have featured Geoff, Mike, Kelly, Linda, and Linda's brother W.W., along with their dog Too Much, who played the bongo drums. Collectively, they made up the band Mysteries Five. Too Much was a large sheepdog, intended to have a resemblance to the Archies' dog Hot Dog. However, this was rejected because it was felt to be a ripoff of Marmaduke, and it was changed to a Great Dane. Later on, the show was changed to be more based on The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis as opposed to The Archie Show. The title of the show was changed to Mysteries Five, the name of the teenagers' band. There was later one more title change to Who's S-S-Scared? after the kids' names were changed to reflect what we know them to be know: Fred, Daphne, Velma, Shaggy and Scooby. However, the show was rejected by CBS president Fred Stanton due to being too scary for young viewers. Thus, as we know, after some revisions the show was changed into what we now know as Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?.

A multi-universe series called Hanna-Barbera Babies was once pitched by Iwao Takamoto after the success of A Pup Named Scooby-Doo in 1991, but was ultimately never picked up.

Scott Jeralds apparently pitched a series featuring Scooby's son according to an interview with the Unmasked Scooby-Doo Podcast, but it was declined in favor of What's New, Scooby-Doo?.

The resumé of art director Ted Blackman informs us that Scooby-Doo! Music of the Vampire and Big Top Scooby-Doo were originally one movie, titled Scooby-Doo and the Circus of Vampires. Presumably, this was changed due to it being too similar to the 1972 horror film Vampire Circus​ and the plot was divided into two films.

In an interview, the voice of Velma from Scooby-Doo Adventures: The Mystery Map, Stephanie D'Abruzzo, mentioned that she believed the puppet film was meant to be a pilot for a potential series, but the series never entered development.

Jon Colton Barry has shared that he originally planned to write an episode of Be Cool, Scooby-Doo! featuring the Hex Girls. In addition, the Halloween episode was originally supposed to feature Scrappy. However, the episode was scrapped because WB wanted to do two 11-minute shorts instead. Apparently, according to the article The Hex Girls, How a Fictional Rock Band Become Cult, Queer, Girl Power Icons, Rick Copp also gets called from time to time about a Hex Girls spinoff that never took off.

On January 6, 2022, character designer Tracy Mark Lee revealed on his Instagram page that there was originally going to be episodes of Scooby-Doo and Guess Who? featuring Mel Brooks and Dolly Parton. He also shared that Stephen Silver had drawn character designs for Dolly and Mel, posting Dolly's on that same day. A few weeks later, on January 25, 2022, Tracy posted Mel's design on his Instagram account as well. The episode ideas were never used, because both celebrities politely declined the roles.

In addition, according to a Scoobypedia interview with Chris Bailey, an episode featuring Michael Phelps and Jabberjaw, and a King Kong parody with Grape Ape were also considered. Presumably, the Grape Ape/King Kong episode would have been "The Lost Mines of Kilimanjaro!".

A follow-up to SCOOB! titled Scoob! Holiday Haunt was announced on December 22, 2021 by Tony Cervone on Instagram, after previously being hinted in an interview in June. The film was set to be directed by Michael Kurinsky and Bill Haller, written by Tony Cervone and Paul Dini, and produced by Tony Cervone and Mitchell Ferm. The cast who voiced the young gang in the original SCOOB! (Frank Welker, Iain Armitage, Ariana Greenblatt, McKenna Grace, and Pierce Gagnon) were all set to reprise their roles. Mark Hamill, Cristo Fernandez, Michael McKean, Andre Braugher, and Ming-Na Wen also were a part of the cast. A test screening for the film occurred in April, and we also got a first look at the film on April 6, 2022. However, on August 2, 2022, after production had nearly been finished, the film was suddenly cancelled due to a shakeup in WB leadership with the Discovery merged. The new CEO of Warner Discovery, David Zaslav, cancelled the film citing his desire to move WB towards a more cost-effective theatrical model of films, and citing that he felt streaming projects were not as profitable. The film was still screened to the cast and crew, according to Iain Armitage on Instagram. Here is what would have been the description for the film:

To celebrate Scooby Doo's first Christmas, 10-year-old Shaggy and the gang take him to a holiday-themed resort owned by Fred's favorite Uncle Ned. When the park is beset by a ghostly haunting, the kids must solve a 40-year-old mystery to save the resort and show Scooby the true meaning of Christmas.

We've finally come to the end of our voice talent rankings, and the last character I'll be ranking is none other than Scooby himself! Since there's only five actors we're ranking, these were the easiest rankings to write up as they are either iconic or completely unmemorable in my opinion.

5. Neil Fanning

Neil's voice isn't bad, it's just not really memorable in any way. I will admit that, like Hadley Kay, he was sandwiched between two of the biggest icons in voice acting history (that being Don Messick and Frank Welker), so it would have been extremely difficult for him to beat those two.
​
4. Hadley Kay

Yeah, not much to say here. It's fine, but completely unmemorable given Hadley appeared in two short Johnny Bravo episodes and a commercial that wasn't even technically from the Scooby-Doo franchise. He does a fine enough job, but admittedly he was placed in the nearly impossible shadow of following Don Messick.

​3. Scott Innes

For someone who was sandwiched between Frank and Don, Scott did an incredible job voicing Scooby. His voice feels a lot more natural as Scooby than Neil's or Hadley's did, and I really enjoyed hearing his Scooby voice in the four films he was in. I think it's really cool he continued to do the voice of Shaggy and Scooby in commercials even after they replaced him with Frank Welker. I'm a big fan of his Scooby voice, and if (God forbid) Frank ever retires, I would be satisfied if Scott replaced him.

2. Frank Welker
This is where it gets really tough, because Frank and Don are such icons. Frank did such an incredible job taking over the role of Scooby after Don passed away, and I think his Scooby voice sounds very close to Don's. However, although Frank is one of my favorite voice actors in animation history, I have to go with the original voice of Scooby on this one, that being...

​1. Don Messick

For as much as I love Frank, Don will always define the original Scooby to me. He fits the role perfectly and really brings Scooby to life as a character.

Today concludes our Voice Talent Appreciation Week! I hope you've enjoyed this week appreciating the voice talents and live-action portrayers of the gang! This week has been a lot of fun, and I've really been enjoying reading everybody's rankings and hearing others' perspectives on the voices in the comments! I always love doing these themed weeks, and I can't wait to do more of them in the future!

Surprise! I wasn't going to write up rankings for Scrappy's voice actors initially, but I've been having so much fun seeing everybody's rankings throughout this week that I thought I'd do Scrappy's as well, given he was a main character across multiple series for ten years of the franchise.

3. Lennie Weinrib
I wouldn't say I hate Lennie's Scrappy portrayal, but the voice definitely can be a little obnoxious at times. I don't feel Lennie's voice in general is annoying, because fun fact, if you weren't aware, he also voices Uncle Nat from "The Loch Ness Mess" and I loved him there. I suppose it could have just been Lennie's personality though, as I have read some things about how he was a very "in your face" type of person to work with. If you didn't know, he was one of the few voice actors who didn't willingly step down from a voice role on this series. He was fired from the role after the first Scrappy series after demanding his salary to be raised to an outrageous amount. I don't have anything particularly against Lennie, I just found the other two portrayals better and with this one, it could be just a little bit annoying at times. 

2. Scott Innes
Although Scott kinda catered more to Lennie's Scrappy voice than Don's, somehow I didn't have that same "this is a little annoying at times" feeling that I did with Lennie's portrayal. Maybe it's because Scott was kind of trying to be annoying with the voice, since that's the characterization they were going for in the live-action film, but I would say I liked his voice just a little bit better than Lennie's.

1. Don Messick
Don's Scrappy voice fits the best for me, and is miles above the other two. I feel like Don's voice almost shifts his characterization to be overeager but in a sweet, misunderstood way, whereas Lennie's voice made him feel a little bit more in-your-face at times. This is interesting because I like The Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo Show better than The Richie Rich / Scooby-Doo Show which is when Don started voicing him, but I would say that's mainly because the mysteries were obviously far more solid in the former. Even if Don's portrayal still had Scrappy be kind of a scrapper (a pun may or may not have been intended there haha), I felt Don's voice allowed for a little bit gentler side of the character to come out. It allowed his character to evolve and become more toned-down in 13 Ghosts and the movies he was in, whereas I don't think that would have been as easy if Lennie was still the voice, in my opinion.

That about does it for my rankings of Scrappy! I hope you enjoyed this little surprise post, and I'm looking forward to seeing some of your rankings as well!

This ranking of Fred's portrayals notably includes whom I consider to be the worst portrayal of any main character in the franchise. My favorite is already pretty clear from the beginning, and I would be very surprised if somebody picked somebody other than him, but nonetheless here are my rankings!

6. Freddie Prinze Jr.

While I don't want to come off overly negative, Freddie Prinze Jr. is hands down the worst portrayal of any main character in the history of the franchise in my opinion. He comes off like a narcissist who thinks he is the coolest man to ever exist, and admittedly, people who are full of themselves is one of my least favorite personality traits. I feel Be Cool, Scooby-Doo! pulled off something similar so much better. In that series, Fred is a bit of a control freak. However, it's executed in a funny way in that series, whereas here he just comes off like an unlikable jerk. This goes below Marla Frumkin levels of bad in my opinion, and is truly the bottom of the barrel for portrayals.

5. Pierce Gagnon

Like I said when I talked about Ariana in Velma's rankings, I hope this ranking improves when I see Scoob! Holiday Haunt. I really have no quips against this portrayal of Fred, other than it's just kind of unmemorable compared to the other four.

4. Zac Efron

Similar to his younger counterpart, the only real issue I had with Zac's Fred portrayal is it comes off a little flat. Granted, this is miles above Freddie Prinze Jr.'s portayal of him and I did really enjoy him in SCOOB!. However, compared to the other three SCOOB! voices, Zac's was probably my least favorite. Guess he just needed to get his head a little more in the game (bonus points to anybody who got that reference haha). 

3. Robbie Amell

I think this was a much better execution of Fred, even if it still wasn't amazing. Having Fred be a macho jock feels at least like a more natural characterization for Fred than making him into a complete jerk like they did in the first two live-action films. I also recently saw Robbie in another show, Upload. I really enjoyed him in that series and would highly recommend it.

2. Carl Steven

Guess it just goes to show iconic #1 is when Carl Steven makes it to #2. I love Carl's portrayal of the more zany, wacky Fred. He gets the voice down perfectly and is my second favorite of the child actors in A Pup Named Scooby-Doo. However, I do always feel bad now when I see his name, since he had such a sad life after this show ended and died alone in prison in 2011. 

1. Frank Welker

Those two words are all that needs to be said. He is Fred and I'm going to be really sad when he retires, which hopefully is a long way away.

If anyone else wants to share their rankings for Fred's portrayals over the years, feel free to do so in the comments!

Daphne has arguably had the second most actress changes over the years compared to Velma. While I didn't dislike any of the actresses she has had like I did with Velma, there were definitely some I liked more than others. In this post, I will be ranking every portrayal of Daphne, including her live-action actresses and voice actresses. There's a bit of a hot take in here, so you can look forward to that haha.

10. Kate Melton

Once again, I want to make it clear that this getting bottom ranking doesn't mean I disliked Kate's portrayal, but I felt her version of the character wasn't quite as strong as some of the others here. It felt like a very similar situation to Nick Palatas, where she was decent in the role, but nothing about it screamed "this is Daphne." Also like Nick, it's sad that her acting career never really took off after this film, because I do think she's a good actress.

9. McKenna Grace

The young voices of the gang are kind of hard to rank at this time, since we only see them for such a brief period of SCOOB!. However, I thought McKenna was one of the strongest of the young voice actresses for the gang. She's also in Young Sheldon alongside Iain Armitage, playing Sheldon's friend Paige in a recurring role, so part of it might be that I'm more familiar with her acting than Velma and Fred's young voice talents. I also discovered when looking up the picture of her that she played young Sabrina Spellman in The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, which I've seen before but didn't realize it was her! So I guess I'm familiar with her in quite a few different roles haha.

8. Amanda Seyfried

Amanda was the standout voice actress to me in SCOOB!. She did a great job as Daphne, arguably the best job out of any of the four celebrity voice actors. However, I wouldn't say she was particularly memorable compared to many of Daphne's other voice actresses, thus her ranking here.

7. Sarah Michelle Gellar

I really debated about this one, because I do like her portrayal of a more strong, empowered Daphne, but I feel like part of the reason I like her is over nostalgia from Sarah's role in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Setting that aside, I don't feel like her portrayal of Daphne was a case of "yes, this fits Daphne's character" exactly. She was certainly very good in the role, but I would say the remaining six actresses top her for me.

6. Kellie Martin

Kellie did a great job providing a different spin on Daphne's character. She really gets down Daphne's bossiness and standoffishness. While I would say I'd probably put Velma and Fred's young voice actors above hers, Kellie's portrayal of Daphne was still excellent.

5. Mary Kay Bergman

Although her role as Daphne was very brief given it was only for a few films, I thought she did an excellent job as Daphne and made a great replacement for Heather North. She did a great job portraying a more strong, independent version of the character than we'd previously seen. 

Alas, we have arrived at my hot take haha. While I know a lot of people are not a fan of this film and are probably reading this saying "how could you rank her so high?" One of the things I most like in a voice actor is their ability to provide a different take on the character. Sarah's version of Daphne explored her quirkier, sheltered, more optimistic side, which is something we've seen throughout the franchise but it was never really explored in the depth it was here. While it was certainly a very different take on Daphne, Sarah Jeffery's version of Daphne was my favorite of the live-action Daphnes. It's certainly an unpopular opinion, and if anybody chooses to rank these in the comments, I would be very surprised to see anybody put her as high as I did, but I really appreciated this different take on Daphne. She felt more natural as Daphne than Kate Melton and Sarah Michelle Gellar did, in my opinion.

3. Indira Stefanianna Christopherson

This is one of the few cases where I didn't choose the original voice actress as my top choice. I really like Indira's voice and think she fits the role of Daphne exceptionally well, but given she was only in one season, I guess her voice didn't stand out quite enough to feel as iconic to me as Grey's and Heather's.

2. Grey Griffin

Grey Griffin is such an amazing actress, and I think she fits the role of Daphne perfectly. One of my favorite parts of Grey's Daphne voice is that she can adapt it to fit so many different versions of Daphne: the more fashionista version of her in What's New Scooby-Doo?, the quirkier version of her in Be Cool, Scooby-Doo!, and the more typical version of Daphne in SDMI, Guess Who and the DTVs. Grey is an all-around amazing voice actress in my opinion and shows great versatility in her portrayal of every character I've heard her voice.

1. Heather North

Was there ever any doubt? haha Heather is iconic as Daphne and gets her voice down so well. When I think of classic Daphne's voice, I think of Heather North. She did such an amazing job with the role.

I hope you enjoyed reading my rankings! If you'd like to share your own, feel free to leave them in the comments!