A part of the Scooby fandom that I'm involved in that I don't talk about a lot on here is Scooby fanfiction. You've probably seen that I usually do a post whenever I release a new fanfic, but I also enjoy reading others' Scooby-Doo fanfiction. I tend to be a bit more picky when I read fanfiction, and I don't necessarily read it all that often. Fanfiction sites can be a bit of a free-for-all in the sense that you never know what you're going to get. There will sometimes be little kids that post 100 or 200 word stories they wrote, my favorite example that I've seen being a little kid who wrote an entire fanfic about how Scooby-Doo showed up to their real-life classroom, titled "Scooby-Doo Meets Emma from My Math Class" haha. There are also plenty of fanfics with truly bizarre, absurd premises that would never canonically happen in the franchise. I don't enjoy reading either of these types of fanfics.

Personally, I don't read fanfiction to see my favorite characters in utterly bizarre scenarios, and I'm also not really a fan of fanfics that are centered around romantic pairings. The fanfics that most appeal to me are the ones that explore a new element of the franchise, in a way that feels like a typical Scooby-Doo series or film would. Some fanfiction writers seem to go for the larger-than-life, cinematic approach, but that tends not to appeal to me, because it isn't consistent with the franchise I know and love. The value of fanfiction to me is that it's a chance to explore different elements of the formula and characters in a way they haven't in the actual franchise, yet still feels consistent with something that would happen in a Scooby series or film.

Back in 2018, I did a post highlighting some of my favorite Scooby-Doo fanfiction that I've read. Five years later, I thought it would be fun to revisit this idea for a part 2! Besides the ones listed on that article, I think I've mentioned or promoted others' fanfiction on the blog in other posts, so I will stick to ones that I have never talked about before. I have five new Scooby-Doo fanfics that I've read in the past year or so that I've found to be among the best Scooby fanfiction I've read, and will highlight in this post.

The Drive In of Doom by Wileyk209
As I've talked about on here before, "A Mystery Solving Gang Divided" is my least favorite episode of Scooby-Doo and Guess Who?, and one of my least favorite Scooby episodes in general. The gang constantly arguing with the Funky Phantom Crew was annoying to sit through, and it felt so out-of-character for the Funky Phantom Crew. Ironically, this fanfic was actually released about a month and a half ahead of that episode coming out, but I think The Drive In of Doom is the Funky Phantom crossover we should have gotten. The Funky Phantom Crew feels just like their characterizations in the original Funky Phantom show from 1972, and the gang's characterization also has a Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?-ish feel to it. It feels like a classic Scooby-Doo mystery with a couple of nice Easter Eggs sprinkled in. The fanfic is published on the ScoobyAddicts forum if you want to check it out.

Yabba's Parade Pandemonium by Captain Furry
I'm not a big fan of the Puppy Hour era, but I really enjoyed this fanfic! The fanfic centers around Yabba-Doo, Deputy Dusty and Scrappy-Doo preparing for Tumbleweed's anniversary parade, but they end up having to stop a couple of crooks named Ned Knicker and Pesky Pete from ruining the day's events. It's impressive how much this feels just like Yabba-Doo short from the Puppy Hour, and Captain Furry does a great job with descriptions. Captain Furry also adds a lot of warmth to the characterizations of Yabba, Dusty and Scrappy that even the actual show didn't do as good of job with. The fact that the reader gets to hear Yabba's thoughts through the prose makes him feel more endearing as a character than the seven-minute runtime allowed for in the show. Without ruining anything, I also think the ending is really sweet. I'd like to take a moment to highlight the cover art as well, as Captain Furry also drew all of the characters in the title card you see above and did a great job! I would highly recommend checking out this fic, even if you weren't a big fan of the Yabba-Doo shorts. This is the only fanfic of the bunch here that is published exclusively on this site, as Captain Furry reached out to me back in 2020 in search of a place to have this story published. You can read it here.

Scooby-Doo and the Curse of Samhain by Chauliodus
This is another great fanfic that I discovered back towards the end of 2021 as it was being published. The fanfic centers around the gang traveling to New England after they're asked to solve a mystery at a farm during a festival (centered around a real-life Wiccan festival done around Halloween called Samhain). However, they quickly discover that the farm is far more haunted than they ever expected, as dozen of monsters pop up, and an ancient deity threatens to return from the grave. While this may sound like it fits the stereotype of fanfics putting the characters in bizarre situations, I feel it works really well. Even though there is the potential threat of a real monster, the fanfic is intended to fit with the tone of the Zombie Island era films, and succeeds in doing so. The fanfic feels a lot like a Scooby DTV would, and has a more mature feel like many of the late 1990s/early 2000s Scooby films did. The characterizations are on-point and I found this to be a really interesting read. You can check it out on the ScoobyAddicts forum.

It's Terror Time, Scooby-Doo! by Bigscoobydoofan
This is a fanfic written by somebody who frequents this blog! Bigscoobydoofan's It's Terror Time, Scooby-Doo! is a nice fanfic that mirrors the more whimsical tone of Be Cool, Scooby-Doo! When writing my fanfics that were follow-ups to The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo and Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf, it was important to me to have them feel like a natural progression of the show/film, rather than something larger-than-life or completely not match the tone of the original. Bigscoobydoofan does a great job with that in this fanfic. It's Terror Time feels like very down-to-Earth and just like a Be Cool, Scooby-Doo! episode would. Another element I admire about the fanfic is its incorporation of humor. While serious, high-action fanfics are fun, as a writer, I feel like one of the most fun parts of writing is incorporating humor, and this fanfic's humor style excellently matches the tone of the absurdist Be Cool, Scooby-Doo! humor that I like. Bigscoobydoofan has also written some other fanfiction that I haven't had a chance to check out yet, but if you're interested in It's Terror Time or his other stories, you can check them out on Scooby-Doo Fanon Wikia.

Occult Nights & The Treasure of the Regal Hotel by The Wandering Piney
I didn't want to do rankings for these as I didn't want to play favorites too much, but I will come right out and say that this is one of the best Scooby-Doo fanfics I've ever read. Occult Nights is an eighteen-chapter Hex Girls-centric fanfic featuring Thorn realizing that she is a witch with magic abilities, and coming face-to-face with a deadly being. The vivid level of description is among the most amazing I've ever read in a Scooby-Doo fanfic, and the internal struggle present within Thorn is extremely compelling and raw. It's easily the most mature characterization of the Hex Girls that I've seen out there. There is also a twenty-five chapter sequel to Occult Nights, titled The Treasure of the Regal Hotel. As I mentioned earlier in the post, I don't tend to enjoy fanfics that are too cinematic-feeling, but The Wandering Piney does such an incredible job creating compelling characterizations for the girls that this fanfic is difficult to stop once you've started. As a content warning, these two fanfics are rated M (Mature) due to violence and language. There isn't anything raunchy, but the fanfic has an extremely dark tone that is too frightening for young audiences. You can read Occult Nights on Fanfiction.net and AO3, as well as the sequel The Treasure of the Regal Hotel on Fanfiction.net and AO3.

As an aside, I mentioned it in the previous article so I'm not going to write up a whole summary of it again, but the only other in-progress Scooby-Doo fanfic that I've been reading recently is The Gang by Bananagoose. I really like the way she characterizes the gang here, and it's a very interesting story that kind of feels a bit like the Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated (2010) show was mixed with the Mystery Incorporated YouTube series. If you enjoy Scooby fanfiction, I would definitely recommend checking this one out if you haven't.

Thanks for reading this article! If you're interested in other Scooby fanfiction beyond what I've listed here, there are additional fanfics that others and myself have written on the Fanfiction page of the site, all of which I've read and enjoyed. This was a bit of an unconventional article, but regardless, I hope that you enjoyed all of my recommendations about the Scooby-Doo fanfics been reading recently!​

Given I did a couple music related posts recently, between the Where Are You and What's New theme song rankings and the Scooby-Doo songs in my music library post, I was thinking it'd be fun to do a ranking of some of the most iconic songs in the Scooby-Doo franchise: the Hex Girls' discography! It was a lot of fun compiling this list, and it was pretty tough to choose between some of these, because there are so many classics here!

13. Scooby Snacks
From: Scooby-Doo and the Witch's Ghost Soundtrack
This is the only song I don't really like. It's a bit too cheesy and childish in my opinion, and doesn't really feel like it fits in with the style of the rest of the Hex Girls songs. Particularly the lyric "we've got stacks and stacks of lots of snacks" stands out as being a bit cringey to me.

12. Zoinks!
From: Scooby-Doo and the Witch's Ghost Soundtrack
This one isn't cringey like "Scooby Snacks," but I'm not a huge fan of it. It's cute enough for what it is, but I find their other songs much stronger, and this one has the issue of not really fitting the Hex Girls style IMO. When choosing songs for the Hex Girls' album in my fanfic Hexed, I actually made the decision not to include this one or "Scooby Snacks" due to the tone not really fitting the style of the rest of their discography.

11. What's New, Scooby-Doo? Theme Song
From: What's New, Scooby-Doo? - "The Vampire Strikes Back"
I really like the Hex Girls' cover of this! Like I mentioned in the post with my What's New theme song rankings, I would argue it's nearly as good as the Simple Plan version. However, I would argue my top 10 are all more memorable than this one.

10. Those Meddlin' Kids
From: Scooby-Doo and the Witch's Ghost Soundtrack
This one is really catchy! I love the production in this one, and I think their voices sound great here. I had never listened to this before researching for my fanfic Hexed​, but I really like this.

9. It's a Mystery
From: Scooby-Doo and the Witch's Ghost Soundtrack
Of the songs not in the Witch's Ghost movie, this is the best of them. I really like the mysterious sound of this, and I feel the lyrics fit really well with the tone of a goth band unlike some of the other songs on the soundtrack that weren't in the film. This is another one I hadn't heard until a little over a year ago, but I'm so glad I decided to check it out!

8. Good Bad Girls
From: Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated - "Dance of the Undead"
I like this one, but I can't help but feel it would be a bit higher if it weren't a medley. It doesn't feel we get to hear much of this song beyond just a few lines, but it's a decent song. To be entirely honest though, I like Rude Boy's song a little better haha. I enjoyed how groovy and jazzy it was.

7. Love's Curse
From: Scooby-Doo and Guess Who? - "I Put a Hex on You!"
This is another great one! "I Put a Hex on You!" is my favorite episode from Guess Who, and I love that they made a new song just for the episode. It sounds quite reminiscent of "Hex Girl" to me. Also, apologies, I couldn't find any YouTube video with the correct title of the song, so I had to link one that has the title wrong.

6. Trap of Love
​From: Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated - "In Fear of the Phantom"
I really like this one for how dark it is. I'd argue it's the darkest song in their discography, and despite it being a bit more intense than their other songs, I thought it was done really well and it was a natural progression of the girls' style. I really liked Daphne's vocals here and the gritty production.

5. Who Do Voodoo?
​From: Scooby-Doo and the Legend of the Vampire
I feel my top 5 is getting into the elite material, because all of the remaining songs are amazing in their own way. It's going to be tough to rank these going forward, but "Who Do Voodoo?" is my choice for #5. I really like the song and consider it a classic, but the only reason it's below the other four is because we only kinda get to hear the song in the background with all the noises that the vampires are making. It's strange to me that they'd come up with a whole song only to have it fade out without playing all of it. There are versions on the Internet that silence all the vampire noises and make the song sound crisper, and the version I've heard of the full (or at least, as full as we're going to get) song sound really good.

4. The Witch's Ghost
From: Scooby-Doo and the Witch's Ghost
This is perhaps an unpopular opinion (although I guess I don't really know for sure haha), but this song played during the credits of Witch's Ghost is a really underrated song. Oddly it's not sung by the Hex Girls' voice actresses...according to the credits, they were played by Gigi Worth, Angie Jaree, and Terry Wood. Regardless, I think they sound just as good as Jennifer Hale, Kimberly Brooks and Jane Wiedlin. The ominous tone of the song sounds amazing, and I like the suspenseful feel of the song, especially towards the end. The production here is the best of any Hex Girls songs IMO.

3. Earth, Wind, Fire and Air
​From: Scooby-Doo and the Witch's Ghost
It's painful to put any of these three so low, but I feel the other two slightly edge this one out. Nonetheless, it's amazing and I love the electric guitar production. Given the girls are eco-goths, I feel the theme of this song most quintessentially fits the band's style out of their entire discography, even if I like the other two just slightly better.

2. Petrified Bride
From: What's New, Scooby-Doo? - "The Vampire Strikes Back"
​I'm sure I've put this song higher than most people would, but this song has always really stood out to me. The fast pop-punk sound of this song really fits with my musical interests, and I feel it is really reminiscent of how pop-punk was really popular in the 2000s with artists like Simple Plan, Avril Lavigne, Paramore, etc. Thorn's voice sounds absolutely amazing here.

I have never been a huge video game person, so I admittedly have not played every single Scooby-Doo video game out there. What I was a huge fan of when I was younger though were the Scooby-Doo Flash games on Cartoon Network's website. I recently decided to play a few of these that I found online on a whim, although most of them are sadly not playable anymore. While the Kids' WB games of the late 2000s/early 2010s were enjoyable, I was reminded of how well-made those Cartoon Network games were, and they pretty much blow all the Kids' WB games out of the water quality-wise with the exception of three, which I will get to over the course of this article. I thought about doing rankings, but like I mentioned in a post from January, I'd kind of like to have more of a balance where I'm not just doing rankings all the time for every article, as some of the editorial and research articles have been my favorite things to write for the blog. Thus, I decided to make this a Flash Game appreciation article to talk about the quality of the games and my memories of playing them, and I will mention specific games I enjoyed as I go.

There are a few others that I enjoyed such as Bayou Scooby-Doo, in which you had to maneuver Scooby up and down, who is tied to a rope at the end of a boat for some reason, to avoid various monsters and obstacles. Scooby-Doo and the Creepy Castle is another one I remember well, where you have to stop a ghost king from scaring you by picking up various objects around the castle and putting them in the right place to trap him. It always amused me that the key to stopping him is just a cheap cage, as you're literally doing things to him like conking him over the head with a bowling ball or electrocuting him with lightning, yet somehow a cage stops him when that other stuff doesn't haha. I remember playing them a lot in my childhood, but I can't say they have quite as much appeal to me in adulthood since they're pretty simple.

One game I really liked that I wish I had access to again is The Haunted World of Scooby-Doo. It took me forever to find one of the levels, The Zombies of the South, because the Adobe Shockwave plugin was broken on the Cartoon Network site forever and I think I ended up having to find it on another country's Boomerang site. Although this game was very simple, it was really fun because it was luck-based in the same way Scooby Trap was. There were four levels, which I'll briefly go through. The Pirates of the North involved you having to manuever a boat without hitting anything in order to rescue Shaggy. Despite how easy that sounds, it was actually quite difficult, and took me months to beat because of how unwieldily the boat moved and how narrow the path was (see above) haha. The Zombies of the South, the one with the broken plug-in, was similarly hard. I don't really remember much about it, but it had to do with moving Scooby around a haunted mansion in a zombie apocalypse (the villain was the zombie from "Which Witch Is Which?), and I think it took me a while to beat that level as well. Level 3, The Ghosts of the West, was the only one of these levels to feature a new villain that was not from Where Are You. The objective of the game was that you had to catch up to a ghost cowboy that had captured Velma without hitting obstacles on the road. I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I honestly never was able to beat this level lol. It was so difficult to get around the obstacles and catch up to the ghost cowboy, and I ultimately lost every time I played it haha. This was the only Scooby game I remember that I could never beat, and it frustrated me to no end lol. Level 4, The Haunting of the East, was oddly the easiest level and I feel like I was able to beat this every time, whereas level 1 and 2 were far harder to beat. The level centered around having to rescue Fred and Daphne from Zen Tuo and his snakes. Like Scooby Trap, the fact that they were so luck-based made them kind of addictive.

Attack of the Vampire Pumpkinheads is another fun skill-based one. The objective of the game is about as simple as it gets. The gang is captured by the Vampire Pumpkinhead, and you have to rescue them by running up the stairs and opening the door that they are trapped in. However, the Vampire Pumpkinhead is throwing pumpkins at you as you try to do that, so you have to jump over them. It's another one of those games that feels like it should be so simple, yet the pumpkins are such an annoyance that it makes it difficult. This game also notably includes some pre-live action film Scrappy bashing, as if you open a door that has Scrappy standing in the doorway, you have to shut the door to rescue the rest of the gang.

​Two games I wish I remembered more about that I liked are Hollywood Horror and The Ghosts of Pirate Beach. These were the other two Flash games I loved in my childhood, but I don't remember much about them anymore. I watched a bit of a walkthrough and refreshed my memory a tad, and Hollywood Horror had two parts. One part featured you trying to make your way through the cemetery and finding clues, and then with part 2, you had to find clues in a room while avoiding the Hollywood Horror (which was the Giggling Green Ghost with a different name). Notably, it included Daphne's Uncle Maxwell from "Never Ape an Ape Man," which I thought was super cool! The Ghosts of Pirate Beach was a cool game in the sense that you got to solve the mystery as the player, where you had to dig around the beach and find clues, then make your way through a cave and capture Redbeard (the pirate may have been renamed, but it had the same design).

These last two weren't Flash games, but they are notable to Scooby-Doo history. In 2004, WB released the game Horror on the High Seas, which is a story game with cut scenes. The plot focuses on Shaggy and Scooby going on a cruise which is hijacked by a ghost pirate, and they have to solve the mystery. One of the cool things about this game series is that these cut scenes feature original animation, and even have dialogue recorded from Scott Innes as Shaggy and Scooby. For an Internet game, that level of detail is awesome and I wish they would have made a lot more of these games. In between the cut scenes, there are various levels where you have to pick up various items to help you escape. Even though I like the luck games like I mentioned in previous paragraphs, I also really enjoy adventure games like this one. The downside is that it's pretty easy to remember the steps and order you have to do things in once you've done it, but for a first time play, it's a lot of fun figuring out what clues you're supposed to pick up and the creative ways that you have to use them to escape. There are four episodes to the game, and each of them have around three levels. The final level of episode 4 has you capture and unmask the villain. This game is really neat in the sense it lets the player go through all the steps of solving a mystery. I also have to appreciate the level of detail put into each of the levels, and the fact that they created original characters and villains. 

Two years later, a sequel to the game, Mayan Monster Mayhem was released. The game centers around Shaggy and Scooby trying to find a hot chili pepper, but running into the Mayan Mayhem, which is a creepy ancient ghoul. Certain levels of this game are a bit more skill-based than the last one, as there are levels where you have to dodge obstacles and it's more about luck than following steps or finding clues. One thing that strikes me particularly about this game is the dark tone the game somehow manages to create with the creepy music and atmosphere, which is awesome. The second episode, Creepy Cave Cave-In is the most strikingly dark level, and I would say it gets about to the level of The Scooby-Doo Show. While I don't want to diss any of the other Scooby online games that came after this, because they were great, it makes me a little sad that they started pumping out low-quality games like Jinkies Jelly Factory (which was essentially just a Scooby-Doo version of Candy Crush Saga) and such post-2010, because the quality and level of detail put into these story-based ones are amazing. I would say the last good game they put out was Scooby-Doo! Abracadabra Doo, which was kinda neat in the sense that you had to trap the various villains from Abracadabra Doo in creative ways (although it still doesn't get to the level of quality in this).

They put out a third and final story-based game, Haunts for the Holidays, around Christmastime in the late 2000s (I'm not sure on the exact year). That one was almost entirely skill-based though, and it just involved avoiding obstacles and hiding from the ghosts. I attempted to play these again, and the first two episodes had glitches where the controls did not function properly and thus they were unplayable. There was a little bit of a "follow the steps"-based for a few of the levels, such as one where you have to turn off switches and find a door in a dark room, and another where you have to navigate the backstage area of the theater. The cut scenes were fun to watch, but the game wasn't quite as enjoyable as it was noticeably lower quality than the previous two.

The final game I wanted to talk about was not a Flash game, but it was the final Scooby-Doo game put onto the Cartoon Network website before they removed all the games when Adobe Shockwave and Flash became obsolete. Crystal Cove Online was the most memorable of the Scooby games, and that's because there was so much detail put into it. The game was based around Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, and a new level was released every week the day after each episode aired. The detail put into the levels was immaculate, and they essentially mirrored the general plot of each episode almost exactly. A few parts were removed because it wouldn't have worked well for gameplay, but overall, each level was a full episode walkthrough where you got to play your way through the mystery of the week. The dialogue was shortened and was basically a short summary of what happened, since obviously tons of talking wouldn't make for very enjoyable gameplay. However, there was some dialogue that was added, and there were even Easter Eggs at points, such as one point in the "In Fear of the Phantom" sidequest where Red Herring from A Pup Named Scooby-Doo is mentioned. Each level would rework parts of the episode where you had to go on a quest to find whatever items were needed to solve the mystery, and along the way, you'd have to defeat the villain's minions, such as sewer rats for the Swamp Monster, gators for the Gator People, etc. Some of these side-villains were really unique, such as Evil Robot Monkeys playing drums for the Phantom, and living bear rugs for the Shadowy Figure. Once you'd completed the quest and made your way to the end of the episode, there'd be a boss fight in which you had to defeat that week's villain to solve the mystery and unmask them. There was a level for every episode through season 1, and at the end of the game, there was a bonus mystery not included in the show where you had to defeat seven of the old villains.

I really wish they would have continued the game for season 2, but I guess they didn't want to put the resources into making another season of it. I think this could have been for a number of reasons, such as the fact that the episodes were airing every weekday would mean they'd also be posting levels every day, which might be a bit much. The plot might have also gotten hard to adapt into game form as the season progressed and became less mystery-of-the-week focused. "Stop the apocalypse" also would have been a tough objective to complete in the final episode haha. More likely though, they probably just didn't want to put the resources into making another season of levels, since it seemed they kinda gave up on the series when they crammed it into a mid-day weekday timeslot when most kids would be in school. Nonetheless, I thought the level of detail and world building put into this game was immaculate, and it leaves stuff like Jinkies Jelly Factory and Recycle Round Up quaking in its boots lol.

If you're interested, there is an archived page on the site that documents all the different details of Crystal Cove Online.

I think the days of WB investing in online games like this is likely done, since the nature of online games has significantly changed in the past several decades with most games being apps on phones, and I'm presuming WB doesn't want to invest the money in developing entire apps for Scooby-Doo games.

I have no idea if anybody even remembers these games as they are a more obscure piece of Scooby media, but I wanted to do an appreciation post of them after running across them again recently. I definitely miss how high-quality these early 2000s games were, especially in comparison to the cheaply made Kids WB games of the late 2000s and early 2010s. I hope you enjoyed this little blast from the past if you happen to remember these games!

There have been so many amazing Scooby-Doo villains over the years that it was genuinely difficult to pick favorites when I came up with the idea for this article. Nonetheless, I narrowed it down to ten of my all-time favorites. We'll be starting off with an honorable mention that is probably an extremely unpopular opinion that will surprise everybody.

Honorable Mention: Banshee
Likely either you're shocked right now, or you're saying "what episode was this from?" The banshee is a very forgotten villain from The Richie Rich / Scooby-Doo Hour episode "Scooby's Luck of the Irish," and it only appears for a brief minute of the episode. This banshee's design is so terrifying that it's a huge shame that it was wasted on a one-minute appearance, in my opinion. The jagged teeth, huge mouth, skeletal hands, and soulless eyes make this one of the best Scooby-Doo villains of the franchise. I wish this would have been used in a full-length episode, because I imagine the tone of the episode would have been super dark.

10. The Mummy of Friar Sera
Perhaps this is another surprise, since I don't think the Mummy from "Theater of Doom" (Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated) is a particularly popular villain. In the past, mummies had just been the same bandaged-looking prototype (with the exception of "Mummy Scares Best," but I thought the eerie green mist, his glowing yellow eyes, and his decomposing corpse was amazingly creepy. The raspy voice is also super creepy! 

9. The Ghost of Uncle Beauregard
I have a huge soft spot for Boo Brothers and all the villains from in it in general, but Uncle Beauregard particularly stands out. His design is absolutely incredible, and I love the uncertainty around whether he is a real or a fake ghost throughout the movie. Even though the audience is kind of left unsure about the Skull Ghost at the end of the film too, Uncle Beauregard is the only villain in the film that we're left completely unsure about. The sheriff never admits to dressing up as Shaggy's uncle, but the ghost seems to have conflicting purposes throughout the film - sometimes he just wants to warn Shaggy away, and other times, it seems like he wants to kill Shaggy. The mystery surrounding if this ghost is real or not, as well as the amazing design, makes this a top-tier villain for me.

8. Zomba
I think it's well established for those who know me that Zomba is my favorite 13th ghost, but she's also one of my favorite villains of the franchise. One of the features of villains that freaks me out the most is bugged-out eyes, so Zomba's huge looking eyes are super creepy looking to me. The raspiness of her voice is also incredibly sinister-sounding! In the one scene where she's mis-animated (pictured above), she looks absolutely terrifying!

7. The Ghost of Mother
It's safe to say that this villain is one scary mother lol. (That joke was perhaps more frightening than any of the villains that made this list haha) "Doo Not Disturb" is one of my favorite episodes from Be Cool, and a lot of that is how amazing this villain is. The concept of the villain just being somebody's mother is hilarious, but at the same time, it's executed in such a creepy way.

5. The Ghost of Sarah Ravencroft
Although the fake ghost was very good too, I'm talking about the real ghost of Sarah Ravencroft here. She's arguably one of the most evil villains in the entirety of the franchise, as her plan is quite literally to destroy the entire world just for the fun of it lol. The twist at the end of Witch's Ghost where she's actually real is one of my favorite moments in the franchise.

4. Revolutionary Ghosts
It should come as no surprise to anyone that these guys from "The Loch Ness Mess" are here lol. I don't feel these are particularly terrifying like most of my other choices, but they just feel like such classic Scooby-Doo villains to me. The scene involving the ghost with the lantern disappearing into the night feels so inherently Scooby-ish to me. I wish we would have gotten to see the Redcoat Ghost more than just those two times, as he's my favorite of the three. He looks super creepy with his soulless and vacant eyes.

3. The Ghost of Dr. Coffin
"The Harum Scarum Sanitarium" is in general one of the spookiest Scooby episodes of all time, but a big part of that is the ghost of Dr. Coffin. His design is so creepy and he genuinely looks like he is insane. The creepy glow around his body really amplifies the spook-factor for me.

2. Gramps the Vamp
This vampire from "Vampire Bats and Scaredy Cats" is my favorite vampire villain in the franchise, but a lot of that is his behavior rather than his design. Him calling Lisa in the middle of the night from the pitch black room is one of the scariest scenes of the franchise in my opinion. However, he's not only here because of his menacing looks; he's also here for having one of the most despicable motives of any culprit in the franchise. (Spoilers ahead) The fact that Uncle Leon betrayed his niece like that is beyond cold and scarring, especially considering he literally traumatized an 18-year-old girl just so he could steal her money.

1. Morgan Moonscar
You could call me basic for making this my pick, but Morgan Moonscar is easily the creepiest villain of the franchise. Even though he's not seen more than a couple times in Zombie Island, his introduction of literally being a bag of bones crawling out of his own grave is absolutely terrifying. His design is so creepy looking, particularly his dried-out face and the huge scar around his eye.

That about does it for my rankings, but if you'd like to share, I'd love to see your top 10 list of favorite villains in the comments! I hope you enjoyed reading my list!

There are a lot of incredible Scooby-Doo villains out there, but there are also a lot of terrible villains. If you enjoy the classic person-in-a-mask format, I suppose you could fill the list from purely Scrappy shorts, but I tried to limit the amount of ones I pulled from the Scrappy shorts. While I don't particularly enjoy villains like Nazrat of the Jungle or the Strongman, I feel there were some costumes in other episodes that were far worse.

We're going to switch it around this time and do the worst list first, and I will post the best list soon.

10. Rankor
There are a lot of options that I debated putting here, and I hate to put such a cool-looking villain here. However, Rankor (from "Coast-to-Ghost") looks certainly do not match his behavior. He is one of the dumbest villains in the history of the franchise IMO. He inexplicably reports to some random monster club that couldn't have been too high-level given Weerd and Bogel are trying to get into it. Even worse, he goes into the Demon Chest by his own free will, and actually thanks the gang as they capture him by exclaiming "Thanks, you guys are real pals!" Given this is supposedly one of the 13 most horrible ghosts in the world, the bar for that title can't be too high lol.

9. Skeleton
I do have a soft spot for this one because it's so bad that it's kinda funny, but the Skeleton from "The Spooky Fog" is one of the most low-effort Scooby-Doo villains you'll find lol. Not only is it obvious that it's just a guy wearing a cheap suit with bones painted on it, the skeleton's movements are not scary or menacing in any way. In his first appearance in the gif above, it looks like he's just taking his evening stroll through the cemetery lol.

8. Ghost of Juan Carlos
I feel bad having this on here, because I do really like the episode, but I have always found the Ghost of Juan Carlos from "Don't Go Near the Fortress of Fear" to be really bad. He looks like just a normal guy in a general's outfit. In fact, I'd go as far as to argue there's nothing really ghostly about him at all.

7. Carnival Owner
This will be the first of five villains from the Scrappy shorts. A consistent problem you'll notice that I have with the Scrappy shorts is that I feel Shaggy, Scooby and Scrappy sometimes act like jerks who do something really rude to somebody else, then take no responsibility. I don't like how the carnival owner was made to be the villain, when the guys were the ones that screwed up and ate all the profits, then ran rather than apologize or pay for what they ate.

6. Chef
I don't find the chef from "Scooby Gumbo" to be well-written in the slightest. He's not even really a villain, technically, he's just a guy with strict rules about animals that the guys antagonize.

5. Carl and Tony
Besides the fact that "Ransom of Scooby Chief" leads us into the Scrappy short era, which I didn't care for, I just feel like they're not great villains in general. Rather than menacing or forceful like I feel like would have been good with a kidnapper plot, they just come off kind of whiney and annoying to me.

4. Doctor
I think we can all agree that the doctor from "Scrappy's Birthday" was just a flat-out bad villain lol. The idea of a doctor becoming so enraged that he chases visitors around the hospital is completely ridiculous.

3. Museum Guard
The reason the Museum Guard from "Scooby Dooby Guru" is here is due to the fact that his whole character is just one bad stereotype after another. I've gone into detail in my least favorite episodes/films list about how awful some of the stereotypes this character is written with are, notably the fact that he jumps on a random elephant and chases the gang around town, as well as the awful Indian voice impression that the voice actor does.

2. McGurk Brothers
Unless the McGurk Brothers from "Hoedown Showdown" are intended as a meta-reference to how stereotypes are bad, these are hands-down some of the worst Scooby-Doo villains I've ever seen. Basically their entire personalities are just bad stereotypes of hillbillies. The fact that their feud with Shaggy's family is that one of them wants to date Shaggy's cousin, but she's not interested because he doesn't take baths, is quite possibly the worst villain motive of the entire franchise lol.

1. Sheet Ghost
For me, the Sheet Ghost from "Haunted House Hang-Up" is hands down the worst Scooby-Doo villain we've ever had. The fact that the sheet he's wearing is so short that you can clearly see his human legs and arms is ridiculous and funny. It's clear he put very little effort into his costume lol.

As I mentioned in the previous top 10 settings article, I didn't think "Worst Settings" would make a good companion article for this, since I can't think of any instances where I disliked an episode based on the setting alone. So instead of that, I used an idea suggested by Matt, a regular commenter on the blog, and decided to pick out 10 episodes where I feel the setting is great, but isn't talked about very often. It was genuinely pretty tough to try to condense my list into just 10, but it was a fun challenge nonetheless. I don't have an order for these, as I don't really have a sense for which of these settings are more underrated than another. I feel all of these are underrated.

Theater of Doom
I mentioned this one in the comments but it was not mentioned in the actual post. I honestly think the episode in general is very underrated. I love how atmospheric the episode is in the sense all 22 minutes either takes place on the tiny stage, or in the creepy backstage-like basement. Having such a focus location greatly enhanced the plot and the creepiness of the mystery, and I don't think this episode gets enough recognition for that.

The Exterminator
In general, I think The New Scooby-Doo Movies is underrated for its settings as a whole, but this is one of the episodes that really stands out to me for its setting. It's not talked about much as a haunted house episode, but the creepy house on the hill makes a great haunted house. I also particularly like the inclusion of the paintings. The fact that several of the paintings and statues (like the bird with the piggy bank, for example) can suddenly move and grab you at any time makes the setting even more spooky and disturbing.

Scooby-Doo, Where's the Crew?
I don't hear this one talked about very much, but the ship's setting is so dark and terrifying. I would argue that this episode is as dark as any of the season 2 episodes. The gang being trapped on a ship lost at sea with three ghouls is really creepy, since there's literally no way they can escape. The atmosphere of the whole episode feels really dark in a way that not a lot of Scooby episodes do.

Scooby's Peep Hole Pandemonium
For an episode that has a very odd title, it has a really good setting; arguably the best of any of the 7 or 11-minute shorts. In comparison to the other series, it's not among the all-time best settings in the franchise, but I like how reminiscent this feels of a classic Scooby-Doo haunted house. The way this episode is able to do that despite the very different tone of the series from the 1960s and 1970s is definitely notable, and deserves more recognition than it gets.

The Hand of Horror
On that same subject, "The Hand of Horror" is another underrated setting. The Von Gizmo Estate presents another example of a setting feeling very atmospheric and being developed very well despite the short runtime.

The Weird Winds of Winona
This is another underrated The New Scooby-Doo Movies setting. The fact that this town is completely abandoned makes it feel foreboding, both at the farmer's house and the town hall. Admittedly, the short bit we get in the caves at the end of the episode isn't anything special, since this series seems to overuse caves a bit in my opinion, but the other two settings aren't talked about enough IMO.

Night on Haunted Mountain
I don't really know if "underrated" is the right word to describe this setting, but I never really hear anyone talk about this setting. The gang venturing up the mountain feels quite ominous, and the old ship remains have a very creepy vibe to them. I especially like the bit at the end with the El Aguirre's ghost showing up. I honestly wish he would have gotten his own episode, because his design is so amazing!

The Ghostly Creep from the Deep
This is the second-to-last New Scooby-Doo Movies that will appear here. I really like the setting of the old inn here. The fact that it is abandoned and in the middle of a swamp obviously enhances the setting quite a bit, but I also like the level of detail put into the outside of the inn. The inn looks very run-down and like it hasn't been used in years, which bumps this up a couple levels further in its spooky factor.

The Frickert Fracas
This episode is underrated in general, but I feel like a large part of that is the setting. Maude Frickert's farm has a very dark, spooky feel to it, and it's very challenging to do that with a simplistic setting like a farm IMO. The fact that most of the episode takes place at night adds to the creepiness of it, since the gang is walking around in the dark in a cornfield, where anything could jump out at them at any time. The farm itself is done in a very atmospheric way that really pulls you in, unlike "The Ghost of the Red Baron" a few episodes later, which kinda falls flat in comparison. This episode did an amazing job of using the farm to its full potential.

The Beast Is Awake in Bottomless Lake
I notice that the settings I like best create a dark and foreboding atmosphere, and this is one where I feel it's done really well. Similarly to "The Weird Winds of Winona," the town being basically abandoned and the whole thing taking place at night creates an atmosphere with a creepy vibe. Moreover, the Beast appearing seemingly everywhere amps up the terror even further, which I love. Also, this doesn't factor into my feelings on the setting, but it never fails to amuse me that Canada puts up a cheap wooden sign that says "Welcome to Canada" at the border. No other tourist information or a fancy sign at all, just a little wooden sign haha.

It was tough to condense my list into ten settings, but I hope you enjoyed reading this list! If you have any settings that you feel are underrated, I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments!

It's no secret at this point that Velma has been critically panned. Whether you love it or hate it, the majority of the fandom was not satisfied with this edgy adult reboot of the franchise. Now, Velma has wrapped up airing its first season and the fate of the show remains uncertain. Given I was one of those fans who disliked Velma, this feels like the perfect time to talk about the direction I would like the see the franchise go in the future. In the following article, I outlined three broad ideas I have for the future of the franchise, although I've included some concrete series premises amongst my discussion of these ideas. I organized it this way because I am honestly pretty open to new series ideas; honestly, it's the writing and character development that are most important to me.

1. A reboot that builds on Where Are You, but does not attempt to copy it
One of the biggest complaints about Guess Who is that the show often played it too safe. It tried to replicate the tone of Where Are You exactly, but it couldn't quite capture that original magic. While Guess Who isn't my favorite series, I do kind of appreciate what it tried to do by bringing things back to the original tone. Guess Who's biggest fault for me was trying to force that tone to the point where many episodes were a bit stale. Although they are very different series, one way to interpret some people's dissatisfaction with the franchise as of late, is that the common theme betweenVelma  and Guess Who is that both of them tried too hard to force a tone that didn't work. Expanding or taking inspiration from something is different than trying to force it. As amazing as Where Are You is, I don't think anybody would want 49 straight seasons of the exact same thing, because it would get old if there was no variety after a while. I think a reboot of Where Are You could work if it were done in a way that used the original tone, but created something new in the process of doing that. I thought Be Cool, Scooby-Doo! did a great job of using the same classic formula, and by adding a more humorous twist and developing the characters in interesting ways, the writers were able to create something engaging and different. Something like this that builds on an aspect of an old series, (whether it be Where Are You or not)  but doesn't attempt to directly copy it, could be a good direction to go. For example, perhaps they create settings with a similarly dark feel to Where Are You, but show the gang members each developing as characters in different ways. There needs to be a unique defining characteristic of each series, otherwise there is no point in creating a new series if you are going to try to match the tone of a previous series exactly.

2. A mature show that does not overuse adult themes
This is a broad umbrella, and I'll elaborate with some ideas for this later. One of my biggest issues with Velma is how overly try-hard the writers are about the humor. Although it is becoming more common in sitcoms for people to think of "mature" and "adult themes" as the same thing, I firmly believe that they do not have to be. I have never felt that a series needs to be super raunchy in order to for me to think of it as mature. "Adult themes" typically refers to sexual jokes, drug references, intense gore and violence, whereas mature shows can simply mean that a show is too dark for kids, or the themes might be too frightening for a younger audience.

It's always been a bit perplexing to me that WB-Discovery has never looked at the overwhelming success of Zombie Island as something that would work consistently for the franchise. In my 15 years in the fandom, I've met very few fans who have a single bad thing to say about Zombie Island, and it's critically acclaimed even by folks who do not frequently watch the franchise. They could make another show with the mature tone of the Zombie Island era movies, and I think everybody would love it. Even if they made something dark not quite to that level of glory - take the Mystery Incorporated YouTube series from last year for example - I would love to see a show like that. There are clearly plenty of adult fans who still watch the franchise, and WB-Discovery knows this, otherwise they wouldn't keep referencing old stuff from the 1970s and 1980s that no young fans would recognize.

Some specific, concrete ideas that would fit that tone could be a series like Wednesday. Wednesday and Velma are night and days in terms of quality. Wednesday manages to be a great mature reboot of the series that doesn't need to rely on sexual jokes, intense violence, and inappropriate humor as a crutch for bad writing. Simply having the gang solve the mystery of a serial killer in a Halloween costume of some sort could make a really good plot, especially if it was similar in tone to Zombie Island or even Mystery Incorporated (minus the romantic drama). Perhaps you could have it set at a boarding school, much like Wednesday, and have the gang meet each other through solving the mystery together. I would love to see a mature Scooby-Doo show in the vein of Wednesday. 

I also think this would be a great opportunity to create a universe where there is some shared lore from previous Scooby series. For example, recurring characters could show up, or aspects of the main characters from a certain iteration could be developed further. Another thing that I've talked about before on here that I disliked with Guess Who is the overuse of references, where they almost felt gimmicky. The best Easter Eggs for me are the ones that are tied tightly into the plot, rather than just "hey, there's a picture of Redbeard over there!" A mature reboot presents a great opportunity to create franchise lore based upon previous series and characterizations, rather than random references that aren't connected to anything.

3. Spinoff with Side Characters
WB could also do a spin-off of some of the beloved side characters of the franchise. I've mentioned on here that I've written a Ghoul School coming-of-age fanfic for the girls in high school, and a Hex Girls fanfic about how they got started as a band. I think both of these things would make amazing TV shows as long as they stayed at least somewhat true to the original tone (looking at you, Return to Zombie Island). The Hex Girls show is long overdue in my opinion; I think everyone would like that as long as they kept the girls in-character from their previous appearances. Showing how they became a band seems like the most logical series to do, but you could do a number of different plots with the girls, such as getting them involved in some sort of supernatural mystery; the girls going up against a witch as they're exploring Wicca further; or they could even do a high school coming-of-age plot where the girls run into a mystery at their school.

One could even argue that a spin-off featuring a gang member that actually keeps them true to their character would make an enjoyable show. I wrote another fanfic about Velma teaching at her sister Madelyn's school, Whirlen Merlin's, which is the vein of what I'm talking about here. I would like to see a show that actually develops the characters in a natural way that is consistent with what has been established over the past 50 years. Velma missed that mark by making the characters completely different than anything we'd seen before, and Guess Who also missed that mark by making the characters too stale. Especially at the beginning of the show, some of Fred, Daphne, and Velma's lines arguably could have been interchangeable and we probably wouldn't have even noticed.

Another idea in that similar vein is a spinoff involving Scooby, or one of the gang's relatives. I'd especially love to see a show of Scooby solving mysteries with Scooby-Dum; I feel like that would be really wholesome and hilarious.

The ideas are pretty endless for a new Scooby-Doo series, but these are ultimately the elements I most want to see in the next Scooby-Doo series after Mystery Pups. WB has had a history of kind of knee-jerk reactions to previous shows after the fact, and some of them have worked, and some of them haven't. The Be Cool writers have come out and said that WB told them they wanted a funny show after the dark, frightening tone of SDMI, but then they felt Be Cool didn't play it safe enough, so they created Guess Who. The preschool tone of Mystery Pups seems like a direct response to Velma being an adult show. I am pretty open-minded to new ideas; I think the most important aspects are good characterization, compelling mysteries, and an attempt to explore some new aspect of the franchise's formula that has not already been explored.

There are so many incredible settings within Scooby-Doo! We've been doing a lot of settings polls on here recently, and I recently was thinking that it might be cool to come up with a list of my favorite settings of the entire franchise. I had never really thought deeply about what my favorite settings within Scooby-Doo are, so this was a really fun project to decide on my favoirtes. I've been doing a lot of favorite/least favorite lists lately, but for the settings, I'm not going to do a least favorite post. The reason for that being I don't really feel that I dislike any episodes based on setting alone (there's even that one Be Cool, Scooby-Doo! episode that takes place in a garbage dump that's pretty good lol). Usually, if I dislike an episode, it's because there are other elements that also were not so good, like the tone, the villain, the characterization, etc. 

Honorable Mention: The Secret of Shark Island
This is one of the best hotel settings of the entire franchise, although we actually will have another hotel episode appear later on this list. The tone of the episode and the vibe of the hotel is super spooky, and it makes it even more foreboding that the gang is quite literally trapped on this isolated island due to flooding.

10. Scooby-Doo and the Alien Invaders
Something about the setting of Roswell, New Mexico is just so peaceful to me. The gang exploring the small town feels very atmospheric and homely. The animation of this film is absolutely gorgeous and really brings you into the setting. I also love the scenes exploring Scorpion Ridge as Crystal and Amber are trying to take pictures. The fact that much of this movie takes place out in nature makes the film feel very Earthy and peaceful.

9. A Halloween Hassle at Dracula's Castle
Like I mentioned in my favorite episodes post, I absolutely love how it feels like this episode is built around the setting by slowly taking us through the castle. This is easily my favorite castle setting in Scooby-Doo, which is a high bar because I tend to love nearly all the episodes with castle settings in general. The basement with the hidden passages and rooms that could cave in at any moment add an extra layer of creepiness to an already amazing castle.

8. The Spooky Case of the Grand Prix Race
I don't usually particularly love racing settings, but this episode does the best job out of any episode making a very normal setting seem creepy. The race happening on a dark, foggy night creates a very unsettling tone, and the fact that the fog serves to allow the Phantom Racer to capture people without anyone seeing him makes it even more terrifying. Season 2 of The Scooby-Doo Show certainly had some dark episodes, and this is one of the two darkest settings of that season.

7. The Loch Ness Mess
This feels like such a classic Scooby-Doo haunted house to me. Everything about this setting screams "Scooby-Doo." Uncle Nat's old house is super creepy, and while the lake isn't as creepy, I do feel that those scenes are quite atmospheric. As I believe I've mentioned before, the scene where the ghost with the lantern disappears into the night is one of the most memorable scenes of the franchise for me. While this is far from the darkest or most atmospheric episode out there, the reason this ranks so high to me is because the setting feels like it captures the essence of Scooby so well. It won't quite make this list, but shout out to "Wedding Bell Boos" for also capturing this New England atmosphere really well.

6. Night Terrors
I was just talking about this with a few people in the comments for our poll this week, but I feel like "Night Terrors" is one of the best haunted house settings in the entire franchise. This episode transcends the traditional haunted house setting in the sense it's kind of framed as both a library and an old creepy house on a hill. However, I feel the plot helps create a super creepy setting that make this one just as much of a classic as some of the other haunted house settings. Horrifying things randomly happening throughout the episode make this setting feel absolutely nightmarish. In addition, the fact that even the gang has no idea what's going on until the last few minutes of the episode really helps build one of the most suspenseful and surreal atmospheres in the entire franchise.

5. Vampire Bats and Scaredy Cats
We have arrived at the other hotel episode and the other Scooby-Doo Show season 2 episode I mentioned earlier! This is one of the darkest episodes in the entire franchise in my opinion. The animators did an incredible job making the hotel backgrounds have a super spooky, dark feel to them. The whole plot of the gang wandering the halls of a dark hotel at night with a vampire on the loose is super creepy. Some of the scenes in particular, like the Lisa turning into a vampire scene, and the scene where the vampire calls Lisa from a dark room in the middle of the night, do a great job of constructing the creepy aesthetic in this episode. Speaking of dark episodes, shout out to "The Harum Scarum Sanitarium," which didn't quite make the cut for this list, but is another amazingly dark episode that really pulls you in with how foreboding the tone is.

4. Scooby-Doo Meets the Boo Brothers
​This is another one of those settings that just feels so authentically Scooby-ish. Uncle Beauregard's mansion has such a creepy atmosphere around it, and even the outside of the house when they're walking in the caves or woods feels super creepy. The old creaky floorboards and the fact that it's run down, as well as all the secret passages, really enhance the setting to me. This feels like one of the most classic Scooby-Doo haunted house settings out there, and that's a big feat given there are so many of them.

3. Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island
What else do I need to say? It's Zombie freaking Island lol. In seriousness though, the background animation in this film is easily better than any other film or movie out there, in my opinion. Mook Animation makes everything look very realistic and mature. The creepy setting of the island has a very unsettling feel to it, and of course, the setting is greatly enhanced by how dark the film is.

2. Scooby-Doo and the Witch's Ghost
Although you could argue it's slow to start, I love how the audience is gradually introduced to the setting during the slower exposition at the beginning of the film. I absolutely love the peaceful, relaxing feel that the setting of Oakhaven has, and it feels like that extra time was very well spent creating an atmosphere and letting the audience really become immersed in exploring the setting with the gang.

1. Guess Who's Knott Coming to Dinner?
It will likely come as a surprise to people that this is above Zombie Island and Witch's Ghost lol. When coming up with my list, one of the first questions I asked myself to determine my all-time favorite setting was "which setting best captures the essence of Scooby-Doo?" While the settings Zombie Island and Witch's Ghost are immaculately done and arguably have the best animation of anything in the franchise, I feel like Captain Moody's house best captures the episode of a Scooby episode. Ever since seeing this episode for the first time when I was a kid, this feels like the most classic Scooby-Doo haunted house setting I can think of. It does the same thing as "A Halloween Hassle at Dracula's Castle" and Witch's Ghost where the episode's structure slowly leads you through the setting, which allows the audience to become more immersed in the setting. I love how creepy and dark the first quarter of the episode is, with the gang being lost and stumbling upon Captain Moody's house, then becoming trapped in the basement. The second quarter of the episode focuses mainly on the main floor, where we're introduced to Homer Pipsqueak and all his disguises, and the third quarter focuses on the top floor of the house where the bedrooms are. This episode is a perfect example of how to use a 43-minute runtime well, because it uses that runtime to gradually lead the audience through the house and slowly introduces you to the atmosphere. Some of my favorite episodes and films are the ones that give the plot space to build atmosphere, and this episode does it best in my opinion.

In making this list, I found that episodes that slowly but steadily build atmosphere were among my favorites. Moreover, I also tended to gravitate towards episodes that completely immerse you in the setting, and this was an especially prevalent feeling for me when being immersed in the setting led to the episode/film feeling darker. Lastly, episodes that can only be described as feeling "authentically Scooby-ish" also tended to make this list quite a bit. I feel like "Guess Who's Knott Coming to Dinner?" is the best example of this because it perfectly represents all three of these phenomena.

After ranking the Where Are You theme songs last week, I thought it might be fun to also do a quick post ranking the What's New, Scooby-Doo? theme song versions, since it's the only other Scooby-Doo theme song that has had multiple covers done of it at the time of posting this.

3. Anarbor
Unlike the Where Are You theme songs, I don't dislike any of these; I just like the other two a bit better. This cover from Mystery Begins is a pretty solid adaptation of the theme song,  but personally I prefer "You & I" from them. I find it amusing that WB keeps reusing this cover so much on all the DVD menus. Like I think I mentioned in a recent post, my head canon is that one of the WB executives jams to this in their bedroom every night, and is like "we have to use this in everything!" haha. 

2. The Hex Girls
The Hex Girls cover of this from "The Vampire Strikes Back" is great; nearly as good as the original Simple Plan version in my opinion. The cover sounds very consistent with the rest of The Hex Girls discography, and works very well in their style.

1. Simple Plan
'Nuff said lol. 

Although I like both the covers, the original will always be my favorite. This is such a classic and Simple Plan does an amazing job with it. The pop-rock feel of this feels so reminiscent of the early 2000s to me. This remains my favorite Scooby-Doo theme song of all-time.

This post was much shorter than the Where Are You one, but I hope you enjoyed it nonetheless! I think I mentioned it briefly in a comment section, but coming later this week, I'm planning to post my reviews of the first two episodes of Velma when they come out on Thursday. Regardless of how bad or good it is, I plan to review all 10 episodes within a day or two of when the episodes come out. I can't believe we're only days away from a new series!

There have been quite a few different adaptations of the iconic Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? theme song over the years. By request, I'm going to rank them all for you here! I don't necessarily have a ton to say since I'm basically ranking the same song over a dozen times haha, but if for some reason I glossed over any aspect of the song you'd like to know my opinion about, you're welcome to ask in the comments1

Like with the other music post from Tuesday, I tried to find official versions of each of theme songs, but there weren't any official uploads for many of these, so I unfortunately will have to link some unofficial YouTube uploads here.

13. Guess Who Theme Song
​This is basically the Where Are You theme song, so I'm including it here. This is likely a hot take, but I am not a fan of this version. Someone left a comment a few months ago that said the theme song sounds like a "playground taunt against the guy who sang the original," and honestly, I kind of agree with that lol. Something about the guy's voice is sounds almost mocking and unpleasant to listen to.

12. Best Coast
I want to start by saying even for these I've ranked lower, there's no version of the Where Are You theme song from here forward that I actively dislike. For this one, it's just kind of mediocre. Best Coast's vocals sound kind of generic, and the production isn't really anything special.

11. Legend of the Vampire Opening
This is the last version I'm not a big fan of.  The rock-inspired cover here sounds kind of generic and there isn't really anything special about it, especially compared to the others.

10. Legend of the Vampire - Velma's Cover
Another version from Legend of the Vampire, but I like this one much better. I think Crystal Harris, the voice actress who was Velma's singing voice in this movie, who sounds great here. 

9. Shaggy
Fun fact if you didn't know, the 2002 live action Scooby-Doo film originally had a completely different opening that provides a backstory to why the gang started chasing the Luna Ghost. This opening includes a cover of the Where Are You theme song by the rapper Shaggy (not to be confused with the character of the same name haha). I think Shaggy's version sounds quite good here, and Shaggy's additional rap verses work well for what they are. 

8. MxPx
Surprisingly, I had actually never heard this before writing this post. I thought I had, but when I relistened to all these, I had no memory of this. In contrast to the generic sounding Legend of the Vampire rock cover, I think this sounds really good! It reminds me a bit of Simple Plan's What's New, Scooby-Doo? theme song, as it's in that same 2000s punk rock vein. I think their take on the song sounds really good! Besides the version I linked, there's also apparently the "10 hour extreme extended version" of this song lol.

7. B-52s
I genuinely did not realize this version was the B-52s until now, but that's really cool! You may recognize the B-52s for their famous hit, "Love Shack." I quite like how they got famous singers to perform the Where Are You theme song for these four Zombie Island era movies. That's a concept that easily could have been cringey, but I think in all four cases, they fit in really well. I think their version sounds really good, and I like the production here.

6. Jennifer Love Hewitt
Jennifer's cover of this sounds great! The electronic production works really well here, and gives it a kind of out-of-this-world feel, which fits well with Alien Invaders for obvious reasons haha.

5. Third Eye Blind
I really like Third Eye Blind's version of the cover. I like the echoey sound of their voices, and it feels very reminiscent of the new wave music that was becoming popular in the 90s.

4. Scooby-Doo, I'm So Blue
This version of the theme song in Trick or Treat, Scooby-Doo when the gang has no monsters to catch is absolutely hilarious! It was so funny watching the gang doing odd jobs around town haha.

3. Billy Ray Cyrus
The original two will always be my favorites, but this is easily my favorite cover. I think Billy's voice sounds great here combined with the groovy retro instrumental. The production feels very 60s to me, and the twang in Billy's voice sounds really good combined with it.

2. Season 2 Version
The higher-pitched vocals are a cool spin on the original, and I think George A. Robertson sounds really good. However, the classic season 1 version will always be my favorite out of pure nostalgia. I'm not going to rank the unused instrumental version, since it basically just became the score music for the title card, and it was used a couple times as background music in the series.

Which leaves us with my #1 choice...

1. Season 1 Version

I hope you enjoyed this article! It was fun going through all the different versions of the theme song, and as always, if you want to share your own rankings, I'd love to see them in the comments!