The Ghosts of Intros Past: An Analysis of Unused Scooby-Doo Villains in Intros

A recolored shot of many Where Are You villains in the New Scooby & Scrappy-Doo Show intro

There are a lot of Scooby-Doo villains that have appeared throughout various intros over the years. While many of them are taken directly from episodes of the respective series, you'd be surprised how many of really cool villains appear in the Scooby-Doo intros that never actually appear in the series. In this post, I want to give those "lost" Scooby-Doo villains the spotlight and also analyze if I think they would be decent villains that should have had their own episodes.

All villains from the original series, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?, were properly utilized in the show, so let's begin with The New Scooby-Doo Movies intro.

Perhaps an odd villain to start with, but we never do see this ape in an episode, who is chasing the gang with an adorable smile on his face. Just purely due to the smile, I would have loved to see him appear in an episode. There are rumors out there that supposedly, some of The New Scooby-Doo Movies episodes have short scenes cut from a few of the episodes in syndication, due to things which the gang mention that happen in-episode that we never see. While I am more inclined to believe that these things simply happened off-screen, it is possible that this ape is King Kong, who Shaggy mentions attacked him and Scooby on Sandy Duncan's movie set in "Sandy Duncan's Jekyll and Hydes" despite us never seeing it.

While not a villain, it's worth mentioning the Globetrotters' dog appears in the original intro, despite him not appearing in any of the three episodes they guest starred in.

And now let's get to the mummies! The most common villain to appear in a Scooby-Doo intro that doesn't appear in the actual show are mummies! These include a mummy chasing Laurel and Hardy in The New Scooby-Doo Movies, a mummy in The Scooby and Scrappy-Doo Show intro, a mummy in the What's New Scooby-Doo? intro (different from the one that actually appears in the show) and a mummy in the Be Cool, Scooby-Doo intro! I'm always down for a good spooky mummy, none of these seem particularly special (and the mummy from What's New Scooby-Doo? seems to be similar to the Mummy of Ankha from Scooby-Doo! Where Are You?

The Scooby-Doo Show includes one particularly cool villain that was never used. I'm uncertain if this is supposed to be a close-up of an early character design of Merlin, but Merlin also appears in an earlier shot in the intro a few seconds earlier, and this one looks different to me! This is probably my favorite of the unused villains in any intro, and I'd love to see this cool looking ghost wizard get his episode!

And speaking of redesigns, an early design of Mamba Wamba makes an appearance at the very end of the intro!

Lastly, we get a very generic ghost, which I'm glad they didn't put in an episode. The Scooby-Doo Show had some really cool villains and I'm glad that they didn't go with something so basic.

Speaking of basic, thus begins the tri-series era where the animators just included random, basic villains in the intro rather than ones that actually appear in episodes. All of these are so basic that I really have nothing to say about them, and wouldn't want them to appear in their own episodes. All of these villains were done better in other series, in my opinion. Let's start with The Scooby and Scrappy-Doo Show.

Here are the unused villains from The Richie Rich / Scooby-Doo Show.

We also get one villain in The Scooby & Scrappy-Doo / Puppy Hour intro, which is just a mad scientist (sorry for the horrible picture quality, this is the best I could get since the intro isn't on DVD).

The New Scooby and Scrappy-Doo Show includes some recolored Where Are You villains as seen above, though two other villains are featured. It's not something I'd want to see get their own episode, as clearly the animators were going the "ooh, scary thing!" route rather than creating actual decent villains for the intro.

We do get one decent villain in that intro, however. This vampire is pretty creepy looking and I'd definitely be down for him getting his own episode!

Ah, the catchy New Scooby-Doo Mysteries intro remains one of my favorites of any Scooby intro, because of the super catchy song, why else! In addition, we also get some actually decent villains in this! The first of which is a somewhat generic ghost, but it's so gigantic that it's actually menacing, and the odd design of its head is enough to intrigue me and want it to get its own episode, especially if it had a decent enough back story!

We also get another creepy looking old man ghost on a showboat. Makes me sort of wonder if this was the intended villain for "Showboat Scooby" in an early draft! This ghost should totally get his own episode someday!

The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo ending before the overarching plot was concluded made us have to wonder what the 13th ghost (or 12th, depending on your opinion on Captain Ferguson) looked like, before Curse of the 13th Ghost anyway. Besides Maldor and Zomba being in the intro, we get a couple of extra ghosts that appear in the intro that do not appear in the series. The first batch of three look like they could be part of Morbidia's monsters or SAPS, but I will acknowledge they all look pretty cool!

You know who I think should really be the 13th ghost? This guy! He looks so creepy with multiple eyes and a giant mouth. I think they really could have created an interesting storyline around this monster as the 13th ghost.

We now go from a terrifying, nightmarish creature to the more silly A Pup Named Scooby-Doo intro. Like this creature that appears in Scooby's dog bowl...he's pretty neat and could have made a good villain in Pup, I think!

Ah, gotta love that Simple Plan-sung What's New, Scooby-Doo? intro! There was some really good pop-punk bands in that day and age, and Simple Plan was certainly one of them...but that's not what we're talking about! What's New, Scooby-Doo? goes back to the Scrappy age of all random villains appearing in the intro, but these are actually pretty decent! We start off with a headless waiter that is so cool and totally should have been in his own episode!

Next is this cave-dwelling creature that looks sort of dinosaurish...he's colored the same as the Gigantosaurus. The notion of a cave-dwelling creature is definitely intriguing and draws upon the "mysterious, unknown" angle of horror, and I would have loved to have an episode centered around a creature like that.

Robots are always cool, and this one is definitely no exception. I think this would have been a cool villain for the "Space Ape at the Cape" episode in place of the Space Ape, or for some other space-centered episode.

And this guy is just a nightmare and a half! I'm always down for a really creepy, horror-focused episode so I'd definitely be interested in seeing what the series could have done with him.

No new villains in the Get A Clue or Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated intros, so let's move on to Be Cool, Scooby-Doo! where we get a giant spider! I like how its eyes are glowing, and the two small circles at the top and multiple big circles at the bottom almost makes it look like a creepy smile! I bet Jon Colton Barry would have made this into a neat episode.

Thanks for reading everyone, and I hope you enjoyed this article! :) I'd be interested to know if anyone else would have wanted some of these "lost" villains to get their own episodes!