The Ghosts of Scooby Content Past: Developed Scooby-Doo Series and Films that Were Never Finished

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?.

Did you know we could have had a live-action Scooby-Doo series in the 1970s? In my interview with Duane Poole in September 2021, he revealed that a very basic idea for a live-action show was pitched back in the 1970s. A screen test was performed for the concept, with Duane as Shaggy.

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?.

Instead of Scooby-Doo and the Loch Ness Monster in 2004, we could have gotten a very different Scooby-Doo DTV. The original plan was to release a movie fully in anime style! In an interview with AWN, animation writer Tad Stones shared that after he left Disney, he wrote a script for WB titled Scooby-Doo and the Anime Invasion. However, the idea didn't get too far because parents didn't find the concept appealing. "Evidently kids loved the concept but moms weren't sure about it." Stones shared in the interview.

A third movie in the Gunn live action film series was reportedly being written by Dan Forman and Paul Forley. However, the film was cancelled due to Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed not performing as well as hoped. James Gunn tweeted the plot in 2020, which was the gang going to Scotland to rid a town of monsters, but they discover the monsters are actually the victims. 

On a similar note, Brian Levant, who made the 2009 and 2010 live action films, said in an interview that if there would have been a third film, it would have been titled Scooby-Doo's Zany Time Travelin' Christmas Adventure. Another idea Levant had for a film revolved around Irish fairy tales.

After What's New, Scooby-Doo?, we also could have had an entire series with the animation of the intro for Scooby-Doo! Abracadabra Doo. In 2004, talks had begun for what the next Scooby series would be following What's New. Dexter Smith was asked by WB to create designs for this series, but ultimately, WB went with Shaggy and Scooby-Doo Get a Clue instead. However, the designs thankfully didn't go to waste. In 2009, Tony Cervone and Spike Brandt remembered Dexter Smith's designs and repurposed them in Scooby-Doo! Abracadabra Doo. Dexter discussed it in a blog post which has unfortunately been taken off the Internet, but the content can still be found at an archived version of the site. Here are some of Dexter's designs:

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. The film was completed on November 5, 2022. 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.

In November 2022, an Amazon listing revealed a possible new Scooby film titled Scooby-Doo and the Haunted High Rise. However, in an interview, the director stated that it was cancelled due to tax write-offs.

On May 23, 2022, it was announced that a new series, Scooby-Doo and the Mystery Pups, would air on the Cartoonito block of HBO Max. The series was set to center around Shaggy and Scooby serving as camp counselors for three puppies, whom they teach their mystery solving skills to. The three puppies appeared to be stand-ins for Velma, Fred and Daphne. However, on March 3, 2023, one of the show's writers Roger Eschbacher announced that the show had lost its distribution rights with HBO Max, meaning that it is cancelled.

While it's a shame that we never got to see the finished products of any of these films or episodes, it's really neat that some of them ultimately were repurposed, like the Circus of Vampires film and Dexter Smith's designs being repurposed for the intro of Abracadabra Doo. If anyone happens to stumble across any other Scooby projects that were developed but never released, please feel free to share them along with a reliable source of where you found it. I consider this to be a working project rather than a finalized article, so I plan to continue updating this whenever any new info about unreleased, developed Scooby series or films is found!