Scooby-Doo (character)

Scoobert "Scooby"-Doo is the eponymous character and protagonist of the Scooby-Doo animated television series created by the popular American animation company Hanna-Barbera. Scooby-Doo is the male dog and lifelong companion of Shaggy Rogers and in much iteration, including the original series, is regarded as a unique Great Dane dog who is able to speak in broken English, unlike most other dogs in his reality, and usually puts the letter R in front of words spoken. Other incarnations, such as A Pup Named Scooby-Doo, present talking dogs like Scooby as quite common.

The head of children's programming at CBS, Fred Silverman, came up with the character's name from the syllables "doo-be-doo-be-doo" in Frank Sinatra's hit song "Strangers in the Night".

History
In 1960s Joe Ruby and Ken Spears created the history for the first TV-Series of Scooby-Doo, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! and Iwao Takamoto create Scooby-Doo (character). The voice of Scooby-Doo was given by Don Messick.

Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! premiered on CBS September 13, 1969 at 10:30 a.m. EST and ran for two seasons for a total of 25 episodes. Its final first-run episode aired in January 1971.

Personality
Different iterations of the character have been developed and expanded in the various series featuring the characters, many of them contradicting, such as the original series and recent live-action movies where Shaggy and Scooby first meet as older teenagers for the first time, contradicting the "Pup Named Scooby-Doo" animated series where they know each other from almost infancy.

In all versions of the character, Scooby and Shaggy share several personality traits, mostly being cowardly and perpetually hungry. But their friends (Velma, Daphne and Fred) encourage them to go after the costumed villains, usually with "Scooby Snacks", a biscuit-like dog treat or cookie snack (usually shaped like a bone or, in later versions of the cartoons, Scooby's dog tag), though Scooby's inherent loyalty and courage does often force him to take a more heroic stance. Scooby is also extremely ticklish and this is seen in many of the television shows and movies.

Scooby has a speech impediment and tends to pronounce most words as if they begin with an "R", though most characters are able to understand him perfectly. In most iterations, he keeps his sentences relatively short, usually using charades for anything longer than three or four words. His catchphrase, usually howled at the end of every production, is "Scooby-Dooby-Doo!" or "Rooby-Rooby-Roo". Scooby was voiced by Don Messick through Arabian Nights in 1994, after which point Messick quit smoking; quitting smoking changed his voice and prevented him from achieving the same raspy vocal effect (despite Messick's efforts, he suffered a career-ending stroke in 1996 and died in 1997, before any further Scooby-Doo productions were made). Messick is also known for providing the voice of the dogs Astro on The Jetsons and Muttley (who snickered). The characteristic voices of Scooby and Astro are so similar that Astro's signature phrase, "Ruh-roh!", is popularly and improperly attributed to Scooby (as in "Ruh-roh, Raggy!").

Appearance and anatomy
Scooby is brown from head to toe with several distinctive black spots on his upper body and doesn't seem to have a melanistic mask. He is generally a quadruped, but displays bipedal 'human' characteristics occasionally. Scooby also has opposible thumbs and can use his front paws like hands. He has a black nose and wears an off-yellow, diamond shaped-tagged blue collar with an "SD" (his initials) and has four toes on each foot. Unlike other dogs, Scooby only has one pad on the sole of each of his feet (so that it was easier to draw in the Scooby-Doo Annuals).

Scooby has a fully prehensile tail he can use to swing from or press buttons. Both his head and tail are malleable and useful as a communication aid or creating a distraction.

Creator Iwao Takamoto later explained that before he designed the character, he first spoke to a Great Dane breeder, who described to him the desirable characteristics of a pedigree dog. Takamoto then drew Scooby as the opposite of this. He said "I decided to go the opposite [way] and gave him a hump back, bowed legs, small chin and such. Even his color is wrong."

According to the official magazine that accompanied the 2002 movie, Scooby is seven years old.

Relatives
Over the course of Scooby-Doo's various spin-offs, various relatives of Scooby were introduced:
 * Scrappy-Doo: Scooby's young nephew (and son of Scooby's sister Ruby-Doo), Scrappy is the bravest of Scooby's relatives. Scrappy became a recurring character in the Scooby-Doo series beginning in 1979, and was noted for being quite headstrong and always wanting to face off in a fight with the various villains (unlike his uncle). He has one or two catch phrases, the one he uses the most is "Puppy Power!" Scooby and Shaggy were present at Scrappy's birth.
 * Yabba-Doo: According to Scrappy and Yabba-Doo Yabba is Scooby's brother, a white dog owned by Deputy Dusty in the American southwest. Unlike Scooby, Yabba is brave. Unlike Scooby's and Scrappy's, his typical custom catchphrase at the end is "Yippity-Yabbity-Doooo!!!" (and not "Yabba-Dabba-Doo!", presumably due to another Hanna-Barbera character's usage of that phrase).
 * Scooby-Dum: Scooby's cousin (according to Shaggy in "Headless Horseman of Halloween), a blue-grey dog. A Mortimer Snerd-esque dog who longed to be a detective. Was rather dimwitted (he'd keep looking for clues even after the mystery was solved). His catch-phrase was also different then Scooby's and Scrappy's. Instead of "Scooby-Dooby-Dum" his typical custom catch-phrase is "Dum dum Dum DUM!", an intoning the opening four notes of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, which he would do after someone said the word "Clue."
 * Scooby-Dee: Scooby's distant cousin, a white dog. Spoke with a Southern accent, and was an actress.
 * Dooby-Doo: Scooby's cousin, a singer. He is one of Scooby's few relatives to have hair on his head. Only appeared in "The 'Dooby Dooby Doo' Ado".
 * Momsy and Dada Doo: Scooby's parents. His mother is the only one who calls him Scoobert.
 * Whoopsy-Doo: Scooby's cousin, a clown. Owned by Shaggy (Norville)'s uncle, Gaggy Rogers.
 * Ruby-Doo: Scooby's sister, and mother of Scrappy-Doo.
 * Skippy-Doo: Scooby's brother. Highly intelligent; he wears glasses.
 * Howdy-Doo: Scooby's brother. Enjoyed reading Supermarket tabloid newspapers. He appears to become a redhead.
 * Horton-Doo: Scooby's uncle. Was interested in monsters and science.
 * Dixie-Doo: Scooby's cousin and the pet of Betty Lou, Shaggy's Southern cousin.
 * Grandad Scooby: Scooby's grandfather.
 * Great-Grandpa Scooby: Scooby's great-grandfather.
 * Yankee-Doodle-Doo: Scooby's ancestor. He was owned by McBaggy Rogers. He also appears to be a pilgrim. Little is known about him.
 * Spooky-Doo: Scooby's uncle. He was the former owner of Doo Manor.

Appearances in other media

 * Scooby-Doo appeared twice in Cartoon Network's The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy as a character who is described as being on the "wrong show" along with the other principal members of the Mystery Inc.
 * Scooby has appeared in Johnny Bravo in the episodes "Bravo Dooby-Doo" and "'Twas The Night" during the first season voiced both times by Hadley Kay.
 * In an episode of Yin Yang Yo! called "Slumber Party of Doom", Scooby and Shaggy make two cameos. The first being Shaggy complaining about Yin and Yang stealing their montages and Scooby saying, "It sucks!"
 * Scooby-Doo and Shaggy made a cameo appearance in Looney Tunes: Back In Action complaining to Matthew Lillard (who played Shaggy) about his performance in the live-action Scooby-Doo movies.
 * Scooby-Doo appears as a guest in a 1996 video called Kids for Character.
 * Scooby-Doo also appears in an episode of Drawn Together.
 * Scooby-Doo was once impersonated by David Beckham in an animated Scooby-Doo promo from the United Kingdom.
 * Scooby-Doo appears in the Robot Chicken episode "Operation: Rich in Spirit" voiced by Dave Coulier (who previously imitated Scooby's voice in Full House). He is amongst Mystery Inc. members who end up killed by Jason Voorhees except Velma. Seth Green voices him in the episode "Ban on the Fun" when in the segment that parodies the Laff-A-Lympics in the style of the Munich massacre. This time, Scooby did not get killed.
 * In an episode of Robotboy when Robotboy and his 'mother' escape from police with a big speaker, a dog which looks like Scooby hangs on to the speaker and follows them home.
 * In an episode of Batman: The Brave and the Bold. This episode alludes to The New Scooby-Doo Movies where Batman originally starred in. However with some meddling from Bat-Mite not only were the dynamic duo able to fight unlike in the original appearance, but he also removed Shaggy and Scooby's cowardice allowing them to, for the first time, fight the villains toe to toe.