Scrappy-Doo


Scrappy-Doo is a fictional Great Dane puppy created by Hanna-Barbera Productions in 1979 with the catchphrases "Scrappy Dappy Doo", "Lemme at 'em!" and "Puppy Power!". He is the nephew of Hanna-Barbera cartoon star Scooby-Doo. Scrappy has appeared in a number of the various incarnations of the Scooby-Doo cartoon series. Lennie Weinrib provided his voice for one season in 1979, and from 1980 on it was performed by Don Messick. In the first live-action theatrical film, video games, and commercials, he was voiced by Scott Innes. He was created to save the show's ratings which by 1979 had begun to sink to the point of cancellation threats from ABC, who were considering choosing between Scooby-Doo and an unnamed pilot from Ruby-Spears Enterprises which Mark Evanier had also written.

Behind the scenes

Hanna-Barbera

Creation

Though Scrappy officially debuted in fall of 1979, there may have been hints of his existence in 1969. The idea of Scrappy actually may not have been all that new to the series, as he "...bore a resemblance to Spears's and Ruby's initial idea for a feisty little dog", which was one of the early ideas for the Scooby-Doo character himself, along with the "big cowardly dog" ultimately chosen. Hints of Scrappy can also be seen in the fact that there were originally six members of mystery inc planned-Mike Andrews, Linda Blake, Kelly Summers, Geoff Jones, W.W., and Too Much. It is unknown if one of the personalities was analogous to Scrappy, or which one it would have been. Like Geoff, Mike, and W.W., Scrappy is male, and like W.W. he was a younger relative of another gang member.
The character was created by Joseph Barbera and developed by writer Mark Evanier, who has acknowledged that Scrappy's personality was largely based on that of the Looney Tunes character Henery Hawk.
Scrappy's creation officially began in the year of 1978, when Scooby's ratings were sinking to the point of cancellation threats from ABC. Duane Poole, a story editor for the first series Scrappy appeared in, recalled it as a lively time, with lots of new ideas and some new blood being hired with the desperation to revive Scooby, which had been a cash-cow in its glory days. There was only one remaining show slot left, which would either go to Scooby or a pilot from Ruby-Spears Enterprises. Joe Barbera created Scrappy as a “new element” to restore the network's interest in the show. After various staff members, including Joe Barbera, took some shots at writing the character, which the network found unsatisfactory, Joe Barbera went to Mark Evanier, who wrote for the rival pilot to give a shot at writing Scrappy's. Evanier agreed, and Joe Barbera and the executives were satisfied with the results, and, by extension, Scrappy, and chose Scooby over the rival pilot, irritating executive producer Joe Ruby.
Mel Blanc was the first choice to voice Scrappy, given his connection to Henery Hawk, but wanted too much money to voice the part. Frank Welker, the voice of Fred Jones, auditioned to voice Scrappy as a dual role during the character's development and coined the catchphrase "Puppy Power" during his audition. He would later change this to "Monkey Muscle" for the similar Donkey Kong Jr. character he would voice for TV's Saturday Supercade. The next choice was Messick, who was seen as giving the best audition, but still deemed "the wrong voice". Afterwards, other well-known cartoon voice artists were considered or suggested: Daws Butler, Paul Winchell, Marilyn Schreffler, Howard Morris, Dick Beals and Marshall Efron. Ultimately, Lennie Weinrib was chosen, and after the first season, Messick became the final voice for the rest of the series' run after Weinrib asked for a higher salary.Hanna-Barbera settled on Lennie Weinrib, but kept Welker's ad-lib and worked it into several scripts. After one season, Don Messick took over for Weinrib, also as a dual role, as Messick also voiced Scooby at the time.
Bill Hanna, in February of 1979, mentioned work on a "little dog character"
After his addition to the show proved to be a ratings success, Hanna-Barbera restructured the show as a means of rebooting the franchise, focusing more on Scooby, Shaggy, and Scrappy. Fred, Velma, and Daphne struggled to compete with Scrappy's stronger characterization, though writers did try to save them once the new character's presence shed light on it. However, they ultimately were removed by the next season. The original format of four teenagers and their dog solving faux-supernatural mysteries for a half-hour was eschewed for simpler, more comedic adventures that involved real supernatural villains.
Scrappy remained an integral part of the Scooby-Doo franchise, on both TV and in Scooby-related licensed products and merchandising, through the end of the 1980s.
Scrappy's involvement in new Scooby-Doo TV media quietly ended in 1988 the same year that Pup Named Scooby-Doo Aired. His shows went into syndication. He starred in a video game in 1991 and continued to be in reruns.

Cartoon Network

gained the rights to Scooby around 1994 and promptly set about making it its most shown franchise via reruns of various series. Scooby, which had been dormant for the last few years aside from comics, soon became quite heavily rerun over the place. Cartoon Network's goal was to appeal to the nostalgia of the older fans, as it was documented that a third of their audience was 'old enough to vote'. They opted to appeal to both baby boomers and young children in the 8-11 slot, as, according to the then Vice President at the time, Betty Cohen, " felt they were showing kids these cartoons for the first time."
Before Cartoon Network gained the rights to Scooby, Scooby's priority target audience had been children: Not just one generation of children, but the general age group, which people entered and exited as years passed. Scooby-Doo was considered a source of massive commercial television time watched by children, as well as something that children imitated. After Turner Broad Casting obtained the rights to Scooby, in the early days of ownership, they too followed this pattern with A Pup Named Scooby-Doo. Chuck Gelman stated in 1994: "Scooby-Doo is a popular character with our demographic and a nice fit with Halloween."
In the campaign to revive Scooby's public conscious, Scrappy was originally included as part of the burger king promotion in 1996.
Despite this, every demographic was carefully tailored to throughout various day parts.
The flagship of the Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island, aired without portraying or commenting on Scrappy on either way, and was a resounding success, causing the live-action movie to be fast-tracked, and three successful DTVs in the way.
At midnight, of October 31, 1999, Cartoon Network aired several promos over the gang's disappearance. One was a promo involving the gang being frightened of Scrappy. In an interview, the writers mention adding that bit because Scrappy's part in the marathon was coming up and they felt the need to work him in.
In 2002, Cartoon Network aired a bumper titled "Scrappy Loses It" where Scrappy rants about how the newer Cartoon Cartoons were becoming more popular than him despite him being around longer as the Cartoon Cartoons enter the studio in the same order that their schedule aired on prime-time, to the point where he yells at Dexter and makes him cry. The bumper ends with Scrappy saying "Not for me, not for me, man!" in reference to Cartoon Network's then-current slogan, "The Best Place for Cartoons".
In 2020, it has come out from Casper Kelly that many writers who worked with Scrappy's character did not actually hate him.

2002 feature film

Scrappy was first included in the story in an earlier draft around March 2000. He did not physically appear, however, and was only mentioned by Shaggy and Scooby offhand and was heavily implied to have been put to sleep for undisclosed reasons. James Gunn first acknowledged his involvement in April 2000. Other original ideas for the villain included the Old Man Smithers, the villain from the beginning of the film. According to the DVD commentary, choosing the villain of the movie was a problematic part of the production, as the makers did not feel comfortable simply giving the role to an "anonymous monster", and that the ending was in "bits and pieces" and the "confinements forced them to be creative." "There is a Scrappy because he exists in the cartoon, so we have to acknowledge him." Stated screenwriter James Gunn in an interview shortly before the release of Scooby-Doo. Despite previously stating that he felt that "kids didn't care" he did later note with some dismay on two separate occasions that kids reacted poorly to the development, admitting he didn't understand how popular Scrappy was with five and six-year-olds. "I still think it was funny that Scrappy was the villain", Gunn explained in an interview with Cinefantastique, "But there are kids out there who were really upset."
=Reception=
Scrappy was initially seen as a "good idea" by Saturday Morning Review.
Viewership also seemed to react positively to Scrappy, as Scooby's ratings went up with Scrappy's arrival, and continued to be a success for the next decade. With Scrappy's addition the show remained a perennial ratings leader.
Story Editor Duane Poole noted, “Scrappy solved a lot of story problems. Before you had to get Shaggy and Scooby into dangerous situations-and there was no real easy way to get them there-with Scrappy, he, uh, picked them up and carried them there. He just charged in. He was just such the antithesis of what Scooby and Shaggy were. The dynamic was great fun to play.”
Joe Ruby and Ken Spears, seemed to have a less than positive view on the character. "Everyone was upset," Said the co-founder of Ruby-Spears enterprises, though it's unclear whether it was for business reasons or personal creative reasons , starting when, in 1979, it looked a pilot of theirs would be renewed over Scooby's. Mark Evanier, who wrote said pilot, was hired impromptu to write Scrappy-Doo into a new pilot to renew interest in Scooby. As a result, Scooby was renewed over theirs, which was upsetting for them.
Tom Ruegger, stated, "It's a lot easier to love Scooby than it is to love Scrappy. But I don't have the problem with Scrappy that I have heard expressed by others. I suspect this is because I wasn't watching Scooby from the beginning, but rather, I came in and started catching up quite a while after Scrappy had made his debut. Hey, they'd been messing with Scooby's cast for years! Scooby Dum. All those nasty celebrity cameo Scooby movies. I dislike those things more than I dislike Scrappy. And, for what it's worth, at least Scrappy brings some energy to the table. He actually does have a personality, even though many find it obnoxious. So, since I tend to love the characters with whom I work, I can say that I learned to love Scrappy, despite all his limitations."
In 1998, Jon Hein published his Jump the Shark website, a site dedicated to complaining about unwelcome changes to beloved shows. Each show had a page -patrons to the site could read the page of the show they chose, then go to the vote page, choose a show or enter one that wasn't listed to vote on, choose a topic and then submit and repeat as many times as they so wished. The site staff received these submissions and then posted them on the appropriate pages. These were added as choices to a poll, that, if one thought Scrappy ruined the show, they could add their vote. Scrappy was entered in on the Scooby-Doo section and received approximately 1500 votes. Although names had to be provided along with comments, the comments published were completely anonymous. The unique complaint website gained newspaper coverage by Maureen Dowd, in September 1998, who published an opinion article entitled "Scrappy-Doo Spoiled Scooby-Doo", though Scrappy actually featured very little in the article and said article was written with a political punchline in mind, word picked up and Jump the Shark were soon republished from 1998 to 2001 in newspapers across the country under various titles, some of which included Scrappy and some of which did not.
Casper Kelly, one of the writers of The Scooby-Doo Project also admitted to having Scrappy as being in his first memory of Scooby, as well as enjoying when the monsters were real over the traditional fake monster format.
When Archie gained the rights to Hanna-Barbera in 1995, both Bill Vallely and Mike Kirschenbaum, two writers for the series, both acknowledged that Scrappy was hated, and even attempted to remake his personality in response to that, according to Kirschenbaum, but "the animosity was too great" and Scrappy got the boot from the series midway. After Archie Comics concluded as a series, DC Comics picked up rights and produced Scooby-Doo for some time after that, and, possibly taking their cue from Archie, continued with Scrappy being gone.

Character biography

First made his appearance in 1979. Scrappy idolizes his uncle Scooby and would often assist Scooby and his friends in solving mysteries.

Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo (1979)

Originally as shown in the introduction of the series, Scrappy only met his Uncle Scooby as a puppy.

Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo Shorts (1980-1982)

The December 1980 episode of Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo depicts Scrappy-Doo's birth with both Scooby and Shaggy in attendance. Born at St. Bernard's Hospital to Scooby-Doo's sister Ruby-Doo on December 20, 1980, Scrappy went on to grow up in New York. Some time after this, Scrappy was sent to live with Scooby on the road for unknown reasons.

DTV Specials

In Scooby-Doo Meets the Boo Brothers, Scooby-Doo and the Ghoul School, and Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf, Scrappy is more toned down, as he is less feisty and a little more cowardly, but still much braver than Scooby and Shaggy. In all three movies, he sometimes serves as the brains of the trio, figuring out the clues and where to go next.

Powers and abilities

Found in multiple series

Super Strength: Scrappy has repeatedly shown himself to be leaps and bounds "stronger than the average pup", knocking over a grown man with ease in his first appearance, crashing through a stone wall, as well as being able to close a crocodile's mouth by jumping on top of it.

Personality and characteristics

From his very first appearance, Scrappy has shown himself to be as reckless and daring as his Uncle Scooby is timid. Scrappy displays little concern for his own safety - he'll think nothing of charging into a confrontation with anything up to and including an elephant stampede - yet he is also very protective of his uncle and their teenage owners, sticking up for them relentlessly.
Scrappy's greatest weakness - unrecognized by himself - is a lack of discretion, which tends to counteract his valor. Being more zealous than clever, he'll often rush ahead of his Mystery Inc. associates to apprehend the first suspect he encounters - who seldom turns out to be the one they're looking for. More than anything else, Scrappy requires guidance in much the same way that Shaggy and Scooby require motivation.
If his courageous and energetic personality wasn't enough to make him stand out, Scrappy could be identified by a handful of catchphrases; two of the better-known were, "Lemme at 'em, lemme at 'em! I'll splat 'em! I'll rock 'em and sock 'em!" and, "Ta dadada ta daaa! Puppy power!". Scrappy also possessed strength which belied his diminutive stature; he was capable of smashing down solid rock walls, and of carrying bulky loads over his head with no apparent effort.
In some incarnations which retain the mystery genre but don't feature the entire gang, such as Scooby-Doo Meets the Boo Brothers and The New Scooby and Scrappy-Doo Show Scrappy's sense of recklessness is downplayed, and he often helps find and interpret clues or getting the gang out of danger in the place of Fred and Velma.
As befitting the light-hearted tone of the series, Scrappy was upbeat by nature and rarely sad, but not without a sensitive side which he shared with the Mystery Incorporated gang. In later episodes, Scrappy became more reserved and better at finding clues...opting to ask questions first and shoot later, as it were. However, his feisty and adventurous streak continued to shine through - especially in the proverbial crunch.

''Scooby-Doo'' series and films featuring Scrappy-Doo

Television series

1980-1990