A complete history of every Scooby-Doo series – Part 1

The new Velma series on HBO Max is of course part of the larger Scooby-Doo franchise that has been around since the late 1960s. But some may be surprised to know that it’s actually considered to be the 14th Scooby-Doo series that’s been released.

Some may think that’s way too many Scooby-Doo shows, while others may think that number feels too low given how much Scooby-Doo content has been made over the years. To help you out, here is the complete rundown of every single Scooby-Doo series Part 1.

(Note: This list doesn’t include the Scooby-Doo movies, the television specials, or the Web series which would more than triple the length of this list)

Scooby-Doo, Where are You! (1969-1970) – 25 episodes

The original and still the best-known incarnation of Scooby-Doo, surprisingly only lasted 25 episodes. Many of the most famous ghosts from the franchise first appear in this series including the Space Kook, The Creeper, and The Ghost of Captain Cutler.

If you watched any amount of Scooby-Doo as a child, chances are more than likely that you saw at least some of the episodes from this original run.

The New Scooby-Doo Movies (1972-1973) – 24 episodes

Despite the word “movie” in the title, the second Scooby-Doo still fell into the realm of television, though the episodes were twice as long as the episodes of the previous series. Each hour-long episode would feature Mystery Inc. teaming up with somebody else to solve a mystery.

Some episodes would feature Scooby-Doo and friends teaming up with other fictional characters (such as Batman and Robin or Josie and the Pussycats), while other times the guest star would be a real celebrity such as Dick Van Dyke, Don Knotts, or Sandy Duncan. For those looking to watch everything Scooby-Doo, they may notice that the DVD release of this series is called The (Almost) Complete Collection.

This is the result of a rights issue with the creator of The Addams Family, so the episode where they are the guest stars has never been released on DVD.

The Scooby-Doo Show (1976-1978) – 40 episodes

The third incarnation of Scooby-Doo on television involved several messy changes to the show’s name. Originally the show was called The Scooby-Doo/Dynomutt Hour, where the first half of the show would be a Scooby-Doo story and the second half would be a Dynomutt story.

The next year, the programming block would be renamed Scooby’s All Star Laff-a-lympics, and would feature Scooby-Doo episodes but also feature segments from other Hanna-Barbera cartoons such as Captain Caveman and The Blue Falcon. Later the series was shortened from a two-hour time slot to 90 minutes.

It was renamed again to the shorter Scooby’s All Stars. Across all this a total of 40 new episodes of Scooby-Doo were produced from 1976-1978. Today those 40 episodes are collectively referred to as The Scooby-Doo Show and are considered the third television series in the franchise.

Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo (1979-1980) – 16 episodes

After the several different incarnations that Scooby-Doo had gone through over the past few years, it was decided to give the show a major overhaul in 1979. That overhaul came in the form of introducing a new character to the main cast, Scooby-Doo’s nephew, Scrappy-Doo.

Though the character is hated by most Scooby-Doo fans these days, at the time, he was arguably a successful addition to the show, and the new title reflected how central to the plot the character would be. Fred, Velma, and Daphne became less central to the episodes in this new Scrappy-Doo era, in some cases having only a few lines in a given episode.

The Scrappy-Doo shift would become the norm for Scooby-Doo for the time being.

Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo (1980-1982) – 33 episodes

The next installment in the franchise would do away with most of the Mystery Inc. gang entirely, with this series featuring Scooby, Shaggy and Scrappy as its main cast. This series was more gag based with a smaller focus on plot.

Each episode was made up of three different shorts, (leading some episode counts to credit this series with 99 episodes instead of 33) and would feature actual supernatural villains instead of the usual “man in a mask” format that was common for Scooby-Doo shows. Scrappy was so popular at the time that some of the shorts even did away with Scooby and Shaggy and were entirely Scrappy focused.

The New Scooby-Doo Mysteries (1983-1984) – 26 episodes

Like the series before it, this Scooby-Doo series was also plagued with name changes in the middle of its run. The show was initially called The New Scooby and Scrappy-Doo Show for one season before being changed to The New Scooby-Doo Mysteries for the second season.

This series features half hour episodes that are made up of two shorts running at 11 minutes each. This series also added Daphne back to the cast.

Fred and Velma also appeared in a handful of second season episodes after having been missing from the franchise for five years.

The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo (1985) – 13 episodes

The seventh Scooby-Doo series added a little bit of lore to the series. Instead of the usual random mystery or ghost for each episode, this series had an interconnected plot.

In the first episode, Shaggy and Scooby open the Chest of Demons, and accidentally release the 13 most terrifying ghosts on Earth. Then, each episode focuses on the gang trying to track down one of the ghosts and put them back.

This time the gang is once again made up of Scooby, Scrappy, Shaggy and Daphne, with Fred and Velma both missing from this series. Added to the cast for this series is a new character named Flim Flam and his friend Vincent Van Ghoul, a warlock who is clearly based on Vincent Price to the point that Price voices the character in the show.

The13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo ended with only 12 of the 13 ghosts captured. Extremely patient Scooby-Doo fans were finally given a conclusion to the story 34 years later with a direct to video movie titled Scooby-Doo! and the Curse of the Thirteenth Ghost, where the last ghost was finally captured.

A Pup Named Scooby-Doo (1988-1991) – 27 episodes

Like The Muppets and The Flintstones before it, toward the end of the 1980s a new show was produced that featured younger versions of the Mystery Inc. gang. While A Pup Named Scooby-Doo was following the trend of these other shows, in a way it was something of a return to formula for the series.

Fred and Velma were back to being full members of the cast. And for the first time in over a decade, the characters were focused on solving mysteries and debunking supposed haunts rather than dealing with actual supernatural creatures.

Scrappy was also missing for the first time in several years, as presumably he hadn’t been born yet in the series. That’s all for this part.

The next installment will focus on the series from the 1990s all the way up through the present day and into the future.

Which Scooby-Doo series if your favorite? Which character from Scooby-Doo do you like the most?

Share your answers in the comments below, we’d love to read them!