Of all the cartoons made prior to the 90s, perhaps the most popular series of them all is Scooby-Doo. This show, featuring a group of teenagers and a talking dog going around solving mysteries, started out similar to every other show.
It got it’s own adaptation with a couple seasons, but it wound up being incredibly popular. Rather than ending and moving on, Scooby-Doo continued to move lunchboxes and toys, causing it to get a new series every few years into the 90’s. After going on break in the 1990s, it made a comeback in the 2000s and has been appearing since then, and this list looks at ten of the very best shows.
10 THE SCOOBY-DOO SHOW
The series had one of the more catchy themes, inviting everyone to “come on get involved, til the mystery is solved”. Yet another reboot of the original series, The Scooby Doo Show didn’t actually add all that much to the existing show canon. Well, except for when it introduced Scooby’s cousin, Scooby-Dum. Scooby-Dum was basically Scooby, except he had a country accent and wasn’t all that smart. This show didn’t do anything wrong, but nothing makes it stand out.
9 SCOOBY-DOO, WHERE ARE YOU?
The original series that started it all, this is where we got all the tropes that would define one of the longest-running franchises in cartoons. The series didn’t last all that long, running only three seasons, but that was enough. It would also inspire countless other Saturday morning cartoons that followed the same formula but with their own spin on things. If the show feels basic, it’s only because everyone’s copied it so many times.
8 SCOOBY-DOO AND GUESS WHO?
This is one of the newest incarnations of Scooby-Doo. It’s a throw-back to the sequel to the original series, The New Scooby-Doo Movies. The flaw in the series is that some of the guests don’t feel as relevant—they’ve got Scooby teaming up with Steve Urkel?
But then there’s also team ups with Wonder Woman, Batman, or NBA super star Chris Paul. That’s kind of dope, and they seem to have gotten a second season so there’s more cool guest stars to come.
7 THE NEW SCOOBY AND SCRAPPY SHOW
Admittedly, a ton of people dislike this show because of Scrappy. Though the little pup had heart, ultimately pop culture has remembered him as more of an annoyance than anything else. That said, there was something heartening about this series. It stripped the cast down to just Scooby, Shaggy, and Daphne. This allowed them to break out of the familiar molds for the show and give Daphne a chance to come up with plans and lead the group.
6 SCOOBY'S ALL-STAR LAFF-A-LYMPICS
The Laff-A-Lympics is one of those fun older series from the late 70’s that allowed a ton of Hanna-Barbera characters to enjoy being on a single show together. It didn’t run very long, but it allowed three different teams competing against one another: The Yogi Yahooeys, the Scooby Doobies, and the Really Rottens. Most of it was genuine fun competition, with the Really Rottens being made up of Hanna-Barbera villains and creating most of the conflict because they were the “bad guys.”
5 WHAT'S NEW SCOOBY DOO?
The “reboot” of the original Scooby-Doo series, this show felt different from all the others. The 60’s, 70s, and 80s versions all felt like they took place in the same continuity. But this series came with a pretty sweet new theme courtesy of Simple Plan, and felt disconnected in a way that was approachable for new young fans. This is probably the show everyone who grew up in the 2000s remembers.
4 THE NEW SCOOBY-DOO MOVIES
The New Scooby Doo Movies tried to cash in on the popularity of the original series, which only ran a few short seasons. This series took it’s name seriously too, as each episode ran roughly an hour.
What made the show stand out was it featured a ton of guest-star characters of famous people in the 1970s. This is where Scooby teamed up with Don Knotts, Sonny & Cher, the Harlem Globetrotters, Batman, and more. Arguably, this is where Scooby’s popularity hit its peak.
3 THE 13 GHOSTS OF SCOOBY-DOO
Everyone’s always had the same question if they watched enough episodes of Scooby-Doo: what would happen if the ghosts were real. This series set out to answer that question, as Scooby and Shaggy accidentally released several real ghosts and had to capture them again with the help of Flim-Flam and Vincent Van Ghoul. This series was rather short, but it did get some closure in the form of a film in 2019.
2 SCOOBY-DOO! MYSTERY INCORPORATED
One of the most beloved versions of Scooby-Doo was Mystery Incorporated, which ran for two seasons on the Cartoon Network. Rather than use the traditional episodic format, Mystery Incoporated made the storyline more connected, developing the characters and their relationships in each new episode. The viewers even get to meet their families, as for once the teens aren’t just kids who’ve somehow managed to explore the world without any parental guidance. From a story perspective, this is absolutely the best Scooby has ever been.
1 PUP NAMED SCOOBY-DOO
In the late 80s, there was a trend of turning everything into baby versions of what made them successful. There’s Muppet Babies and the Flintstone Kids, and more. But while this made a lot of people who’d grown up in the 70’s angry, there was one show that knocked it clean out the park. A Pup Named Scooby-Doo was a loving parody of everything ridiculous about Scooby-Doo, from the songs that managed to infiltrate every chase scene to Velma’s intelligence. There’s no series that’s more fun to watch than this.