![]() He orders the gang to listen and announces it is time to appoint him as their "unquestioned" leader or else he'll leave. Now realizing that Fred is protective of Daphne since he is the leader, Scrappy angrily tells him he isn't worthy of being the team leader. After fixing himself, Scrappy crosses his arms and irritably insists it was an accident, but Fred tells him he was marking his territory. When Scrappy realizes this, he gasps in shock and Fred immediately stops the Mystery Machine, sending Scrappy flying into the windscreen.Īs he slides off, Fred scolds him for urinating on Daphne. Fred tells him he has told him "Scrappy for the thousandth time there is no such thing as ghosts." Scrappy argues that ghosts do exist and when he finds them, he will give them a dose of "puppy power" and he then urinates on Daphne. Because of this, Scrappy became the villain of the live-action Scooby-Doo film, after about 15 years of absence from the franchise and never appearing again afterwards.ĭuring a flashback recalled by Velma at one point in the film, Scrappy is seen bothering the gang in the Mystery Machine, bragging about how he will fight ghosts and monsters. He was extremely obnoxious and annoying, he effectively replaced Fred, Velma, and Daphne on the show, and the cartoons he was in had actual monsters who were dealt with in a generic slapstick manner and whose existence wasn't even acknowledged as unusual. Introduced in 1979, Scrappy ranks with the likes of Jar Jar Binks as one of the most hated fictional characters ever. And his initial run of episodes was given out to a less than stellar animation house.Scrappy Doo is the hidden main antagonist of the live-action Scooby-Doo film. Evanier successfully refuted their demands in a conference, but Hanna-Barbera would later cave and have another writer water Scrappy down. According to Evanier, Standards and Practices found the little guy “too independent” and wanted im to conform more with his uncle Scooby. Finding the right voice was a torturous process requiring multiple recordings of the entire episode, and a money and personality dispute ended up costing Scrappy his first performer after just one season ( Don Messick, Scooby's VA, ultimately got the part for most of Scrappy's run). But Scrappy came in for trouble before he ever made it to the air. ![]() The writers (at least some of them) even enjoyed working with the character. Scrappy did the job he was made for ABC didn’t cancel, and ratings improved. Daphne would occasionally rejoin the cast in certain incarnations, but for much of the 1980s, Scooby-Doo was a three-man team. So much focus was given over to them that, come second season, Fred, Daphne, and Velma were written out. Scrappy’s cries of “Let me at ‘em!” and “puppy power!” (apparently an ad-lib from a rejected voice actor that Barbera took a liking to) sounded relentlessly through every new episode, and the action increasingly focused on the trio of Scooby, Shaggy, and Scrappy. Only now, there was an irascible puppy that wanted to duke it out with the crooks instead of fleeing from them or solving the mystery. It was, at the end of the day, the same old story: spooky mysteries ending with a guy in a mask. On the strength of that script, the series was picked up. Evanier later had cause to doubt the executive's devotion to the Looney Tunes, but he duly took his cues from Henry Hawk and wrote the script for what amounted to an unofficial pilot for Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo. Why Henry Hawk? Because the ABC executive who would decide Scooby's fate was allegedly enamored with the classic Looney Tunes and would approve cartoons based on their connections to the classics. Joe Barbera established the basic idea of a little nephew named Scrappy-Doo, animator Iwo Takamoto (probably) prepared a character design, and writer Mark Evanier developed Scrappy’s personality with Looney Tunes star Henry Hawk as a model. This was untenable to Hanna-Barbera, and they decided that what Scooby-Doo needed was a new star character. Repeition was such an issue even then that ABC was talking cancelation. In 1979, after three series and a range of gimmicks from celebrity guest stars to dimwit cousin Scrappy-Dum, Scooby-Doo was on its last legs. ![]() Those Scooby fans who turn their nose up at Scrappy and blame him for bringing the franchise down should know that Scrappy’s the only reason Scooby-Doo survived long enough to reach the age of modern media franchising.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |