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How Scrappy Doo saved Scooby-Doo
The true meaning of Puppy Power!
Here at MeTV Toons, we are big fans of Scrappy Doo - his silly little jokes, his intameable spirit, his fearless approach to solving mysteries and his willingness to protect his friends in the face of danger are all qualities that make him a fantastic cartoon character. He defies all odds, and what he lacks in size, he makes up for in spirit. Some may call him annoying, but someone needs to pester Scooby and Shaggy into taking action. Even his creator, Hanna-Barbera lead character designer Iwao Takamoto, disliked Scrappy and said, "With his obnoxious personality, I considered him to be an undersized monster." Ouch. Despite his shortcomings, this pesky little puppy actually saved the entire Scooby-Doo empire from being cancelled.
In his autobiography, My Life with a Thousand Characters, Takamoto also included that Scrappy was one of the original designs for Scooby-Doo, but the tiny dog with the giant head was scrapped when Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? was being developed in 1969. Ten years later, the Scooby-Doo franchise was struggling in the ratings. Hanna-Barbera had released the original series, as well as The Scooby-Doo Show, The New Scooby-Doo Mysteries, and Scooby's All-Star Laff-a-Lympics. Ten years of the same formula and the same Mystery, Inc. were getting a little stale, and ABC was threatening to cancel the series if they couldn't get the ratings back up. The glory days were seemingly over and the series needed some oomph, some puppy power.
Producer Don Jurwich asked Takamoto to sketch a character who could be a little nephew of Scooby's. Recalling the rejected character, Takamoto drew Scrappy Doo in 15 minutes, handed it to Jurwich, who showed it to the ABC network executives. They loved Scrappy. Even with an established character design, there was a new struggle afoot with the writers. According to screenwriter Mark Evanier, writers struggled to introduce Scrappy, and network executives wanted a character that resembled the classic Looney Tunes characters.
For Scrappy, Evanier took inspiration from a Mel Blanc character known for being a feisty little guy: Henery Hawk. Evanier was told to tone down Scrappy because he was too rebellious and independent. According to Evanier's blog, "I pointed out that Scrappy, as written, was an effectual character. He got things done, always (eventually) for the better." Despite Evanier's fierce battle for Scrappy's soul, Scrappy was slightly toned down to make him more watchable for audiences. Evanier's script for "The Scarab Lives" was approved for production, and now Hanna-Barbera had to find a voice for Scrappy.
First, they wanted Mel Blanc, but he was too expensive. Then they auditioned a few more voice actors, including the voice of Fred Jones, Frank Welker. Welker ad-libbed the phrase "Puppy power!" which became Scrappy's signature catch phrase. Don Messick, the voice of Scooby-Doo, was chosen, but after recording the entire episode, the network decided they didn't like him and wanted another voice actor. They re-recorded the episode with Daws Butler, and again, the network decided they needed a different voice. This re-recording continued with several more voice actors until they landed on Lennie Weinrib, who is best known for being the voice of Grimace in McDonald's commercials. Finally, production could move forward and Scrappy could save the franchise.
Scrappy was added to the new show, later called Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo, where Scrappy joined Mystery, Inc. Fans enjoyed that Scrappy was focused on action and charged right into danger, the total opposite of Scooby and Shaggy. However, Scrappy became so popular that Fred, Velma, and later Daphne were cut from the cast to shine the spotlight even more on Scrappy. Scrappy never set out to break up the band, but he did for a time. In addition to Scrappy's personality, this was another reason fans eventually grew to dislike him. Evanier offers another way to look at Scrappy: "Scrappy did exactly what he was supposed to do: He got Scooby-Doo renewed for another season."
