Why Were There SO MANY Scooby Doo Clones?

like wow man look at that guy he's me man totally me like and there's another one man now there's like a glowing skull dude over there hannah barbera a studio that is responsible for some of the most iconic cartoon characters of all time the flintstones the jetsons yogi bear and many many others these guys basically had a monopoly on televised cartoons from the 60s to the 70s but on september 13 1969 scooby-doo where are you made its debut and it was a game changer for hannah barbera it quickly became their most popular show and hannah barbera was like you you can't rip us off not if we rip ourselves off first they knew they struck gold with the scooby-doo format and similar shows to follow would include goober and the ghost chasers jabber jaw and speed buggy to name a few but why did hannah barbera go so crazy with the scooby-doo formula and made so many clones uh spoiler alert the answer's pretty obvious hello i like money what inspired you money but that's okay i don't care i want an excuse to check out all these clones and see what they are about to see how close they are to scooby-doo or how different i imagine them being clones to begin with means are pretty close but i digress who cares we got an excuse and with the new scoob movie out i feel that there's no better time than the present so let's go find out why scooby doo has so many clones or you know just see the clones i don't want to see the talking dune buggy speed buggy i see and do you like you know license to operate myself before we talk about the clones i want to go over the origin of scooby-doo now i'm going to keep it very brief because the origin of scooby-doo could literally be a video of its own i'm actually pretty sure there are videos already out there about this subject and here you go there's a link in the description now the original show scooby-doo where are you was created by joe ruby and ken spears the studio behind it of course was hannah barbera and the first episode was released in september of 1969. it was a massive success according to my sources the tv ratings reported that like nearly 65 of saturday morning audiences would tune in to watch it i want to do a synopsis but i feel that like everybody knows this everybody should know what scooby-doo is but for the seven people watching right now who do not know what i'm talking about scooby-doo is about four teenagers going off to solve mysteries alongside their talking dog that's that's the show more or less when it comes to inspiration scooby-doo according to my sources was inspired by i love a mystery and dobie gills it's actually really uncanny when you compare shaggy here to this character from dobie gills it it blows my mind i got like four goldfish do any people depend on you yeah dolby no i kind of like depend on him there's only one place to find the answer like in the phone book i hope there's also inspiration drawn from a book series called famous five which also featured four teenagers solving supernatural mysteries alongside their dog companion though i don't know if he talked or not that's that's the deal breaker right there scooby talks makes it completely original but hannah barbera quickly realized that they had struck gold and they were very quick to churn out more content whether it be a scooby-doo spin-off or scooby-doo clone or scooby-doo clone or scooby-doo clone or scooby-doo clone or scooby-doo clown so why did hannah barbara make so many scooby-doo clones well the most obvious answer you guessed it money sweet delicious money scooby was stupid popular and hannah barbera wanted to run with that momentum and make shows that were similar in tone and structure they they took scooby-doo and they put him in a chemistry lab and they broke him down to his core elements and discovered the scooby-doo formula which is the following teenagers plus mystery plus talking mascot that is like the core formula though there are some like parts of it that are also included they're not as important like that there's a vehicle that they drive around in that's kind of common but like not as common as the talking mascot or just having a mascot the teenagers though that is very common the mysteries that is incredibly common but yeah hannah barbera figured it out they're like oh my god this is it we are about to make so much money because of scooby-doo and his formula they knew it worked and they went nuts with it as you can see my client mr clam head and mr tinker here share the same identity both have long hair both solve mysteries both wear garments of indeterminate yet unmistakably cheap material and who was going to stop them who could even challenge them hannah barbera had a monopoly on animation around this time well when it came to televised content they were the biggest name in town and they knew it and that is why they weren't completely ham with scooby-doo clones alright so let's go down the list and check out these clones i'm going to try and keep this short and sweet since there's a lot to cover oh by the way there is a really great thread on twitter from jonathan gray where he goes over hannah barbera cartoons that he considers scooby-doo clones according to him there are 22 shows that qualify but i'm gonna try and narrow things down a bit and try to keep it close to the ones that are the most like scooby-doo if you want to check out his thread and read through it then boom down the description there's the link again the scooby-doo formula teenagers plus mystery plus mascot that that's the formula at its core those are the three most common traits albeit there are some shows on this list that only have like two of the three parts but even then they still channel that inner scooby-doo i mean just look come on like bro come on oh and for the record i do not consider scooby-doo's extended family to be rip-offs those are part of the scooby-doo cinematic universe not cinematic part of the scooby-doo just lore i suppose so i would not include them though there are some pretty great ones on this list you got like ruby roo you got the grandfather who i'm pretty sure was confederate soldier you got uh scooby dumb oh that would have been a wonderful table talk what do we call scooby's brother i don't know scooby dumb all right enough let's cut to the chase the clone list and we're going to go in chronological order of release and the first on our list is josie and the pussycats it came out in september of 1970 so about a year after scooby-doo it was based on the archie comics that went by the same name and the main characters include josie valerie melody you got alan who is just like a buffer version of freddy hi there i'm freddie from scooby-doo you got alexander who sounds just like shaggy it's the same voice actors away oh lucky we landed on a lumpy old pillow who are you calling a lumpy old pillow you got his sister alexandra who reminds me a lot of veronica from the archie comics and of course you need the animal mascot who is this snickering cat named sebastian it's kind of a bummer because the comic itself wasn't just mystery it was a lot more than that there were more adventures and action but when it came to the show it became pretty obvious that they're like i just make it mysteries whatever mirrored it make it like scooby-doo just who cares scooby-doo worked do it like doo and that really was like the first time hannah barbera was like okay here we go we're gonna start printing money funny enough scooby and his gang actually hung out with josie and her gang god there's a lot of gangs in the hand of barbara universe listen we've got a bit of a problem the gang and i dang stuff listen up next there's the funky phantom released in september of 1971 by the way all of these shows for the most part were released in september that was just hannah barbera's specific month they like to release stuff so from now on when i say the year just assume it's september because it is but yeah funky phantom it's uh one of the more shameless clones on the list cause it really channels its inner scooby-doo you got a bunch of teens driving around solving mysteries with their sidekick ghost friend and his ghost cat and you know what's even worse throw in a dog for good measure why the hell not and not only was it ripping off scooby-doo it was also ripping off snagopus the ghost he talks like this even what makes me think i'm so funky my name is donkey but if you funk with me you'll take a one-way ride in my suv okay so yeah it's funky don't ever let me become a voice actor folks i'm just the worst then there's the amazing chan and the chan clan then there's the amazing chant i can't say the name it's so well there one more time here we go then there's the amazing chan and the chan clan from 1972. now this one is based on the charlie chan books and movies which is like an old school property from i believe 1925. instead of having four teenagers and a dog solving crimes you got charlie chan and his oh my god bro 10 kids oh that's that's too many that's way too many and of course there's a dog too got to have your animal mascot you have to have your weird thing in there that's not normal though like the non-humanoid thing that's always present in these clones now i get that the gimmick of this show is so many kids but legit this is too many there are there are way too many i feel like this is like the dwarves from the hobbit they're just everywhere and i i get confused it's overwhelming wait who's what i i see what i assume to be chinese daphne but that's really it everything else kind of just is a blob of of characters it's too much but hey at least they have a band yeah [Music] next there's goober and the ghost chasers from 1973. out of all of the clones on this list i consider this one to be the most like scooby-doo teenagers solving crimes with a talking dog that is like straight up as close to the format of scooby-doo that you can get to that is that is as close as you can get and to top it all off it's like they took shaggy's soul his personality and put it in the dog it's like some alchemy experiment that went wrong and and that's the result is a goober who can turn invisible okay he's gotta have his thing and you all will love this so there is a laugh track in this cartoon a lot of the hanna-barbera cartoons had laugh tracks and this particular show had occasions when they would re-run the episodes on cartoon network where the laugh track was muted so it's like those videos that are the muted laugh tracks of the big bang theory so it's like these awkward silences where there should be laughter but it's just quiet because the laugh checks gone which in my opinion only makes the show that much funnier i've seen him play he doesn't need practice [Music] then there's speed buggy from 1973. so the inspiration behind this one is a bit more unique and interesting because it took inspiration from disney's love bug and also from speed racer but oh no here comes the scooby-doo formula the teens the mystery uh my god bro you look a lot like shaggy and of course the talking mascot who is a car it was only 16 episodes long anyway so i guess you can call this show a bit of a car wreck next there's inch high private eye from 1973. finally we have main characters who are not teenagers so that already makes it much more different compared to the rest of these shows but we got two of the three main bullet points you got the mystery solving which is like a big part of the show and then you have your gimmick who is the detective and he's small yeah isn't that interesting it's such a spin on things and oh oh wait i forgot that that's right he's not the only mascot uh of course there is a dog mascot because hannah barbera loves dogs and you better believe that like three out of four times there will be a dog and a hannah barbara cartoon in one way or another after that there's a butch cassidy and the sundance kids from 1973. oh come on for real we're just gonna throw an s on there and say it's a cartoon show okay whatever all right so we got ourselves a teenage rock band ding ding ding but this band lives a double life and also works as a crime fighting team for the government and there's a dog too there it is named elvis you know what the more i think about it this show wasn't just copying scooby-doo but like it saw josie and the pussycats and was like don't mind me going to have a piece of that idea as well then there was dinomutt dog wonder from 1976. hey you are in the scoob movie so disclaimer to be fair to mutt this pick i would consider to be one of the outliers on my chart when it comes to like here's scooby-doo clones these are the shows that come close to it and then you get diana mutt who's like a bit of an outlier because it's similar but not like to a t that being said dinomon was initially packaged alongside scooby-doo with the scooby-doo dino mutt hour from 1976. next there's clue club from 1976. check check check all right moving on then there was jabber jaw from 1976 out of all of the clones on this list and i've been saying that a lot i know i know but out of all of the clones on this list jabber jaw is the most out there just listen to the synopsis hear me out you got a rock band of four teenagers called the neptunes and along with them is a 15 foot great white shark named jabber jaw they live in an underwater civilization from the year 2076 and their team is constantly running around trying to stop super villains from taking over the ocean so when it comes to the premise of taking the scooby format at least jabber jaw adds some flair to it it's close but it's different enough and i give them credit for that also i learned about the three stooges because of this show oh for god's sakes you the shark no more from you today okay oh and fun fact despite jabber jaw of course copying the format for scooby-doo to a degree the show's creation was because of jaws how about that i had no idea could you imagine that though that instead of the shark from jaws it's jabber jaw going around the beach destroying children [Music] after that there's captain caveman and the teen angels from 1977. we got the van we got the teens oh hold on hold on it's just girls this time yeah that's right all girls no boys allowed unless you're a chad like captain k i can't do it i literally can't do it i suck i'm not a voice actor don't even try but yeah you got your mystery you got your teens you got your wacky mascot next oh here we go the last one and it's called the beaufort files from 1978. it's it's just scooby-doo but in the south like that's it you got a bloodhound name buford and he runs around with these two teens as they go off to solve crime that's it and you know what after so many years of hannah barbera making scooby clones i think this was the moment where they were like yeah i think we've hit our peak they were running out of creative steam though let's be real here there wasn't that much creativity to begin with your clones are very impressive you must be very proud in conclusion hanna-barbera admittedly got crazy with making scooby-doo clones and it does come across as a bit shameless but personally i don't think any less of them for it these guys literally carry televised cartoons on their shoulders during the 1960s and 70s and it's safe to say that animation wouldn't be where it is today if it wasn't for them now when it came to making new cartoons they had a pretty broad approach and made a ton of stuff and a lot of that stuff is very iconic there's also a lot that's not a bunch of forgettable cartoons we never heard of but to me that's forgivable animation is not cheap and they knew that they had to make every single show count and that's why they relied so heavily on the scooby-doo formula hopefully the characters from the hanna-barbera universe can make a name for themselves once more real talk i am very pumped for this jellystone cartoon it's being developed by ch greenblatt who's the guy who made chowder and harvey beaks he's funny he's talented this show is in good hands and hopefully as well it will be better than scoob apparently he's been stealing netflix by using his mother's account that is not fair for the rest of us who have to pay for netflix you have to pay for netflix yeah [Music] [Music] you

Channel: undefined

Views: 875,337

Rating: 4.947834 out of 5

Keywords: scooby doo, saberspark, saber, scooby doo clones, clones, ripoffs, video essay, scoob, review, Why Were There SO MANY Scooby Doo Clones?, hanna barbera, what ruined hanna barbera

Id: rJUSqmZbkMg

Length: 21min 34sec (1294 seconds)

Published: Fri May 22 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Bizarro_Trump]

Because kids like Scooby-Doo, and companies like marketing to kids.

[u/BoosterDuck]

to clone Scooby-Doo's success

[u/JeddHampton]

I really like this guys voice, but some of the writing seemed forced or laboring the point. It's a good video, but for about half the video, I'm just thinking, "get on with it."

[u/jadedfan55]

Dynomutt, despite the ties to Scooby, isn't a Scooby-clone, but a parody of Batman crossed with the Six Million Dollar Man (a dog in this case, and they would come up with a bionic dog when NBC picked up Bionic Woman). Slight difference.

[u/CalRipkenForCommish]

Imitation is the best form of flattery

[u/CollinsCouldveDucked]

The same reason there are so many pop culture video essayists

[u/meowskywalker]

I feel like the number of years since 1969 where some new Scooby show were not being produced MUST be a minority. There’s basically been new Scooby Doo content creates uninterrupted for 50 years. I just the other day chose to spend 20 dollars to watch a movie who’s entire premise is “let’s just circle jerk about how great Scooby-Doo is” and I felt like it was money well spent. It’s a massive juggernaut. Of course people would want to copy that.

[u/Dallywack3r]

Better question- why are there so many wannabe film and media critics trying to copy the same video essay style without any knowledge of what makes a good video or essay?

[u/Gritch]

Dynomutt is vastly superior.