The name of the detective dog, Scooby-Doo, who has been popular since his start in 1969, was inspired by words in a hit song from 1966.
Hanna-Barbera and writers Joe Ruby and Ken Spears developed an animated show in 1969 about teenagers and a dog that solved mysteries involving haunted houses and monsters. That original show was not going to focus on comedy but the spooky mystery. The show’s dog would be a supporting character and not the main character, and he was going to be serious.
The head of Children’s Programming for CBS, Fred Silverman, pitched the show to executives at CBS using the title Who’s S-S-Scared?, but CBS President Frank Stanton and the other executives thought the show would be too frightening for children.
It wasn’t until Silverman was on a red-eye from New York to Los Angeles that he got the idea for the dog’s name and what would become a different direction for the show. He happened to be listening to Frank Sinatra’s “Strangers in the Night” as the plane was landing and heard Sinatra sing the words “Scooby-do-be-do.” He knew right then that he had a name for the cartoon dog. Scooby-Doo went from being a supporting character to the main character, the cartoon was changed into a comedy, and it was renamed Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! The show was pitched again to CBS executives, and they approved it.
Scooby-Doo has been in many shows, animated films, and live-action films since 1969 and is still going strong with new shows on Boomerang and the Cartoon Network since 2010. One of the biggest questions about Scooby-Doo and the gang might be, why did they add Scrappy-Doo?
