What's New, Scooby-Doo?


What's New, Scooby-Doo? is an American animated mystery comedy television series produced by Warner Bros. Animation for Kids' WB; it is the ninth incarnation of the Scooby-Doo franchise that began with Hanna-Barbera's Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! and the first Scooby-Doo series in a decade, since A Pup Named Scooby-Doo ended in 1991 and the first since both the foreclosure of Hanna-Barbera studios and William Hanna's death in 2001.
The series revives the format of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, in which the title character and his companions, Fred Jones; Daphne Blake; Velma Dinkley and Shaggy Rogers, travel to varying locations solving mysteries; this format is modernized for What's New, Scooby-Doo?, in which the characters utilize technology that did not exist at the time Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! first aired. It is the first television series in the franchise in which Frank Welker, Grey DeLisle and Mindy Cohn respectively portrayed the voices of Scooby-Doo, Daphne, and Velma, and where Casey Kasem made his comeback as Shaggy after seven years of not voicing the character and would also be the final Scooby-Doo series where he voices the character before his death in 2014, though he would still do voice work in the two following incarnations, Shaggy & Scooby-Doo Get a Clue! and Scooby Doo! Mystery Incorporated.
The series premiered on September 14, 2002, and ran for three seasons before ending on July 21, 2006. The title song was performed by Canadian band Simple Plan. Reruns of the series have aired on both Cartoon Network and Boomerang in the United States. It also aired on Teletoon in Canada, and CBBC, then CITV in the United Kingdom.

Episodes

Characters

Main

Characters in the series who appear more than once.
For this incarnation of the franchise, Frank Welker, the voice of Fred, took over as the voice of Scooby. Casey Kasem returned as Shaggy, seven years after he had quit the role and making his comeback as the character in 2002 after the production team decided to make Shaggy a vegetarian. This would also be the final series Kasem voiced the character, continuing to voice Shaggy in direct-to-video Scooby-Doo films until retiring from the role in 2009 due to health problems; Grey DeLisle returned as the role of Daphne. Actress Mindy Cohn of The Facts of Life fame, took over from B. J. Ward as the role of Velma.
The series itself is a modernized version of the original Where Are You! series. It takes place in the 21st century and is more "realistic" than the previous, more cartoony incarnations, and features music from contemporary genres and all-new, original sound effects to replace the classic Hanna-Barbera sound effects. Even a distinctive thunderclap sound that was used frequently on older Scooby-Doo TV series was very rarely used on the series. A laugh track was only used for the Halloween special. The classic formula was also frequently parodied throughout, including the line "And I would've gotten away with it too, if it weren't for you meddling kids." As such, it returns to the formulaic version of humans in monster disguises, rather than the real monsters and ghosts of the prior four direct-to-video films.
The show was produced by Warner Bros. Animation, the successor to Warner Bros. Cartoons which was the studio famous for bringing the Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies to life, which had by this time absorbed Hanna-Barbera Productions on 2001, after being bought by Time Warner from Turner Broadcasting System since their merger on October 10, 1996. As is the standard for other classic Hanna-Barbera properties, the studio is still credited as the copyright owner, and Joseph Barbera, co-founder and co-chairman of the Hanna-Barbera studios, served as an executive producer alongside Sander Schwartz. William Hanna, longtime partner of Barbera, had died the year before. Wang Film Productions, DongWoo Animation Co. Ltd, and Lotto Animation contributed some of the animation for this series.
The band Simple Plan is strongly connected to What's New, Scooby-Doo?. They perform the theme song, and appeared as themselves in the episode "Simple Plan and the Invisible Madman". Two of their songs appeared in chase scenes: "I'd Do Anything" in the episode "It's Mean, It's Green, It's the Mystery Machine" and "You Don't Mean Anything" in "Simple Plan and the Invisible Madman", which also had the song "The Worst Day Ever" serve as the song the band plays during a scene where they practice, and a scene where they are in concert. Also, they contributed to the theatrical movie .
Each season included one holiday-themed special along with the other 13 regular episodes. The first season's special was A Scooby-Doo Christmas, followed by A Scooby-Doo Halloween and A Scooby-Doo Valentine.
What's New aired for three seasons on The WB Television Network's "Kids' WB" programming block as a half-hour program, before being put on an indefinite hiatus in 2005, although the last episode, "E-Scream", was aired on Cartoon Network. Reruns have been shown on both Cartoon Network and its sister channel Boomerang. It also debuted on Boomerang and Cartoon Network in the United Kingdom and Ireland. In the United Kingdom, it aired on CBBC from September 2003 until November 2015., and aired on CITV in 2016

Home media

has released the entire series on DVD in Region 1, but does not contain “A Scooby-Doo Christmas”, “A Scooby-Doo Halloween”, and “A Scooby-Doo Valentine”. The series was initially released in ten volumes of four or five episodes between 2003–2006, as well as in the United Kingdom from 2004–2006 and later re-released, in the United States, in season sets in 2007–2008. In the UK, the volumes were released in a two disc set on May 30, 2011. A box set was released on October 29, 2007 in the UK containing all ten volumes in a complete set.