The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo

The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo is the seventh incarnation of the Hanna-Barbera Saturday morning cartoon Scooby-Doo, and the final first-run version of the original 1969–86 broadcast run of the series. It premiered on September 7, 1985 and ran for one season on ABC as a half-hour program. Thirteen episodes of the show were made in 1985. It replaced Scary Scooby Funnies, a repackaging of earlier shows; another repackaged series, Scooby's Mystery Funhouse, followed. The series used to air in reruns on USA Network in the 1990s, then later on Cartoon Network, but now the series only airs from time to time on Cartoon Network's sister channel Boomerang.

Plot
In the initial episode, the gang are thrown off course on a trip to Honolulu in Daphne's plane, landing instead in the Himalayas. While inside a temple, Scooby and Shaggy are tricked by 2 bumbling ghosts named Weerd and Bogel into opening the Chest of Demons, a magical artifact which houses the 13 most terrifying and powerful ghosts and demons ever to walk the face of the Earth.

As the ghosts can only be returned to the chest by those who originally set them free, Scooby and Shaggy, accompanied by Daphne, Scrappy-Doo, and a young juvenile Asian con artist named Flim-Flam, embark on a worldwide quest to recapture them before they wreak irreversible havoc upon the world. Assisting them is Flim-Flam's friend, a warlock named Vincent Van Ghoul (based upon and voiced by Vincent Price), who contacts the gang using his crystal ball and often employs magic and witchcraft to assist them. The 13 escaped ghosts, meanwhile, each attempt to do away with the gang lest they be returned to the chest, often employing Weerd and Bogel as lackeys.

Production
Story editor and associate producer Tom Ruegger led the overhaul of the property, and the irreverent, fourth wall breaking humor found in each episode would resurface in his later works, among them a Pup Named Scooby-Doo, Tiny Toon Adventures, and Animaniacs. Of The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, Ruegger recalls not being fond of the Flim-Flam character ("Definitely the product of network focus groups") or the other added characters in the cast. As with most of the other early-1980s Scooby-Doo entries, original characters Fred Jones and Velma Dinkley do not appear.

13 Ghosts was canceled and replaced by reruns of Laff-a-Lympics in March 1986, before the end of the season. It became the final Scooby series to feature Scrappy-Doo, as it was decided by Ruegger and ABC that they would overhaul the series entirely, developing A Pup Named Scooby-Doo in 1988. At the time of the cancellation, eleven of the 13 ghosts were recaptured, although it is unknown if some of the ghosts captured in the two episodes "Ship of Ghouls" & "A Spooky Little Ghoul Like You" where more than one of the 13 ghosts were captured, are part of the originals.

Voice cast

 * Don Messick – Scooby-Doo, Scrappy-Doo
 * Casey Kasem – Norville "Shaggy" Rogers
 * Heather North – Daphne Blake
 * Susan Blu – Flim Flam
 * Arte Johnson – Weerd
 * Howard Morris – Bogel, Platypus Duck
 * Vincent Price – Vincent Van Ghoul

Additional voices

 * Bob Arbogast – Announcer voices from pilot episode.
 * Hamilton Camp – Ghoulio, Rankor
 * Gay Autterson – Wanda Brewski
 * Victoria Carroll – The Kangaroo Waitress
 * Peter Cullen – Maldor the Malevolent, Sandy
 * Marshall Efron – Lousy Lizard
 * Richard Erdman – Travel Agent
 * Howard Morris – The Concierge
 * Linda Gary – Queen Morbidia, Nicara
 * Joan Gerber – Ernestine Brewski
 * Phil Hartman – The Vaccu-Spook Auctioneer
 * Bob Holt – Zagras the Wizard
 * Marilyn Lightstone – Astrid
 * Kenneth Mars – The Mayor, Officer Toomey
 * Edie McClurg – Selma, Telula
 * Sidney Miller – Officer Regis
 * Alan Oppenheimer – Professor Fantazmo
 * Robert Ridgely – Captain Ferguson, Time Slime
 * Michael Rye – Demondo, Zimbulu, Reflector Specter
 * John Stephenson – Boris Kreepoff, Freddie Cadaver
 * Russi Taylor – Hilda Brewski
 * Les Tremayne – Zomba
 * B.J. Ward – Marcella
 * Frank Welker – Egad, dragon roars

DVD release
On June 29, 2010, Warner Home Video released The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo: The Complete Series on DVD in Region 1.

Reception
The series was heavily profiled in the Christian fundamentalist documentary Deception of a Generation as an example of occult influences on children's entertainment. Despite this, the show had a mixed to positive reception from most viewers.