The Scooby-Doo franchise has been an institution adored worldwide for over fifty years. From its first incarnation in Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! back in 1969, all the way through a variety of direct-to-DVD cartoons, blockbuster live-action films, and more TV series’ than you can count, it’s still going strong. And Frank Welker even still voices Fred Jones!
With so many years of content to explore, there are a lot of continuity errors to dig into. We’ve focused on the films (both animated and live-action) and collected 10 continuity errors in the Scooby-Doo movies.
A Changing Sandwich
Shaggy Rogers and Scooby-Doo are known for their impressively large stomachs. They’re frequently seen gorging on endless amounts of food, which, in reality, should probably kill them half of the time. Despite all of this, they remain inexplicably skinny.
In Scooby-Doo On Zombie Island, the two make a sandwich so impressively long that they have to chew it down to a size that fits into their picnic basket. When they take said picnic into the car, the sandwich just looks smaller, rather than chewed down to size.
A Premature Hole
Scooby-Doo And The Ghoul School sees Shaggy and Scooby team up with Scooby’s much-hated nephew Scrappy-Doo as they become gym teachers at a school for real ghosts, ghouls and monsters.
For some reason, the favorite pastime of these particular childhood creeps is to play netball with the boys at the military academy next door. During one particularly aggressive shot from the remote control ball, it is shot across the net so hard that it goes through the ground, but just before it hits, the outline of the hole it is about to create is visible.
Winnie’s Blue Arms
One of the ghouls who attends the Ghoul School in question is the daughter of The Werewolf himself. Winnie should be furry and brown, but in a fair few shots, her arms are colored blue.
When the schoolgirls wave off Shaggy, Scooby and Scrappy at the end of the film, her blue arm is particularly noticeable. Considering this is such an obvious error, you’d think something might have been done in post to rectify it.
Crunch’s Teleportation
One of the stranger animated Scooby-Doo films is The Reluctant Werewolf. It is set in a world in which monsters (like in Zombie Island and The Ghoul School) are very much real, and Shaggy actually becomes one.
Towards the start, we are introduced to a pair of hunchback henchmen who follow Scooby and Shaggy through a shop and end up running out with Shaggy in a trolley. The next shot shows Crunch alone looking to the sky, before cutting straight back to him and Brunch pushing Shaggy again.
The Disappearing Purse
The live-action Scooby-Doo films were unable to capture the light-hearted magic of the animated films. They were star-studded and led to Matthew Lillard landing his current role as Shaggy’s voice, but they were just missing something.
Daphne was missing something as well, it seems, because when she is running through the woods (inside Fred’s body… long story… watch the film) she has her purse. A few minutes later, this purse is nowhere to be seen.
Daphne’s Shoe Change
Daphne also seemed to possess an impressive ability to pull off quick changes during Scooby-Doo. A lot of her character is built on a fashion-conscious uber-feminine outlook on life, and the long, pink boots that she wears throughout the film are supposed to represent this. However, there is one notable shot in which Daphne is running up some stairs (while trying to prove her stereotype wrong) suddenly wearing trainers.
These were probably much easier for Sarah Michelle Gellar to run in, but don’t appear in any other scenes in the film.
Daphne’s Second Shoe Change
Not content with one shoe-based blunder in her portrayal of the character, Gellar reprised the continuity problem in the live-action sequel Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed.
While fighting the Black Knight, we see some acrobatic fighting which might be pretty hard to pull off in those classic high heels. Between shots, we see the shoes change to flat shoes much more appropriate for fighting and back again multiple times.
Teleporting Bad Guys
Also seen in the second live-action Scooby-Doo film, this goof focuses in on the monsters themselves. When Scooby attempts to catch the control panel, the Pterodactyl Ghost dives in and tries to snatch it at the same time, before crashing into the Tar Monster. In the next shot, however, the Tar Monster is across the room holding Daphne hostage, with the Pterodactyl Ghost who should be attached to him nowhere to be seen.
This shows that the two scenes must have been filmed separately and edited together in a way that doesn’t quite make sense.
Disappearing Coffee Mug
The 1987 TV movie Scooby-Doo Meets The Boo Brothers is one of the most underrated in the Scooby-Doo canon. It leaves Shaggy and Scooby alone with three mischievous ghosts as they follow a trail to find treasure.
One particular character, Sadie Mae Scroggins, takes a shine to Shaggy and gets up to dance with him at one point during the film. However, she leaves behind a coffee mug which disappears from the shot almost straight away.
Cyber Animation Issues
Scooby-Doo And The Cyber Chase is one of the most futuristic episodes of Scooby-Doo. It forces the gang into a video game, where they must track down the Phantom Virus while navigating scenes from their past and teaming up with past versions of themselves. Very meta.
One of the major issues with teaming up two versions of the same people is keeping their subtle differences consistent. The way to tell the old and new Scooby apart is through their blue/red collars, however, both collars are red when they go down the log flume together, and in a few scenes, present-Scooby’s collar actually changes color.
