Scooby-Doo and Guess Who? is an American animated television series produced by Warner Bros. Animation and Chris Bailey and the thirteenth television series in the Scooby-Doo franchise.
The show first premiered on Boomerang's SVOD service on June 27, 2019, before its debut on Cartoon Network on July 8, 2019, and on the Boomerang channel on October 1, 2020. The series later moved to HBO Max, and the remaining episodes of the second season were released on October 1, 2021.
Contents
Premise
Following a similar premise to The New Scooby-Doo Movies, the series focuses on Mystery Inc. as they solve mysteries while encountering and being assisted by various celebrities and fictional characters, including DC Comics and Hanna-Barbera characters.
Development
When Chris Bailey was directing the independent film Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank, due to its troubled production, he called Sam Register to tell him that he had become available to make a show. They often talked about doing a “Cartoony Superheroey Thing”, so Sam sent the message to Jay Bastian, Senior Vice President of Series for Warner Bros. Animation. After meeting with Jay, Chris was given a project that fit with what he wanted to make and began developing it, but before he could turn in the script, the project was canceled in the midst of AT&T's purchase of Time Warner. During one of Chris's later meetings with Jay, he asked him about Scooby-Doo, and Chris told him that he watched the franchise as a kid, tuning in to watch it "every Saturday morning for three years before ultimately moving on to other stuff". While Chris loved the franchise and its characters, he did not consider himself to be a "Scooby-Doo guy". However, one aspect of the franchise that stuck with him was the celebrity guest stars. He stated:
"Well, what if we did like sort of a contemporary version of Scooby-Doo totally went back to basics with the structure and just sort of milk the clichés of style, not something that was done because or it was done at the time because of budget, but overtime those things became style, so let's embrace those things and let's not do too much animation that's three-quarter into camera, let's like stage things for depth but keep the animation left to right and right to left and let's always use Scooby and Shaggy's classic run and use the same takes things like that."
Jay liked the idea and the original concept of the show, but instead of celebrity guest stars, it was originally going to feature guests from other Hanna-Barbera shows, with potential guests including Jonny Quest and Frankenstein Jr. and The Impossibles. In one conversation during development, Sam Register stated that he wanted to do a show with Steve Urkel, which was one of Chris's favorite shows. This marked a shift toward more human guest stars, with cartoon characters existing as a fallback option. The crew wanted to invite Michael Phelps to do an episode with Jabberjaw, but it was not produced due to him declining. As a comic book fan, Chris Bailey also chose to include several superheroes as a guest stars, including Wonder Woman, Batman, and The Flash.
Voice cast
Main cast
Frank Welker as Scooby-Doo, Fred Jones, Dynomutt, Speed Buggy, and Magilla Gorilla
Grey DeLisle as Daphne Blake
Matthew Lillard as Shaggy Rogers
Kate Micucci as Velma Dinkley
Guest stars
Fictional guest characters include The Hex Girls, Steve Urkel, Wonder Woman, Sherlock Holmes, Batman, Alfred Pennyworth, Joker, Flash, Trickster, Magilla Gorilla, the Ghost of Abraham Lincoln, Blue Falcon and Dynomutt and the characters from The Funky Phantom.
Episodes
Home media
The first season was released on DVD on January 19, 2021, by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment. The second season was released on DVD on June 28, 2022.
