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Decoy for a Dognapper

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Decoy for a Dognapper
Decoy for a Dognapper title card
Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!
Details
Episode 105
Airdate November 11, 1969
Written By Ken Spears
Joe Ruby
Bill Lutz
Directed By William Hanna
Joseph Barbera
Chronology
Previous Episode Mine Your Own Business
Next Episode What the Hex Going On?

Decoy for a Dognapper is the fifth episode of the first season of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!.

Contents

Premise

When Mystery Inc. hear about a series of dognappings, they investigate. But when Scooby is dognapped mistaken for another dog, the gang tracks him to a secret hide-out in the desert where they face an Indian witchdoctor and a ghostly Indian on horseback. 

Synopsis

While out for a walk, Scooby sees a prize poodle kidnapped and races to find the rest of the gang, who listen to the radio broadcast an update on a rash of dognappings. They visit one of the victims, Buck Masters, who thinks that the dognappings are related to an upcoming dog show. The gang decide to play the hunch, substituting Scooby as a decoy for Champion, a prizewinning Great Dane belonging to another show competitor. The ploy works, and Scooby is grabbed by the dognappers. Shaggy gives chase on a motor scooter but loses the dognappers' truck when he is menaced by a ghostly Indian on horseback. Meanwhile, the dognapper's ringleader, the Indian Witch Doctor, recognizes that Scooby is not Miller's Great Dane and has his henchman put Scooby on a rail car and send him down the mountain.

The rest of the gang, following the tracking beacon on Scooby's collar, catches up with Shaggy, and they then all watch as Scooby goes racing down the railroad track. Shaggy leaps onto the railcar, brakes it, and rushes it back to safety just ahead of the midnight express. Scooby leads them back to where he had been taken, an abandoned Indian village high up in a cliff. No sooner do they arrive than the witch doctor appears and warns them off. But the gang separates and press on. Fred and Daphne once again meet the witch doctor, and Daphne vanishes when Fred goes to investigate the stone idol in front of which the witchdoctor had been standing. Meanwhile, Scooby also becomes separated from Shaggy and Velma; following a passage, he finds Daphne (who's been tied up) and the imprisoned dogs. The two of them round up the rest of the gang, free the dogs, and use them to chase and tree the witchdoctor, who they unmask as Buck Masters. It had been Masters' plan to kidnap all the dogs who might have beaten his own dog in the competition and then release his dog in time to win.

Cast and characters

Actor Character
Don Messick Scooby-Doo
Buck Masters
Indian Witch Doctor
Sheriff
Radio voice
Casey Kasem Shaggy Rogers
Mike
Frank Welker Fred Jones
Charlie
Stefanianna Christopherson Daphne Blake
Nicole Jaffe Velma Dinkley
Barry Richards Ghost of Geronimo
Jean Vander Pyl Dog owner

Villains

Suspects

None

Culprits

Culprit Motive/reason
Buck Masters as the Indian Witch Doctor He wanted to get rid of all the dogs that might beat his dog in the dog show.

Locations

Notes/trivia

  • Disguises: Champion dog and owner.
  • Food: Frankfurters; sandwiches
  • The Indian Witch Doctor appears in the theme song.
  • During the railroad trestle scene, in close-ups of the Midnight Express train, parts of the Santa Fe railway logo can be seen on the locomotive.
  • The fact that the gang finds abandoned cliff dwellings (being used a hide-out by the villains) gives a hint as to this episode's setting: somewhere in the Southwestern U.S.
  • The Indian witch doctor warns the gang that they will "meet the fate of Spanish conquistadores" if they do not leave. Spanish conquistador Francisco Vázquez de Coronado explored the southwestern United States between 1540 and 1542; he was among the first Europeans to view the Grand Canyon.
  • This is the first time that the gang decides to investigate a case that initially has nothing to do with the supernatural. Eventually, the dognapping case does become supernatural with the appearance of the Indian witch doctor ghost.

Animation mistakes and/or technical glitches

  • Shortly after the bats, as the gang enters the old Indian village, Daphne and Fred are about to go into a room (right before they see the witch doctor and Daphne falls through a trapdoor). Look closely and one part, one of the lavender strips on Daphne's skirt is missing.
  • Fred's figure is gone after they chase after the dog napper.

Inconsistencies/continuity errors and/or goofs/oddities

  • After Shaggy escaped the bats, Scooby greeted him with a hello, but Shaggy replied, "Hi, Rooby."

Home media

Quotes

"You blasted kids! Why didn't you mind your own business?!
Actually, catching dog thieves is our business, Mr. Masters. After all, Scooby-Doo is a dog, and we love him very much.
Aaawwww.
"
— Buck Masters, Fred and Scooby-Doo. '


Previous Episode:
Mine Your Own Business
Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! Season 1
Next Episode:
What the Hex Going On?
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