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The Harum-Scarum Sanitarium is the seventh episode of The Scooby-Doo/Dynomutt Hour, later repackaged as the seventh episode of the first season of The Scooby-Doo Show.
Premise[]
On vacation in Niagara Falls, the gang end up at a mental asylum haunted by a former doctor ghost, Dr. Coffin. When the kids notice ambulances coming and going with no patients, they decide to find out what they are really carrying.
Synopsis[]
Scooby, Shaggy, Fred, Daphne and Velma are driving down a dark road on a stormy night, on the way back from Niagara Falls. Soon, they realize they are lost. They run into a Canadian border patrol officer, Officer Oldfield, who warns them to not drive past the sanitarium, which is rumored to be haunted by the Ghost of Dr. Coffin. The gang continue to drive, but thanks to the sign being struck by lighting and it pointing the wrong way, they take the wrong road-towards the haunted sanitarium. They follow an ambulance all the way to the Shady Sanitarium. There, they witness paramedics carrying a patient inside, and Velma thinks that it's strange that they're doing this in a storm and at night. They get out of the van and are chased by guard dogs. But moments later the dogs just wander off like puppies. The man inside the sanitarium, Dr. Tooksbury invites them in to dinner. He claims that the dogs can be tamed by different kinds of music, that's why they wandered off.
Dr. Tooksbury tells the gang that he was Dr. Coffin's assistant and that his patients keep disappearing. Mystery Inc. decides to spend the night. Fred, Shaggy and Scooby in one room, and Velma and Daphne in another. The boys see Dr. Coffin outside their window and Scooby finds a secret passage into a room containing a giant mirror. Shaggy hits a switch and the roof slides open, revealing the moon which shines down and reflects off the mirror. It is a solar furnace, and Fred doesn't know why it is in the sanitarium. Dr. Coffin appears again in the mirror and Fred, Shaggy and Scooby flee. Velma and Daphne witness paramedics carrying another patient into the hospital. The patient does not look like he's alive anymore.
The whole gang follows the ambulance as it drives away-right to a deep chasm, only for it to vanished all of a sudden, Dr. Coffin appears on a cliff and laughs maniacally and then disappears. They decide to get some sleep and try to solve it in the morning. Back at the sanitarium, in the middle of the night, the mad doctor begins playing the organ putting Scooby in a trance. The gang wakes up and goes to the organ room, where they wake Scooby up and get chased by the guard dogs - right into a room full of wigs, which is their second clue. The gang splits up to look for clues, and Shaggy and Scooby find the mad doctor's laboratory. Dr. Coffin appears and chases them around the sanitarium. Fred, Daphne and Velma find the morgue, where they discover the "patients" they have been seeing are just piles of gold bars on a gurney with wigs poking out from under the sheet to make it appear to be people. The paramedics have been smuggling gold out in and out from the sanitarium.
Then, Scooby and Shaggy run in with Dr. Coffin behind him. They hide under a blanket on a gurney and Dr. Coffin and his two henchmen take Scooby and Shaggy, load them on the ambulance, and drive away! Fred, Daphne and Velma follow the ambulance to a mine full with gold and a machine that wraps the gold in bread wrappers. Scooby and Shaggy escape and are chased in rail cars, but Dr. Coffin and his henchmen fall into the machine and get wrapped up. Dr. Coffin is unmasked as... Officer Oldfield! The border patrol officer. The man posing as Officer Oldfield was the ringleader of a gold smuggling operation. He used the ghost of Dr. Coffin and the guard dogs to scare people away. They put human-shaped casts of gold on gurneys with the wigs and loaded them on ambulances to drive the gold across the border, and the authorities would think they were just patients. Then they would mold the gold into bars with the solar furnace and smuggle it across the border into the U.S.
Soon after the gang pack up, during which Scooby dances with Daphne, causing him to be called "A real Fred Astaire", but he runs away when Cuddles and Shoonkums (the guard dogs) show up behind him and invite him to dance with them.
Characters[]
Main characters:
Supporting characters:
- Dr. Tooksbury (only appearance)
Villains:
- Ghost of Dr. Coffin (only appearance)(Officer Oldfield's disguise)
- Officer Oldfield (only appearance)
- Officer Oldfield's henchman 1 (only appearance)
- Officer Oldfield's henchman 2 (only appearance)(no lines)
Other characters:
- Stevie Wonder (mentioned)
- Dr. Coffin (mentioned)(deceased)
- Cuddles (only appearance)(no lines)
- Schoonkums (only appearance)(no lines)
- Sheriff (only appearance)
- Worm (only appearance)(no lines)
- Fred Astaire (mentioned)
Locations[]
- Ontario, Canada
Objects[]
- Milk
- Olives
- Theatre organ
- Gold bars
- Apple
- Gang's suitcases
- Hospital gurneys
- Wigs
Vehicles[]
- The Mystery Machine
- The Ghost of Dr. Coffin's ambulance
Suspects[]
| Suspect | Motive/reason |
|---|---|
| Dr. Tooksbury | Strange manner. |
Culprits[]
| Culprit | Motive/reason |
|---|---|
| Officer Oldfield as the Ghost of Dr. Coffin Officer Oldfield's henchmen |
To scare everyone away from the Shady Sanitarium where they were temporarily hiding the stolen gold. |
Cast[]
Full credits[]
The following credits reflect closely as possible to how they are seen onscreen.
- Executive Producers: Joseph Barbera and William Hanna
- Director: Charles A. Nichols
- Creative Producer: Iwao Takamoto
- Associate Producer: Alex Lovy
- Storyboard Direction: Jan Green, Cullen Houghtaling, Don Sheppard, Paul Sommer
- Recording Director: Alex Lovy
- Story Editor: Ray Parker
- Story: Larz Bourne, Haskell Barkin, Dick Conway, Tom Dagenais, Willie Gilbert, Tony DiMarco, Duane Poole, Dave Ketchum, Norman Maurer, Dick Robbins, Dalton Sandifer
- Voices: Bob Holt, Allan Melvin, Casey Kasem, Don Messick, Pat Stevens, Janet Waldo, Mickey Dolenz, Linda Hutson, Virginia Gregg, Hettie Lynn Hurtes, Shirley Mitchell, Heather North, Alan Oppenheimer, John Stephenson, Lennie Weinrib, Frank Welker
- Production Design: Bob Singer
- Character Design: Alex Toth
- Production Supervisor: Victor O. Schipek
- Graphics: Iraj Paran
- Musical Director: Hoyt Curtin
- Musical Direction: Paul DeKorte
- Layout: Mike Arens, Hak Ficq, Jack Huber, Ray Jacobs, Tony Rivera, Jim Mueller, Tony Sgroi, Terry Slade, Owen Fitzgerald, C.L. Hartman, Alex Ignatiev, Ziggy Jablecki, Homer Jonas, Warren Marshall, Steve Nakagawa, Bob Singer, Linda Rowley, Adam Szwejkowski, Wendell Washer, Al Wilson, George Wheeler
- Unit Director: Bill Keil
- Animation: Ed Barge, Bob Goe, Bill Hutten, Tony Love, O.E. Callahan, Lars Calonius, Rudy Cataldi, Steve Clark, Hugh Fraser, Bob Hathcock, Jerry Hathcock, Volus Jones, Ken Muse, Rod Parkes, Veve Risto, Jay Sarbry, Xenia, Margaret Nichols, Don Patterson, Morey Reden, Ed Soloman, Ken Southworth, Dave Tendlar, Dick Thompson, Carlo Vinci, Russ Von Neida
- Backgrounds: Fernando Arce, Dennis Durrell, Al Gmuer, Richard Khim, Fernando Montealegre, Marilyn Shimokochi, Dennis Venizelos
- Technical Supervisor: Frank Paiker
- Checking and Scene Planning: Evelyn Sherwood
- Ink and Paint Supervisor: Billie Kerns
- Xerography: Star Wirth
- Sound Direction: Richard Olson, Bill Getty
- Supervising Film Editors: Chip Yaras
- Music Editors: Larry Cowan, Pat Foley, Joe Sandusky
- Effects Editors: Richard Allen, Tom Gleason, Terry Moore
- Negative Consultant: William E. DeBoer
- Post Production Supervisor: Joed Eaton
- Camera: George Epperson, Curt Hall, Ron Jackson, Norman Stainback, Roy Wade
- Production Manager: Jayne Barbera
- A Hanna-Barbera Production
- © 1976 Hanna-Barbera Productions, Inc.
- RCA Sound Recording
- Hanna-Barbera Productions, Inc.
Notes/trivia[]
- A sanitarium (sanatorium) was a medical facility for long-term illness (such as tuberculosis before antibiotics). The word was also used as a socially-acceptable term for "psychiatric hospital".
- While Ted Nichols' original 1968 musical underscore was reused in the episode before, the original 1969 underscore used specifically for Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! reappears after going unused in the previous six episodes, the first five consisting of new background music by Hoyt Curtin. The 1968 and 1969 underscores would remain in regular usage for the rest of the series.
- Fred mistakes Scooby wearing a wig with an actual woman. This gag will be carried over multiple times throughout the franchise, including the film Scooby-Doo and an episode of A Pup Named Scooby-Doo.
- This is one of the first times in which the gang is forced to split up instead of choosing to.
- When Daphne and Scooby are dancing together at the end Shaggy says that Scooby is a 'real Fred Astaire'. Fred Astaire (1899 - 1987) was a famous dancer and actor and the American Film Institute named him the 5th greatest male star of Classic Hollywood Cinema.
- This is one of the few episodes from the classic era (pre-90s) which showcases the friendship between the members of the gang.
- Fred, Daphne and Velma are shown very worried about Shaggy and Scooby being captured by the Ghost, and also very determined to save them.
- Daphne and Scooby dance together.
- Shaggy is hugging Velma at the very end.
Miscellaneous[]
- Disguises: Shaggy and Scooby as doctors.
- Traps: Bread wrapping machine.
- "Zoinks" count: 13.
- "Rikes" count: 2.
- "Ruh-roh" count: 1.
- "Jeepers" count: 4 (3 from Daphne, 1 from Velma).
- "Creepers" count: 1.
Animation mistakes and/or technical glitches[]
- After Shaggy opens the roof in the room with the huge mirror Fred's shirt collar is briefly coloured white before returning to it's normal blue colour.
- When the gang is being chased by the dogs, Daphne disappears briefly making it look like one of the dogs is only chasing Fred and Velma.
- When the ambulance signals to open the door to the mine, the left part of the cliff disappeared briefly making the door hanging in the air.
- Fred's normally blue collar shirt again changes to white at the end of the episode, when the gang is loading their luggage into the Mystery Machine as they prepare to leave the sanitarium (right before showing Scooby and Daphne dancing together).
Inconsistencies/continuity errors and/or goofs/oddities[]
- In real life, Niagara Falls is surrounded by two cities (Niagara Falls, New York and Niagara Falls, Ontario) so the "middle-of-nowhere" woodland setting seen in this episode is almost entirely fictional.
- It is unknown how the Ghost of Dr. Coffin was able to get onto the waterfall's crag in the beginning of the episode.
- Officer Oldfield made it clear to Fred to turn left for Foster Road, yet he completely ignores this when he heads right just because the sign is pointing in the wrong direction.
- After capturing the crooks and everyone is shown at the sanitarium, everyone is in several places then in the next shot when everyone is visible, everyone is in different places.
In other languages[]
| Language | Name | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| French | Le Médecin Fou | The Crazy Doctor |
Home media[]
The Scooby-Doo!/Dynomutt Hour: The Complete Series DVD set released by Warner Home Video on March 7, 2006.- Scooby-Doo! 13 Spooky Tales Around the World DVD set released by Warner Home Video on May 15, 2012.
- Best of Warner Bros. 50 Cartoon Collection: Scooby-Doo! DVD set released by Warner Home Video on August 13, 2019.
Quotes[]
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External links[]
- Buy from Amazon (US)
- Buy from Amazon (UK)
- Buy from iTunes (US)
- Buy from iTunes (CA)
- Buy from iTunes (UK)
- Buy from VUDU
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