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What the Hex Going On? is the sixth episode of the first season of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!

Premise[]

Mystery Inc. is headed to their friend Sharon Wetherby's estate. When they arrive, Sharon's Uncle Stuart disappears, and when they find him, he says he was beckoned by the voice of the Ghost of Elias Kingston from the Kingston Mansion. The gang find themselves wrapped up in the tangle of the spooky ghoul of Elias Kingston who wants the family treasure.

Synopsis[]

A ghostly voice calls out from a spooky mansion, beckoning to a man walking in a trance. On their way to visit their friend Sharon Wetherby, the Mystery Inc. gang witnesses this odd sight. Upon arrival at the Wetherby's, they learn that Sharon's Uncle Stuart is missing, and they deduce that he was the man they saw going into the deserted Kingston mansion. Investigating, the gang find Uncle Stuart, but he has been transformed into an old man. He tells them that he was called out of the Wetherby house by the ghost of Elias Kingston, who demanded that the Wetherby fortune be surrendered to him. Kingston's Ghost threatened he would put an old-age hex on the family, and turned Uncle Stuart into an old man as a warning.

While Mr. Wetherby goes to speak to the sheriff, the gang stay behind with Sharon and her enfeebled uncle. Fred has Scooby stand guard since he has the best hearing to which Scooby tries to facade that he has a hearing problem which doesn't work. Sometime later after Scooby falls asleep the voice calls again, and Stuart walks out in another trance. When Scooby wakes the gang, they find that not only is Stuart gone, but Sharon is missing also. They go to the Kingston mansion to investigate. While there, they are unaware that Elias Kingston has Sharon tied up in a secret room behind a bookcase.

Their first clue is a watchdog that has been left to guard the mansion: what does a ghost need with a watchdog? Then they find the mummified bones of Uncle Stuart, who apparently had another run in with the ghost. Finally, Elias Kingston himself appears and repeats his threat to the kids. They watch as he disappears into the Kingston family mausoleum in the cemetery next door and follow, noting that this supposed ghost has left behind fingerprints on the doorknob to the crypt. Inside they find a book on crystallomacy, but are trapped when the ghost locks them inside. They find a secret entrance out of the crypt and follow up on the crystallomancy book by going into town to consult a swami.

The swami is out, and Scooby winds up impersonating the swami when a customer unexpectedly enters. After the customer leaves, the face of Kingston appears in the crystal ball and the table levitates, chasing them about the room. It crashes, revealing a fan-like motor beneath, and more clues quickly reveal themselves: packed suitcases, a professional make-up kit, and a closed circuit TV camera, suitable for broadcasting images onto the crystal ball.

Back at the Kingston mansion, the gang lays a trap for the ghost. Shaggy and Scooby lure him out with a chest that is supposedly holding the fortune, which, instead of the Wetherby fortune, contains a water-squirting jack-in-the-box. They then use footage of the ghost himself with the special camera, an image of a giant Scooby-Doo, and the bones of Uncle Stewart in the secret room to frighten him into a trap where they dropped the net on him.

Back at the Wetherby estate, the ghost is unmasked as Uncle Stuart. It turns out that he wanted the family fortune all to himself, so he decided to disguise himself as the ghost of Elias Kingston in order to trick the family into giving it to him. Daphne explains that the ghostly wailing was only a recording and he used make-up to make himself look older. Sharon tells everyone that when she went downstairs to investigate a noise, she saw Stuart's wig blow off, making her realize the trick (which was why Sharon was tied up). Sharon asks the gang about the swami, Velma tells Sharon that the swami was Stuart's alias. When Sharon asks Stuart why he did it he remained silent.

Mr. Wetherby tells his daughter that he can explain his motive to the sheriff when he comes to pick Stuart up. Mr. Wetherby offers the kids some dinner, something that Shaggy agrees. When Shaggy gets to the dinner table, however, he lifts the lid to see a sign that says "Scooby-Doo was here." A surprised Shaggy wonders if Scooby ate the entire turkey. Scooby pops up to confirm this, holding a turkey drumstick! The episode ends with Scooby say his name as he finishes the drumstick.

Characters[]

Main characters:

Supporting characters:

Villains:

Other characters:

Locations[]

Objects[]

Vehicles[]

Suspects[]

  • None

Culprits[]

Culprit Motive/reason
Uncle Stuart as the Ghost of Elias Kingston He wanted to swindle his family out of the Wetherby fortune.

Cast[]

Don Messick Scooby-Doo
Mr. Wetherby
Bulldog
Casey Kasem Shaggy Rogers
Frank Welker Fred Jones
Stefanianna Christopherson Daphne Blake
Sharon Wetherby
Nicole Jaffe Velma Dinkley
Jean Vander Pyl Swami customer
John Stephenson Stuart Wetherby
Ghost of Elias Kingston

Full credits[]

The following credits are how they are seen on-screen (or as close as possible).


Notes/trivia[]

  • The episode title is a play on the expression, "What the heck's going on?"
    • Apparently this needed to be clarified or there was a misunderstanding, as some sources, such as the Region 2 DVD, refer to this episode as "What the Hex is Going On?"
  • The following scenes are used in Season 1's opening and closing sequences:
  1. The outside shot of the Kingston Mansion (however it looks much better maintained on the exterior and is either in a dark grey or blue tint, depending on the version of the sequence). This is replaced in the second season's sequences by an unknown mansion that doesn’t appear in any episodes.
  2. Shaggy losing control on his roller skates, and crashing into a shower tub, setting it off. This went on to be reused in the second season's sequences; however, the shot of Shaggy crashing into the shower tub and setting it off is replaced by a shot of Shaggy and Scooby crashing into an alley way from Mystery Mask Mix-Up.
  3. The gang walk past the bookshelf which opens up and the ghost of Elias Kingston looks out; however the ghost appears greenish-white, Sharon isn't shown in the background, and Shaggy isn't wearing roller skates as the gang walks by the bookcase. Also, the camera zooms in on the ghost's face. This also went on to be reused in the second season's sequences; however, before the ghost looks out, the scene is suddenly interrupted by the Ghost of Mr. Hyde from Nowhere to Hyde who appears on a plain blue background and also looks at the viewer as the camera zooms in on him.
  • When Fred tells Shaggy that he'd better throw his voice to make Scooby sound like a Swami, Shaggy agrees. Fred demonstrates that he knows about Shaggy's ventriloquism ability.
  • This is the second time, after the previous episode, that Shaggy swipes Scooby's Scooby Snacks.
  • Syndicated airings of this episode, especially on Cartoon Network and Boomerang, don't include the laugh track.

Miscellaneous[]

Cultural references[]

  • Before using the fingerprinting kit which was supposed to be for the mausoleum doorknob (but ends up being Velma's hand due to confusion), Shaggy says he'll give it the "old Sherlock Holmes touch."

Adaptations[]

Animation mistakes and/or technical glitches[]

  • As the gang drive to the Wetherby Estate and Velma comments on how nice it is to be invited, Daphne has white sclerae.
  • In the first shot of the Mystery Machine parked outside the Wetherby Estate the part of the Mystery Machine that is titled “Mystery Machine” is colored all orange.
  • When Scooby laughs after Shaggy uses the fingerprinting kit on Velma's hand instead of the doorknob of the Kingston Mausoleum, the door itself is missing.
  • In the establishing wide shot of the Mystery Machine driving to the swami shop, Shaggy is holding a map.
  • After the levitating table crashes, the gang find packed suitcases. Velma's mouth moves to the words, "Maybe somebody must moved in," but it's Daphne's voice coming from Velma's mouth instead.
  • When Uncle Stuart is unmasked, Daphne says, "And by a clever use of make-up, he made himself look old," but Velma's mouth moves to those words.
  • When the levitating table chases the gang, Velma says two of her lines: "It's after us," and, "I've heard of flying saucers, but this is silly." The lens for her glasses are missing.

Inconsistencies/continuity errors and/or goofs/oddities[]

  • Whilst this episode refers to the practice of crystal-gazing as crystalomacy, the actual term is crystallomancy.
  • Much of the action takes place in either the Wetherby Estate or the Kingston Mansion. Unfortunately, the backgrounds for the two are sometimes mixed up, unless the Wetherby Estate is really full of cobwebs.
  • The clock in the background is set at 8:00 throughout the episode. It could be broken.
  • The lights are on in the Kingston Mansion, even when Stuart is not in there.
  • Daphne says Uncle Stuart is going into the mansion when he walks right past the front door. It’s likely he turned toward the door offscreen.
  • Why would Shaggy use roller skates inside the Kingston Mansion anyway? Even if the ghost would never catch him, it could still make enough noise to alert him, as well as wake up the watchdog.
  • Shaggy said that Uncle Stuart was wearing a blue suit, red tie, and tennis shoes. He was actually wearing a brown suit, black tie, and dress shoes. It could be that Shaggy might be color blinded while describing the suit.
  • For some reason, the skeleton is not wearing Uncle Stuart's glasses. Maybe it’s because Uncle Stuart (dressed as the ghost) was wearing them.
  • The ghost threatens the gang and walks away. Curiously, they don't even try to follow him.
  • There must have been quite a few intruders and snoopers before the gang showed up for Uncle Stuart/Ghost of Elias Kingston to hire a watchdog to look after the mansion. Its fate after the episode is also unknown. It's most likely the Wetherbys adopted the dog or they and/or the sheriff took it back to the dog shelter.
  • The fact that Velma brings out the fingerprinting kit out of nowhere is likely toon physics. Also, although using one looks quite professional of the gang, the fact that they use it only this one time when they could've used it at any time would've been useful (which is most of the time) simply looks too convenient. Doubtless using the kit only once, despite implausibility, was intentional on the part of the writers, as relying on it would be much less amusing.
  • It is odd that the gang even questions whether the Ghost of Elias Kingston walked into the mausoleum, since it was actually already open. Perhaps they were assuming he would've opened and closed it before or equally assumed that some other person had opened it, though its abandoned appearance might have argued against that.
  • It seems odd that Fred tells Shaggy to use the kit instead of asking Velma to use her kit or just using the kit himself. Maybe he wanted to give Shaggy a chance with it.
  • Once they get the ghost's fingerprints, they could've tried matching it with suspects to learn his identity, although this would've taken more time than they had, though, of course, Stuart expects to get the entire family fortune on the spot.
  • While trapped in the mausoleum, Daphne passes a window with bars that only go partway up. It certainly looks like they could squeeze through there.
  • Just how far is it from the Wetherby Estate to the Kingston Mansion? Stuart travels the distance on foot while the gang travels it using the Mystery Machine.
  • It is shown that Uncle Stuart wore make-up to disguise himself as the ghost, somehow hiding his glasses and beard, which should've been at least partially visible.
  • How does Sharon end up on the top deck suddenly, after being tightly tied up and gagged? Does the ghost let her go or something? It is likely that the gang found and rescued her off-screen.
  • Although Sharon admits that she saw Uncle Stuart's wig blow off, she is still shocked when the gang unmask the ghost. It’s possible she was shocked at *why* he did it.
  • The camera used in the trap is supposed to be a closed-circuit TV camera, but Fred uses it like a projector.

In other languages[]

Language Name Meaning
Brazilian Portuguese Que Macumba É Essa? What Is This Voodoo?
French La Maison hantée The Haunted house
Greek Τι στο Καλό Συμβαίνει; What the Heck is Happening?
Hungarian Mi a csuda folyik itt? What on earth is going on?
Italian Che stregoneria è questa? What sorcery is this?
Latin America Spanish Con Mil Demonios, ¿que está Pasando aquí? By a thousand Demons, what's going on here?

Home media[]

Quotes[]

Velma: Hey, look! Suitcases!
Daphne: Maybe somebody just moved in.
Shaggy: Then let's move out.


Fred: It will help if we can find another clue.
Shaggy: (Quavers) I've found one.
Fred: Groovy. What is it?
Shaggy: (Points to the Ghost, who has his hand on his shoulder) Him.

External links[]


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Decoy for a Dognapper Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!
Season 1
Never Ape an Ape Man
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