Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Werewolf

"Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Werewolf" is the seventh episode of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! season two, and the twenty-fourth overall. It aired on October 24, 1970 on CBS. It was produced and directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, the founders of Hanna-Barbera Productions.

Out in the middle of nowhere camping, the gang runs into a werewolf and its mysterious connection to a smuggling ring.

Detailed summary
As wolves howl in the night, a werewolf growls on top of a cliff.

Daphne, Velma, and Fred are sitting at a campfire roasting hot dogs while Scooby and Shaggy are struggling to set up Scooby's tent. When Shaggy and Scooby are done with the tent the gang all of a sudden hears a howl of a wolf and then they see two red eyes staring out at them from the forest. After looking all around they discover footprints of a two-legged wolf. They trace the tracks back to an old cemetery and an open grave. The sign on the gravestone reads: "Here lies Silas Long, half-man and half-wolf". They find more wolf-prints leading away from the grave which leads them to an old abandoned mill.

Inside the mill, they split up and look around for clues. Daphne, Velma, and Fred go one way and Shaggy and Scooby go the other way. Shaggy and Scooby find nothing but manage to keep narrowly missing the werewolf, who is stalking them. Freddy, Daphne, and Velma find a map of the area -- and the werewolf! A chase ensues that ends with Shaggy and Scooby in a pile of white wool, which scares Freddy and the girls into hiding inside barrels with rubber tubes sticking out the top.

Fred and the girls find a narrow-gauge railroad carrying carts from the mill to a freighter docked by the river. They follow the rail track back into the mill, where they are locked inside by the werewolf. Shaggy and Scooby follow the track to the freighter. Going aboard, they run into the werewolf, give him a haircut, and escape down a tunnel that takes them into the room where Freddy and the girls are locked up. From inside, they watch the werewolf pull a baa-ing barrel out of the water and decide to spring a trap.

Shaggy and Scooby hide inside a barrel and launch themselves onto the river. The plan: Shaggy and Scooby will distract the werewolf when it takes them out of the water, and Freddy will catch the werewolf with a crane and hook. But Daphne gets caught on the hook instead; Shaggy and Scooby escape in their barrel onto the river, but the werewolf chases them in a canoe. The chase ends with all three going over a waterfall. The rest of the gang catches Shaggy and Scooby in a net, but the werewolf is caught on a rock and calls for help. They rescue him and unmask him as one of a gang of sheep rustlers who have been using the mill as a hideout from which to smuggle the stolen sheep over the river. The werewolf was just to scare people away from the mill. They would float sheep in barrels with air tubes across the river and sell them on the black market. Shaggy claims to the sheriff how they weren't scared, but is disproved when he gets a fright from Scooby who's wearing the werewolf mask.

Memorable quotes
Fred: Mmmmm, those hot dogs are beginning to smell delicious. Velma: Speaking of dogs, where is that original chowhound of ours? I've never known him to be late for a meal. Daphne: Oh, the Laurel and Hardy of the outdoors are still trying put up Scooby's tent.

Shaggy: There's nothing I like better than food unless it's more food.

Shaggy: My very most unfavorite place to be, especially at night.

Shaggy: Oh, swell! It ain't bad enough we're following a werewolf, now it looks like it's the ghost of a werewolf!

Shaggy: Nothing like a cheery greeting from your friendly neighborhood werewolf ghost.

Shaggy: Feet, make like a rocket, and, like, now!

Shaggy: Well, well. Dr. Livingstone and friends, I presume?

Characters

 * style="background-color:#d2d2ff"| Werewolf/Sheep rustler
 * style="background-color:#aaffaa"| Frank Welker
 * style="background-color:#clear"| Fred Jones
 * style="background-color:#clear"| Frank Welker
 * style="background-color:#clear"| Velma Dinkley
 * style="background-color:#clear"| Nicole Jaffe
 * style="background-color:#clear"| Shaggy Rogers
 * style="background-color:#clear"| Casey Kasem
 * style="background-color:#clear"| Scooby-Doo
 * style="background-color:#clear"| Don Messick
 * style="background-color:#d2d2ff"| Mouse
 * style="background-color:#aaffaa"| Unavailable
 * style="background-color:#d2d2ff"| Sheriff
 * style="background-color:#aaffaa"| Don Messick
 * style="background-color:#clear"| Don Messick
 * style="background-color:#d2d2ff"| Mouse
 * style="background-color:#aaffaa"| Unavailable
 * style="background-color:#d2d2ff"| Sheriff
 * style="background-color:#aaffaa"| Don Messick
 * style="background-color:#d2d2ff"| Sheriff
 * style="background-color:#aaffaa"| Don Messick

Organizations

 * Mystery Incorporated

Locations

 * Earth
 * United States
 * California
 * Cemetery
 * Mill
 * Harbor

Objects

 * Silas's coffin and headstone

Vehicles

 * The Mystery Machine

Development
Credited writers are Larz Bourne, Tom Degenais, and Bill Lutz, while Joe Ruby and Ken Spears story edited.

Music
The theme song, "Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?" was performed by George Robertson, Jr., with lyrics and music written by David Mook, while Ben Raleigh wrote the music, respectively. The rest of the music was composed by Ted Nichols, who was credited as the musical director.

Song
The song below was produced by La La Productions.


 * "Tell Me, Tell Me" - performed by George A. Robertson, Jr.

Release
Dates are in order of release:


 * United States: October 24, 1970 on CBS

Behind the scenes

 * The title of the episode is derived from the name of the Big Bad Wolf's theme song from the 1933 Disney short film Three Little Pigs. Unlike the episode title, the song does finish with a question mark.
 * This is the first episode not to have Scooby Snacks seen nor mentioned.
 * This is the only time in the series where the Mystery Machine is present, but not driven.

Errors

 * When the gang is first sitting around the campfire together, Velma's glasses are sitting on her face crookedly.
 * While the gang is talking about the werewolf tracks, for a few seconds Velma's collar goes from orange to peach, matching her skin color, then back to orange.
 * Daphne's one visible leg that's showing is missing its pantyhose, when the gang reacts to the growls of the Werewolf after Shaggy just said he and Scooby hadn't seen any sight of it.
 * When Shaggy tells the gang he and Scooby crash-landed in the pile of wool, Daphne's pantyhose are missing.
 * While she has her arms crossed, Daphne has an extra right hand sticking up from her sleeve, as Fred said they had a lot of clues that don't add up.
 * Daphne's pantyhose are missing when Fred says he would like to know what the barrel with the air hose was for and Velma follows that when she shushed him after hearing a noise.
 * After the gang runs through the half-opened deckhouse before it closes, the arm on Velma's glasses is briefly flesh-colored, turning back to black when she talks. Her lens is also missing its frame the entire time.
 * When Daphne says at least they know where the barrels are now, a gap forms at the bottom of her neck.
 * The werewolf recently had his hair cut off by Shaggy and Scooby, but in one scene where the back of him is seen dealing with barrels his hair has returned, only moments later, he's bald again in a close-up. The werewolf's hair also reappears momentarily near the end of the episode as he sails down the waterfall over the rapids in his canoe, just after Shaggy and Scooby have been caught by the gang in a large net (again, well after Shaggy gave him his haircut).
 * When Shaggy and Scooby are first paddling after discovering the Werewolf is after them, a black spot on Scooby's arm flickers.
 * Since the name of the episode is in the form of a question it is grammatically incorrect to leave out the question mark in the title card.
 * When the gang sees the eyes of the Werewolf in the wilderness, they run into their respective tents. A close-up of Fred has him say it has gone and when the camp is in full view again he's disappeared and Daphne and Velma are suddenly next to Scooby and Shaggy's tent. Fred suddenly reappears when the camera cuts to him getting his flashlight ready, then when the camera cuts to Shaggy where Fred should still be he's gone, as well as and Velma who should probably both still be standing in view. To top it off, Shaggy and Scooby are in their tent when the former asks why they can't pretend they looked for the wolf and say they didn't find anything, but after Velma says they will all look, Shaggy and Scooby are already standing out of and away from their tents.
 * When the gang comes across the werewolf's footprints, Velma deduces that the footprints come from a "large wolf" however wolves (like cats and dogs) walk on their toes. The footprints the gang was looking at had heel marks, meaning that whatever made them walked like a human. That should've been the first red flag.
 * The fact that the gang found an open tomb would suggest that the werewolf is not a ghost, but a zombie. However, the werewolf looked and acted very much alive.
 * The wool in Shaggy's ear only becomes visible when it was needed to be identified.
 * When the gang runs away from the werewolf and goes separate ways, Shaggy faces the same way as Freddy, Daphne, and Velma, but moves backward with Scooby.
 * The on/off switch is dangerously close to the exposed fan blade.
 * Even though the other rustlers have been completely avoided, there's obviously at least one other off-screen sending the barrel in the Werewolf's direction. They're also conspicuously absent from the end when the sheep rustler disguised as the Werewolf is the only one captured on-screen. Either they've evaded capture or are being arrested off-screen.
 * When Daphne gets hooked on top of the deckhouse and Velma calls for Fred to come quick, he not only comes instantly, but he jumps with complete ease as if he's superhuman. A stretch (no pun intended) would be that he was supposed to come from the other deckhouse beside it.
 * The sheriff's badge doesn't have writing on it until there's a close-up of him and Fred, which says "Deriff", a portmanteau of "deputy" and "sheriff". He actually isn't identified by title, but it's more than likely he's a sheriff.
 * After that scene, the camera switches to Daphne talking with Shaggy and Velma standing beside her on each side, respectively, along with Fred suddenly at Shaggy's side as well.
 * There was only one werewolf disguise, but Daphne says there were "werewolf disguises".

Everlasting influence

 * In the film Dark Shadows, the vampire called Barnabas Collins watches this episode, calling it a "very silly play."
 * Capstone took it upon themselves to name the sheep rustler Frank Welker in Scooby-Doo! Encyclopedia, as a tribute to Welker who played him.
 * The werewolf mask was on sale at the gang's yard sale in the 29th direct-to-video film, Scooby-Doo! and the Curse of the 13th Ghost.

Home availability

 * In the United States:
 * August 6, 1996: Turner Home Entertainment releases Classic Scooby-Doo: A Gaggle of Galloping Ghosts on VHS.
 * March 16, 2004: Warner Home Video releases Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!: The Complete First and Second Seasons on DVD.
 * November 9, 2010: Warner Home Video releases Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!: The Complete Series (limited edition) on DVD.
 * November 13, 2012: Warner Home Video releases Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!: The Complete Series on DVD.
 * September 10, 2013: Warner Home Video releases Scooby-Doo! 13 Spooky Tales: Run for Your 'Rife on DVD.
 * May 23, 2017: Warner Home Video releases Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!: The Complete First and Second Seasons (Hanna-Barbera Diamond Collection edition) on DVD.
 * December 12, 2017: Warner Home Video releases Hanna-Barbera Diamond Collection 4-Pack on DVD.
 * February 13, 2018: Warner Home Video releases Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!: The Complete Series (repackaging) on DVD.
 * June 4, 2019: Warner Home Video releases Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!: The Complete First and Second Seasons on DVD.
 * August 13, 2019: Warner Home Video releases Best of Warner Bros. 50 Cartoon Collection: Scooby-Doo! on DVD.
 * September 9, 2020: Warner Home Video releases Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!: The Complete Series (limited edition) on Blu-ray Disc.
 * March 1, 2022: Warner Home Video releases Scooby-Doo, Where Are You: The Complete Series on Blu-ray Disc.
 * In the United Kingdom and Ireland:
 * June 20, 2005: Warner Home Video releases Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!: The Complete First and Second Seasons on DVD.
 * November 21, 2011: Warner Home Video releases Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!: The Complete Series on DVD.
 * August 4, 2014: Warner Home Video releases Scooby-Doo! 13 Spooky Tales: Run for Your 'Rife on DVD.
 * In Denmark:
 * October 23, 2012: Warner Home Video releases Scooby-Doo! and the Werewolves on DVD.