Which Witch is Which? (Where Are You!)


 * This article is about the Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! episode. For the Winnie Witch segment, see Which Witch is Which (Winnie Witch).

"Which Witch is Which?" is the thirteenth episode of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! season one. It aired on December 6, 1969 on CBS. It was produced and directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, the co-founders of Hanna-Barbera Productions.

The gang investigate a swamp that is of great importance to a witch and her zombie.

Detailed summary
In the middle of the night, a zombie takes a punt through the swamp. Meanwhile, Fred, Daphne, Velma, Shaggy and Scooby are returning from a failed fishing trip and take a shortcut through a dark, creepy swamp. They pull over to a man on the side of the road to ask for directions, but it appears the man is the zombie from before!

The gang speed away and find a house. Inside, is a man named Zeke who tells them that the zombie was conjured up by a witch that is supposed to live in the swamp with her magical powers. Shaggy and Scooby head to another local's house, the house of Zeb Perkins, to try to find clues. (Fred, Daphne and Velma stay to fix the mess Scooby made after a run-in with some jumping beans). They find a voodoo doll of Zeb in his bed and fearing the worst, they hurry back and tell the others.

They get in a boat and follow the witch and the zombie on another boat through the swamp until they reach the witch's shack. They enter and find voodoo dolls for the whole gang! Then, the witch arrives and warns them to leave and then with a poof of smoke, Daphne vanishes! But soon after, they realize she just fell through a trapdoor.

The rest of the gang follow footprints to a large river boat anchored at the shore. Resting on the shore is the witch and zombie's boat and they have been using a steel-tipped pole to move through the water. Why?

They enter the riverboat and they split up, leading Shaggy and Scooby to find the zombie, who chases them into the old saloon; Shaggy and Scooby manage to escape.

Velma and Fred find a secret room, with a winch, some power tools, and a sheet covered bundle inside. Thinking it's a ghost they pull off the sheet and find a bound and gagged Daphne, whom they quickly free. The witch appears and chases the three down a coal chute.

Scooby and Shaggy encounter the witch and the zombie, trapping them and forcing them to jump off the side of the boat until they crash through the deck of the bottom floor into the room where Velma, Fred and Daphne are.

They find a motorboat and speed away. The witch appears and flies towards the gang, but it is just a rubber balloon. That's what made the "witch" fly. As they are driving, the throttle gets stuck and they can't stop. Scooby anchors the boat, but the anchor lifts up a robbed armored truck that had been sunk in the swamp. The mystery is starting to piece together.

They devise a trap to capture the witch and zombie. Shaggy and Scooby dress up in money sacks and then lure the witch and zombie to a tripwire and they promptly fall into a rolling cart and into the armored truck where Velma and Daphne close the doors. It starts to work but Scooby falls into the trap as well. They manage to hook him with a fishing rod and pull him out, just as the witch and zombie roll into the truck.

The zombie and witch are unmasked as Zeke and Zeb. They robbed an armored truck and sunk it in the swamp years before. Now, they couldn't remember where they sunk it, so they searched the swamps with that iron-tipped pole and dressed up as the witch and zombie to scare intruders away so that they could look for it.

Mystery Inc. go back on the road, and Scooby goes back to fishing in his bucket of water (with bait attached to his tail, instead of a proper fishing line). Fred tells him to give up, but low and behold, he pulls out a fish! The rest of the gang cheer and laugh at his achievement.

Memorable quotes
Velma: I'd like to know what [the witch] and that zombie are up to. Fred: Well, there's only one place to find the answer. Shaggy: Like, in the phone book, I hope. Fred: No, Shaggy, in the swamp. Shaggy: I had to ask.

Witch: So, you dared enter the swamp, in spite of my warning signs. Daphne: You shouldn't believe everything you read.

Characters
In order of appearance:


 * Zombie (John Stephenson)
 * Shaggy Rogers (Casey Kasem)
 * Velma Dinkley (Nicole Jaffe)
 * Scooby-Doo (Don Messick)
 * Fred Jones
 * Daphne Blake (Stefanianna Christopherson)
 * Zeke (Don Messick)
 * Zeb Perkins
 * Witch (Don Messick)
 * Chipmunk

Organizations

 * Mystery Incorporated

Locations

 * Swamp's End
 * Swamp's End General Store
 * Zeb Perkins's cabin
 * Witch's shack

Objects

 * Scooby Snacks

Vehicles

 * The Mystery Machine
 * River Queen

Development
Joe Ruby and Ken Spears either wrote or story edited, as they were unable to remember what they specifically did past the fifth episode.

It wasn't made explicit on-screen, but the model sheet of the sheriff in this episode implies that he may be the same one in "What a Night for a Knight".

Errors

 * The background seen through the Mystery Machine windows doesn't move, even when the van does.
 * Scooby is missing from the Mystery Machine during the moment Fred says, "Well, I didn't know it ran through such a spooky swamp!"
 * When Shaggy asks for directions from the Zombie (before the former realizes), he's the only one in the van.
 * When Scooby points out that he ate from the jumping beans pot, both that pot and the jelly beans pot look like unmarked flower pots.
 * Shaggy's head sticks out the top of the other side of the Mystery Machine, when they are driving again, and discussing the voodoo doll of Zeb.
 * At first, the front door of Zeb's cabin is hanging open; it's closed when Shaggy gets there.
 * When Velma remarks how the voodoo doll scare tactic is "a bunch of phony baloney," a small section of her hair blinks between being the color of her skin and its regular red color.
 * When Scooby is holding the voodoo doll of Shaggy, his paw is the same color as Shaggy's shirt.
 * When Velma explains to Shaggy that the shrunken Zeb was actually a voodoo doll that looks like him, the doll is wearing a fedora, but when Shaggy and Scooby first found it, it was wearing a blue cap.
 * There are a few shots where the floor of the ship turns a different color in the middle of it, including when Shaggy and Scooby are being followed by the Zombie.
 * When Scooby drops the anchor from the boat onto the armored truck, his collar is gold.
 * The door on the closet Shaggy and Scooby hide in opens first one way, then the opposite way.
 * Since Zeke and Zeb would be in hiding from the law, it's unknown if Zeke became the owner of the general store in that time, or simply occupied it once the all the townspeople were scared away. Although, the fact that Zeb had a mailbox with his name on it, would suggest the former.
 * The gang realize that Daphne fell through a trapdoor by the slide marks behind her footprints. When they go below and test the trapdoor the slide marks are perpendicular to the side on which the door opens. Also, in the wide shot when she first disappears, there is no rug visible, and she appears to be standing on the same wooden floor as the others.
 * In the chase that transpires after Velma and Fred discover Daphne and the villains' stash of tools, the balloon witch's mouth appears to move during her cackle. Both the mouth movements and the laugh are never explained, but it is possible that either Zeke or Zeb implemented a tape recorder and/or a mechanical piston into the false witch to result in either of these occurrences.
 * Although the throttle is stuck, the propeller stops when the anchor snags the sunken armored car.
 * Velma refers to Zeke as being the one who was the witch when it was Zeb who was actually wearing the costume.
 * The audience never hears Zeb's real voice. He imitated an old woman when he was disguised as the witch.
 * In one scene, when Shaggy and Scooby enter the ship's saloon, the sign above clearly reads "Ship's Salon".
 * Although the money sack Scooby was in got caught on a piece of wood in the ground which resulted him in falling into the trap with the villains, he never thought of just getting out of the money sack.

Everlasting influence
This episode has been adapted several times in the following decades:
 * Gold Key Comics' Scooby Doo... Where Are You! #5 (retitled "The Swamp Witch")
 * The LEGO Group did "The Mystery Machine" set based on this episode.