A Tiki Scare is No Fair

"A Tiki Scare is No Fair" is the sixth episode of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! season two, and the twenty-third overall. It aired on October 17, 1970 on CBS. It was produced and directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, the co-founders of Hanna-Barbera Productions.

The gang vacation in Hawaii, where they uncover a mystery involving a witch doctor and the Hawaiian god Mano Tiki Tia.

Detailed summary
Scooby and Shaggy are enjoying a luau, courtesy of John Simms, a local reporter who is giving them a tour of the Hawaiian islands. Shaggy is not looking forward to tomorrow's destination, though: a haunted village in the mountains. Mr. Simms is taken aback: that's not part of his tour, and he warns Shaggy against going up into it. Just after he delivers this warning, ghost drums begin to beat and a frightening, masked figure appears: a witch doctor warning them to leave the sacred grounds of Mano Tiki Tia. The villagers scatter and Shaggy finds himself alone.

Shaggy races to a local hang out where he finds Freddy and the girls and tells them of the apparition and the disappearance of everyone—including Scooby and Mr. Simms. Returning to the scene of the luau, the gang find Scooby hiding inside a drum. They also spot an old man, who suddenly vanishes. Following a set of footprints, they find themselves up in the haunted village, where they are separated from each other by trapdoors. Shaggy, Scooby, and Velma are spotted and chased by the witch doctor but escape into the jungle, where they find an airplane (complete with wire-activated skeleton) that has been carefully rigged up to look like a crash. They manage to reunite with Freddy and Daphne, who have meanwhile found oysters and pearls in one of the abandoned shacks. They spot the old man down in the lagoon, and there is an underwater chase that ends in a hidden cavern leading back to the village.

Back in the village, the giant stone statue of Mano Tiki Tia comes to life and chases the gang from shack to shack. They escape, and Shaggy and Scooby even put a scare into the Witch Doctor when they fall into and then emerge from the jungle. That gives Freddy the idea of trapping the Witch Doctor: Using ghost drums, they'll lure him to a place where he'll see his reflection in a fun-house mirror, scaring him back down a path and into a covered pit. But the Witch Doctor finds Shaggy and Scooby playing the drums. In the ensuing chase, Shaggy and Scooby wind up on top of the mobile statue, blinding it; it catches the Witch Doctor and falls into the pit.

The Witch Doctor is exposed as John Simms, who was trying to scare the villagers away from his pearl-poaching operation. The old man appears: he is actually a young police lieutenant working undercover, and in gratitude for the help they've given him, he pays for one last party for the gang.

Memorable quotes
Shaggy: Like, I'm too whacked to walk!

John Simms: I'm not talking!

Characters
In order of appearance:


 * Scooby-Doo (Don Messick)
 * Shaggy Rogers (Casey Kasem)
 * John Simms (John Stephenson)
 * John Simms's henchman (John Stephenson)
 * Fred Jones (Frank Welker)
 * Daphne Blake (Heather North)
 * Velma Dinkley (Nicole Jaffe)
 * Old man (Casey Kasem)
 * Mano Tiki Tia (John Stephenson)
 * Witch Doctor (John Stephenson)
 * Lieutenant Tomoro (Casey Kasem)

Organizations

 * Mystery Incorporated

Locations

 * Hawaii
 * Volcano
 * Village
 * The Pineapple Parlor
 * Ancient village
 * Underwater cavern

Objects

 * Scooby Snack

Vehicles

 * The Mystery Machine

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

This episode is the only one out of the second season not to have a chase accompanied by a bubblegum pop song sung by George A. Robertson, Jr.

Behind the scenes

 * This is the second time the gang have traveled beyond their local setting, after "Mystery Mask Mix-Up".

Errors

 * The lining around the top of Scooby's collar turns brown a couple of times as Shaggy tells Mr. Simms about the non-part of the tour the rest of the gang want to go to and how there won't be a luau there.
 * Daphne's nose is missing when Shaggy crashes into the Pineapple Parlor.
 * When Velma asks Shaggy where Mr. Simms and Scooby are, Daphne's pantyhose are missing.
 * When the gang is first seen in the Mystery Machine to go find Scooby, Shaggy is seen with a map in his hand, but in the next scene it disappears from his hands.
 * Whilst in the Mystery Machine on the way to find Scooby, Velma has three freckles under each eye, which are not apparent in any other scene.
 * When Scooby flipped the drum he was hiding in, before the lighter blue was above the darker blue. After he flipped it, the colors remained the same position when it should have been the darker blue above the lighter blue.
 * When Scooby barks in agreement after Shaggy decides to help find Mr. Simms after all, his neck separates a little from his collar letting the green from Mystery Machine behind him poke through.
 * When Scooby listens to Daphne say that the jungle won't be a problem with his keen-tracking nose, the gap in his collar is teal when it should be his brown fur.
 * Daphne's pantyhose are missing in the couple of shots shown of Velma carrying them all away after Scooby and Shaggy's tracking leads them to the old man.
 * When Scooby first says "Rikes!" after seeing the bats, his mouth doesn't move.
 * The wild boar's eyes change from whitish-red sclera when it first jumps out the bushes, then to flesh-coloured sclera and pinkish pupils when Shaggy begins to run away, then going back to red sclera, but with black pupils added when it was about to charge, and then finally when it does charge at him and Scooby its sclera switches to a pinkish.
 * The piglets also start from whitish-red when they walk out from the bushes to flashing completely white when they run over Scooby and Shaggy.
 * Scooby is a lot bigger than he should be at the end of his hula dancing, right before the Witch Doctor presses the trap wall button.
 * The whole time the gang is underwater, Daphne's headband is missing.
 * When Shaggy asks what they're going to do after being trapped between Mano Tiki Tia and the Witch Doctor, Daphne's mouth disappears.
 * When Mano Tiki Tia picks up, and then puts down, the shack with the gang in it, Daphne's scarf is missing.
 * When Scooby and Shaggy use the house with the trap wall, the wall in front of the camera is missing.
 * When Velma says it's strange how the Witch Doctor could get "shook up by a jungle creature," Daphne's pantyhose are missing.
 * Once unmasked, the Witch Doctor returns to the complexion of Simms himself, having been darker for the rest of the episode.
 * Simms's teeth are flesh-coloured when he refuses to say anything after Fred tries to get him to what he did.
 * At the end of the episode, Scooby shouts "Yow!" whilst surfing, without moving his mouth.
 * When the Witch Doctor first appears, his skull staff has grass on it, but then for the rest of the episode, there is no grass on the staff. One in-universe explanation could be that the first time the Witch Doctor was seen it was actually Mr. Simms's henchman. Mr. Simms could've removed the grass once he took over.
 * The Witch Doctor should've made it clearer to which village was to be stayed away from because it's not the village Scooby and Shaggy had the luau on, it was the one with the secret underwater cavern, which would make more sense since this was the village Shaggy was talking about going to with the gang right before he made his warning.
 * It's unknown what happened to the villagers who fled. It's possible they just went to another village (depending on whether they stayed together).
 * The Pineapple Parlor is conspicuously empty of other customers, despite there being one other car outside besides the Mystery Machine (although this could possibly be a staff vehicle).
 * From the side-view of the Mystery Machine as it drives back to the village, Shaggy is holding a map, but when the camera changes to the front of the van, the map is gone. Shaggy's need for a map would be unnecessary as he didn't need one finding the Pineapple Parlor so he probably wouldn't need one to just go back in the direction he came from.
 * Mr. Simms's name is conspicuously put at the top of the newspaper, likely so it would be seen by the audience, right where the name of the paper itself would be (since Velma was reading from the front page). When Velma reads about the sighting, a caption and picture about it is seen at the back. It's unknown what side it was on when the camera switched to a close-up of the image. When the camera returns to holding it, the words and picture have gone.
 * Lt. Tomoro, in his old man disguise, seems to enjoy scaring the kids. Since he's supposed to be innocent, this could only be to make him look more suspicious to the audience. Maybe he thought he was doing it for their own good?
 * Of all the objects to use Scooby out of, Shaggy using him as a club is probably the most inhumane.
 * Due to toon physics, Shaggy can survive unharmed being run down by a wild boar, and falling out of a tree with Scooby and Velma landing on top of him.
 * Simms, as the Witch Doctor, does not appear to be very intelligent or perceptive (especially strange for a journalist/tour guide), as he falls for Velma, Shaggy and Scooby's disguises, and is also easily scared by Shaggy and Scooby covered in leaves.
 * Fred states "That's the way out... I hope." having only just arrived in the cavern.
 * The wheels under Mano Tiki Tia's feet were visible the whole time, only being noticed by the gang once it was turned over. Not only that, but they didn't hear the its mechanical movements. The weight of the statue should've made tracks in the ground as it moved, as it wasn't riding along a pavement.
 * It was never explained who set up the fake plane crash (and why). One would imagine it was Simms and his henchman trying to make the village look more dangerous and frightening.
 * The gang is at the top of Mano Tiki Tia when it's caught with the Witch Doctor in its arms, but Velma and Daphne are suddenly at Mano Tiki Tia's feet when the former replies to Shaggy that it's just a parade float, and then they are quickly back at its head again as Fred gives the exposition.
 * Simms's henchman seems to pop out of Mano Tiki Tia, despite the fact that it looked perfectly intact, which itself would seem implausible. One reason could be he stuck out due to being dazed and/or exhausted from Mano Tiki Tia tipping over and falling into the pit.
 * When Shaggy says "But [Simms] was at the Luau with us!", Velma says "No," when in fact, he was. It is likely she answered to the gist of Shaggy's statement rather than exactly what he said.
 * In the close-up shot of Lt. Tomoro telling the gang he'll take care of their last day, he's given much more detail, but looks a lot older. He also looks different at the party.
 * It is unknown how Simms and his henchman made their skin look dark while disguised as the Witch Doctor.

Everlasting influence
This episode has been adapted several times in the following decades:
 * Scooby-Doo! Classic Creep Capers, an N64 video game's third level is inspired by this episode.
 * In the film Scooby-Doo! Curse of the Lake Monster, a live-action adaptation, the Witch Doctor makes a cameo in the ending montage.
 * In Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, a quasi sequel/reboot, it was mentioned as being a past case (with just the Mano Tiki Tia being referred to) in "The Night the Clown Cried". Although this is problematic, as in the same episode, Daphne mentioned that she had never gone beyond Gatorsburg.