Mine Your Own Business (Where Are You!)

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Mine Your Own Business
Mine chase with Miner 49er.png
Mine cart racing didn't catch on.
Network CBS
Premiere date October 4, 1969
Starring Don Messick
Casey Kasem
Stefanianna Christopherson
Nicole Jaffe
Frank Welker
Hal Smith
Music composed by Ted Nichols
Writer(s) Joe Ruby
Ken Spears
Director(s) William Hanna
Voice director(s) Joseph Barbera
Animation director(s) Charles A. Nichols
Episode navigation
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Title card
WAY 104 title card.png

"Mine Your Own Business" is the fourth episode of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! season one. It aired on October 4, 1969 on CBS. It was written by the series creators, Joe Ruby and Ken Spears, and produced and directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, the founders of Hanna-Barbera Productions.

The spooky Miner-Forty Niner has turned Gold City into even more of a ghost town than it was before, which leads to an investigation into the miner's coveted gold mine.

Detailed summary

On a stormy night, an old, zombie-like miner wanders out of the Gold City Mine.

Meanwhile, the gang gets lost in the desert outside of Gold City, due to Fred following Shaggy's bad navigation of reading his map upside down, and have no choice but to stick it out in the old west ghost town. They check into a guest ranch whose owner, Big Ben, is delighted to see them; it seems that he's had no guests for quite a spell. When the gang wonder about this, Ben's assistant, Hank, explains that it's on account of the "Miner Forty-Niner", the ghost of an old prospector who haunts the local mine searching for the last vein of gold. He's been scaring all the guests away—and Hank himself intends to light out soon.

With nothing else to do, the gang heads into Gold City to look around. Initially, they don't find anything—though in the saloon Shaggy is startled by a player piano and a tree branch—until they regroup at the hotel. There, Scooby is panicked by the appearance of the Miner in a two-way mirror and knocks over a cigar-store Indian, dislodging a map of Gold City with what appears to be a safe combination scribbled in the corner. Opening the hotel safe, they find a secret elevator that takes them down into the mine itself. After Shaggy causes a mishap with dynamite (which he'd mistaken for candles), they explore, and the Miner appears and disappears behind some doors and chases Scooby and Shaggy in a rail car. Fred also manages to accidentally scare Shaggy and Scooby, thanks to him falling into a room full of baking flour. But the pieces start to fall together when the gang follows a wire that leads them to a room containing a tape recorder, a microphone/loudspeaker set up, and jars of crude oil (which Shaggy mistakenly thought was chocolate syrup). With these, they lay a trap for the Miner.

While Shaggy imitates train noises over the microphone, Scooby pilots a rail car with a loudspeaker and flashlight attached, mimicking a train dashing through the mine tunnel. He chases the Miner into and through a shack (while destroying the old shack in the process). The Miner's boots fall off to reveal stilts, and he is thus unmasked as Hank. He had discovered that the mine, though exhausted of gold, is sitting on oil reserves; he had decided to try to scare off everyone so he could cheaply buy and exploit the land.

Scooby uses the stilts, used by Hank when impersonating the miner, to nab some apples from a tree.

Memorable quotes

Fred: Are you sure we took the right turn, Shaggy?
Shaggy: Sure. We took this road and turned to the right.
Velma: No wonder we're lost. You've been holding the map upside down.


Fred: I think we better split up and try and find out where that moan came from. I'll go this way with Daphne and Velma. You go that way with Scooby-Doo.
Shaggy: Thanks a lot.
Fred: And, Shaggy, if you find anything, holler.
Shaggy: I'm liable to holler even if I don't find anything.


Shaggy: Look! Stilts!
Velma: Shaggy's right. He is wearing stilts.
Fred: Then this can only be only one person. Hank!
Daphne: and Velma: Hank?!
Hank: Aw, dagnabbit!

Characters

Legend
Character debut Speaking debut Ep. debut No lines Mentioned

In order of appearance:

Character Actor
Vulture Frank Welker
Miner Forty-Niner/Hank Casey Kasem (Miner Forty-Niner)
Don Messick (Hank)
Fred Jones Frank Welker
Shaggy Rogers Casey Kasem
Velma Dinkley Nicole Jaffe
Scooby-Doo Don Messick
Daphne Blake Stefanianna Christopherson
Big Ben Hal Smith
Mouse Don Messick


Organizations

Locations

Objects

Vehicles

Production

Development

Filming

Music

The theme song, "Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?" was performed by Larry Marks, 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.

Release

Dates are in order of release:

Behind the scenes

  • The title is a pun on the phrase, "Mind your own business." You're welcome.
  • This episode uses different music for the title card, which is only used again for The New Scooby-Doo Movies episode "Ghastly Ghost Town."
  • The ballad song "Oh, My Darling Clementine" is a frequent tune throughout this episode, with its two notable appearances being a song in a player piano, and as a small tune that Shaggy whistled. If only a certain other dog had made a cameo in it...
  • "Forty-Niner" was the term given to a prospector in the Californian gold rush of 1849.
  • There's a real Indian Springs ghost town in Kern County, California, possibly placing this episode in the Mojave Desert.
  • Present-day incarnations spell "Miner Forty-Niner" as "Miner 49er."
  • Train noises are another imitation skill of Shaggy's.
  • Hank's outfit matches his disguise as the Miner Forty-Niner. All that was needed was a hat and matching beard to match his hair.

Errors

  • In the side-view of the Mystery Machine first shown riding along, Shaggy and Fred both talk, but it's just a static pose.
  • Daphne's lips are higher than they should be when she asks, "What should [they] do now?"
  • When the gang is first at the entrance of Gold City Guest Ranch about to ring the bell, Daphne's scarf is purple.
  • When Fred asks Big Ben if he has any rooms available, Daphne's eyebrows are drawn higher, underneath her bangs, making her look off-model. Her eyes were possibly drawn differently as well.
  • Velma is wearing lipstick (like Daphne's) when the girls react to first hearing the Miner Forty-Niner's name, and then when she asks Hank what the Miner Forty-Niner has to do with the ranch.
  • When Scooby gulps after hearing about the mine "calling" for the Miner Forty-Niner, the pink inside his left is missing.
  • When Scooby is reluctant to enter the abandoned hotel, Shaggy pushes him in, knocking the spots right off his back. Temporarily, anyway. 
  • When Scooby switches with Shaggy and opens the other's closet door, the knob is on the wrong side.
  • When Daphne falls down the mine shaft, Fred looks behind him without moving his body around, resulting in his head being turned 180 degrees on his neck.
  • When the gang hears the moan again and Daphne asks, "Do you suppose that's the miner moaning?," her pantyhose are missing.
  • The railroad tracks go into the tool shed in which the miner is trapped, but the door looks too close to the ground for them to fit under.
  • When Scooby pulls off the boots and falls down below, the stilts are short, but in the next few shots showing them, they're longer in length.
  • A couple of times Scooby moves to pick apples, his left foot flashes blue like the mountain behind him in the far distance.
  • When Scooby falls into the water trough, it's not the same trough shown a moment before; this one has a spigot nearby. 
  • As Scooby holds up the apples while in the trough, his nose flashes brown.
  • At the saloon, when Scooby says "Two," he appears to be holding up three fingers.
  • Shaggy is spooked by hearing that Gold City is a ghost town, even though he's holding a map of western ghost towns at the time.
  • Gold City is more like a town than a city.
  • Shaggy enters the combination to the lock, but Fred never read the numbers off as he said. In the end, it's just a plot hole to further the story along and get them to the safe since they didn't need it after all.
  • In the excitement of finding the map, Scooby never tells the gang of his encounter with the miner. 
  • Shaggy opens one side of the swinging saloon door, and the other opens by itself.
  • Daphne says of the cigar store Indian, "It's hollow," although she is looking at it at such an angle that she can't see the hollow part. Similarly, Velma says, "It's a map of Gold City," while looking at the back of the map from three feet away. Perhaps it says "Map of Gold City" on the back. 
  • When Fred fell through the floor, he was covered in flour. But after the rail-car chase, Freddy is cleaned off.
  • Hank used stilts to make his legs longer, but nothing was ever said about how he made his arms longer.
  • Hank was the only person who knew about the oil in the mine, so why did he wind up getting arrested? He wasn't exactly doing anything illegal unless he was charged for trespassing in the abandoned mine.
  • The first shot of the gang talking to Big Ben at the end has the Mystery Machine behind them all, but in the second shot it is gone.

Legacy

The episode has been adapted several times throughout the next few decades, either fully or partially inspired:

In popular culture

  • In the Sex and the City episode "The Big Time," Steve watches "Jeepers, It's the Creeper," but describes it as the one about a ghost haunting a salt mine, which may come from the writer confusing it with this episode.
  • In The Venture Bros. episode "The Buddy System," the Pirate Captain offers an activity at Dr. Venture's boy adventurer day camp, which allows a camper to learn how to be, for example, the ghost Miner Forty-Niner to stop meddling kids from getting their gold.
  • In the Big Bang Theory episode "The Expedition Approximation," everyone makes fun of Sheldon and Raj for planning to spend time down in a mineshaft together. Bernadette asks them if they're going to ride one of those mine cars, which Leonard tags on with how it will help getting away from the "g-g-ghost," which suggests he is referring to this Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! episode.

Marketing and promotion

Critical reception

In other languages

Language Name Meaning
French La Mine d'or de Golden or Le Mystère de la mine The Mine of Golden's gold or The Mystery of the mine
Greek Κάνε τη Δουλειά σου Do Your Job
Hungarian Törődj a magad aranyával! Mind your own gold
Italian Oro nero Black gold

Home availability

References

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