"Scooby Dooby Doo, please where are you?  We need some help from you now." I think we all remember those words from the theme song of the Scooby Doo show we all used to watch as kids.  These days many of our childhood cartoon friends are being brought back to life for our kids and Scooby Doo is certainly no different.  Besides the catchy song it is so easy to recall Scooby snacks, scary villains, and Shaggy being deathly afraid of his own shadow, let alone any of the creatures that they encounter.  The beloved characters are, of course, what made the show and they are who we remember today.

First of course, there is Scooby Doo himself.  For anyone who has ever wondered, Scooby is a Great Dane and he loves to eat and is afraid of anything that moves.  Well, maybe not anything that moves, but Scooby is quite the coward in his own fun-loving way.  His absolute best friend and owner is Shaggy and he is very famous for saying the phrase “Scooby Dooby Doo!”

So what about Shaggy?  Shaggy Rogers is Scooby's friend, owner, and more.  They say that many pets and their owners begin to look like each other over time.  Well Shaggy and Scooby may not look like each other, but they sure do act like each other.  Like Scooby, Shaggy has an appetite that won't quite and a level of cowardice that makes one wonder why he continues to hang around the rest of the gang.  Shaggy is fun and lovable and he likes to say "Zoinks!"

Next we have Fred Jones.  Fred is the group's leader, the driver of the Mystery Machine, and he is the tall handsome blond that takes charge and gets things done.  What do we remember about Fred?  Well for one he always got the girls.  Whenever he uttered his famous catch-phrase “let's split up, gang” Scooby and Shaggy were always left together while Fred got Daphne and Velma.  Sometimes Velma would go with Shaggy and Scooby, but never Daphne.  Hmmm.  Fred always thought of Daphne as being danger-prone, but fans always wondered if they had a secret attraction for each other.  Fred was also well known for wearing a neckerchief and for being the one who set the traps for the villains.

That brings us to Daphne Blake, a fiery red-head who often ended up playing the role of damsel in distress, although she was actually quite well-learned in the martial arts.  Daphne was made to be less intelligent than Velma, but still she offered up her own ways of solving the crime and in an early 1980s spin-off she became the leader of the gang when it was only her, Shaggy, Scooby, and Scrappy Doo, Scooby's nephew.

Velma Dinkley is last here, but certainly not least.  This brainy young lady was the real intelligence in the group and she had the glasses to prove it, which she often lost when being chased by a villain.  Velma knew everything about everything it seemed and she used her skills, talents, and knowledge to solve the many crimes that they were investigating.  It was always Velma that offered the Scooby snacks when Scooby was too afraid to go on a mission.  This bribery generally worked.  Velma also seemed to be the muscle in the group and often carried Shaggy and Scooby and sometimes Daphne and Fred as well.

The cartoon Scooby Doo and its many spin-offs and movies will certainly always be remembered by those who grew up in the 1970s and 1980s, but a whole new generation of Scooby Doo fans has been created with the later shows and the movies.  Scooby will always have a special place in our hearts and the rest of the gang and even the Mystery Machine will, too.  What is next for this group of friends and investigators?  Who knows, but surely they aren't finished their adventures yet.