- Title: Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! – Don’t Fool with a Phantom
- wiki: link
Throwback Thursday takes us back to Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! for another mystery involving some meddling kids and their talking dog. “Don’t Fool with a Phantom” was the final episode of the Second Season of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! and the last new episode of the show for 8 years until the characters returned in the Fall of 1978. Opening with the gang performing in a dance contest on The Johnny Sands Dance Game Show, where they appear to be the only contestants, the dancing is interrupted by the sudden appearance of a Wax Phantom who superstitious states could the creation of Mr. Grisby (Don Messick), a wax sculptor with a grudge against the station although the true culprit is merely attempting to put suspicion elsewhere while carrying out his plan.
While neither the episode nor the monster are among the show’s best, they do still present some memorable moments. The final episode of Scooby-Doo for nearly a decade, the episode is notable for the unusual dance set-up, Grisby as one of the show’s better red herrings, and about as close to a trap working as intended as the gang ever manage, even if it does capture Shaggy (Casey Kasem) and Scooby-Doo (Don Messick) as well. “Don’t Fool with a Phantom” features Scooby and Shaggy captured by the Wax Phantom and nearly dropped into hot wax (which when you think about it, isn’t that different than the gang’s plan to capture the Phantom later in the episode), and is also the last episode of a Scooby-Doo cartoon to make use of a chase song montage, featuring “Pretty Mary Sunlight,” for nearly two decades.
