The first episode of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You premiered over 50 years ago, and the best Scooby-Doo episodes still endure in the modern day. Hanna-Barbera made a legendary mystery cartoon that would grow up with generations to come. Not only has Scooby-Doo and the gang taught their audience how to face fears, the series always taught them that not every monster is as it seems.
Scooby and Mystery Inc. has been redone and had multiple series, animated and live-action movies based on it. Despite that, fans almost always end up coming back to the original series and the original unmasking of the villains. While there are a bunch of episodes with a high nostalgia factor, there are always some that are better than the others. The original Scooby-Doo storylines provided the blueprint for what Scooby-Doo has become complete with masked villains, haunted houses, unbreakable friendships, and iconic chase sequences.
10 What A Night For A Knight (Season 1, Episode 1)
The very first episode of the iconic animated series premiered in September of 1969, and it remains one of the best Scooby-Doo episodes. This is the episode responsible for introducing fans to the Mystery Inc. gang and their dog, Scooby-Doo. In it, the group is in a museum investigating the disappearance of an archaeologist when a suit of armor seemingly comes to life.
What’s interesting in this episode is that the group isn’t asked to investigate or stumble upon an abandoned house. Here, they actually break into the museum at night when troubled by the missing archaeologist. That’s not something the group usually does. It’s also, since it is the first episode, the first time Shaggy demonstrates his ventriloquist skills, throwing his voice to distract the villain in the Black Knight suit of armor. It’s not a skill that Shaggy gets to use often since he’s usually just trying to outrun the bad guy.
9 Go Away Ghost Ship (Season 1, Episode 14)
The legend about a pirate named Redbeard surfaces in one of the best Scooby-Doo episodes. Redbeard is clearly inspired by the legend of Blackbeard the pirate, and the villain is so popular that he’s even referenced in the live-action movie Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed.
Redbeard and his supposedly ghostly pirate crew have been stealing from freighters belonging to a shipping magnate, so the Scooby Gang volunteers to investigate. It should have been a red flag for them that the businessman initially didn’t even want to see them, and as it turns out, he has been dressing up as Redbeard and stealing from his own ships to claim the insurance money. Insurance fraud becomes a common crime in the Scooby-Doo franchise.
8 Scooby's Night With A Frozen Fright (Season 2, Episode 4)
"Scooby's Night with a Frozen Fright" is the fourth episode of the second season and aired on September 26, 1970. This episode is legendary as it was the first time the gang was called "meddling kids;" A gag that would be a part of the show for decades to come.
In this episode, Shaggy is fishing in the sea. He tries to catch a fish but instead reels in a caveman frozen in a block of ice. The kids decide the best thing to do is to take it to the closest aquarium. When they drop it off, the real mystery begins to unfold as the ice supposedly melts and unleashes the caveman.
7 A Gaggle of Galloping Ghosts (Season 1, Episode 11)
"A Gaggle of Galloping Ghosts," aired on November 22, 1969 and marks the iconic line, "Yes, and I'd have gotten away with it, too, if it wasn't for these blasted kids and their dog!" Though "meddling kids" becomes the phrase most remembered in pop culture in season 2, it's this episode that gives fans the iconic beginning.
The gang is on another trip and this time, they are heading to Franken Castle. When driving, they see a cart with fortune-tellers. The gang approaches and the fortune-teller warns them not to go to the castle. She says that bad things will happen if they do. Of course, they don't listen, which leads to them running afoul of Frankenstein, the Wolf Man, and Dracula - or at least someone pretending to be them. It's the first episode that has seen one criminal take on the disguises of four different villains as the same person disguises themselves as the fortune-teller that issued the warning too!
6 Bedlam In The Big Top (Season 1, Episode 10)
The best episodes of Scooby-Doo feature the most memorable villains. “Bedlam In The Big Top” does just that. In fact, the villain is so popular that he gets referenced in the live-action movie Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed, but that’s not all. The story is also adapted for a series of Scooby-Doo comic books and as well as in a series of Scooby-Doo children’s books. It’s one of the most popular of Scooby’s stories and one that helps contribute to the fear of clowns for a lot of the audience.
That’s because Mystery Inc. ends up investigating a “ghost clown” that’s terrorizing a circus after running into a couple of circus employees who are leaving their jobs due to their fear. Shaggy, Scooby, and Daphne all end up hypnotized at different points in the episode, and Fred even ends up kidnapped. This is one of the rare episodes too where it’s Shaggy who comes up with the plan to catch the villain instead of Velma or Fred.
5 Spooky Space Kook (Season 1, Episode 15)
On the night of December 20, 1969, is when the fifteenth episode of the first season aired. This episode marks the last episode that would air in the year 1969, and the very first episode to feature the idea of an alien as the villain. The idea gets revisited a lot in modern Scooby cartoons, but the early era of the franchise focused on ghosts and other mythological creatures instead,
The gang decides to check out an airfield that is being stalked by a spooky alien ghost. This monster scares the gang so much that Fred is the one that tells the gang to flee instead of just Scooby and Shaggy. That's a rarity in the franchise as well.
4 Haunted House Hang-Up (Season 2, Episode 5)
"Haunted House Hang-Up" aired on October 10, 1970, and features the gang facing off against a headless man roaming the grounds of a supposedly haunted mansion. The gang is supposed to be going to rock out during a concert. On their way to the show, they go down an abounded road and run into a farmer who warns them of the haunted mansion. He suggests that something spooky is going on in there, which obviously gets the attention of the group.
Interestingly, the main ghost the group is warned about is only a teaser villain for the episode. The person pretending to be the ghost is also targeted by another masked villain, making the episode reveal a little bit more complicated than the other episodes that would be considered the best of Scooby-Doo.
3 Jeepers, It's the Creeper (Season 2, Episode 3)
Fun fact: this episode is one of the most violent episodes, which is ironic because it takes place during a school dance. There is a lot more actual fighting with the villain than usually occurs during the formula of a Scooby-Doo episode, which is part of what makes audiences see the Creeper as a real threat to the Scooby gang. The gang spends the beginning of this episode doing mostly normal things, except the dance is in a barn. Surprisingly enough, a dance in a barn in the middle of nowhere does not go as planned.
The Creeper has a lasting legacy, not just in the Scooby-Doo franchise, but also in the world of technology. The first recognized computer virus in 1970, the year after the episode premiered, is named the Creeper after the character. The character also sees a video game character based on him in the Scooby-Doo animated special Scooby-Doo and the Cyber Chase after the Scooby gang tells a video game developer friend about the mystery.
2 Which Witch Is Which? (Season 1, Episode 13)
When Scooby and the gang are heading back from a fishing trip, they make a smart decision to take a shortcut through a dark and creepy swamp. When they get lost, they see a man walking and ask for directions. What they didn't notice is that they did not ask a man, but a zombie. It turns out that this Swamp is haunted by a zombie and a witch that are keeping people from going in.
The gang eventually figures out who the villains are, as they do in all the best Scooby-Doo episodes. The witch and the zombie, however, proves to be such popular villains in the franchise that the story has been adapted for both Scooby comics and children's book. The zombie design is even used as one of the pieces in the 2015 Lego Mystery Machine set. The episode also makes it into over a dozen different Scooby VHS and DVD compilations.
1 A Night Of Fright Is No Delight (Season 1, Episode 16)
The best episode of the original Scooby-Doo show is "A Night of Fright Is No Delight." This episode is a part of the first season and premiered on CBS on January 10, 1970. A fun fact about this episode is that it is the first to show the whole gang in different outfits than their original ones. They are shown in their PJs.
This episode reveals that, due to Scooby's bravery, he was included in the will of a millionaire. Scooby will get his inheritance if he and a bunch of other people can spend one night in the Colonel's mansion. It turns out that the mansion is haunted. It really is the quintessential haunted house episode of the show, getting remade for the animated series Be Cool, Scooby-Doo, getting a comic book adaptation, referenced in the modern Scooby-Doo live-action movies, and even getting a crossover episode 40 years after it premiered with a very different show. This is the episode that provided the basis for the Supernatural episode "Scoobynatural." It's not just one of the best Scooby-Doo episodes; it's an iconic one.