Vampire Bats and Scaredy Cats is the first of four segments of Scooby's All Star Laff-a-Lympics. It was later repackaged as the second episode of the second season of The Scooby-Doo Show, and the eighteenth episode overall of the series.
Premise[]
The gang go to visit Daphne's friend, Lisa, for her birthday, which is at a very old hotel that Lisa would inherit on the day after her eighteenth birthday. Velma says that it is believed that there are vampires on the island, but she herself thinks it's nonsense. But when a real vampire shows up and Lisa is turned into a vampire herself, the vampire legend becomes very true and believable.
Synopsis[]
The gang, along with Scooby Dum, head to Great Skull Island to meet Daphne's friend Lisa, who is about to inherit her family's hotel. Before they arrive, Velma notes that Skull Island is rumored to be home to vampires. As soon as they arrive, the ferry captain asked them to take a box to the hotel for one of their guests. As Shaggy and Fred carry it, they drop it, revealing the package to be a coffin. Scooby Dum opens it up and a bat flies out.
They arrive at the hotel, and give the coffin to Mr. Dracul, who needed it for an undertaker's convention. They meet Lisa and her uncle Leon and decide to turn in for the night. While they sleep, Daphne awakens and sees a vampire standing in front of her bed. She calls for help and everyone arrives causing the vampire to flee. They begin searching for clues, when Scooby Dum discovers a ventilating duct, explaining how the vampire got into the room. Shaggy, Scooby, and Dum crawl inside to search, while Fred, Velma and Daphne tell Lisa what has been going on. The phone then rings, and Daphne answers it, hearing only a high pitched bell. Meanwhile, Shaggy, Scooby and Dum search the room, and the vampire then appears and begins to chase after them.
After escaping, the gang reunites and discovered a dog whistle on the floor, a clue. Uncle Leon then arrives and reveals to Lisa that her grandfather was actually a vampire, who was then determined to turn Lisa into one. The gang begins to split up and look for clues. Shaggy, Scooby and Dum stay to guard Lisa, who answers the phone, hears the high pitched bell, and turns into a vampire. She begins to chase them along with the vampire, who Shaggy has now dubbed "Gramp the Vamp". They escape and find Fred, Velma and Daphne, who have found a paper titled "Exo 6 Desmo". Shaggy and the Scoobys then see Gramp the Vamp lead Lisa into a coffin. They inform Fred and the girls about the situation and Velma smacks Lisa's face a few times. This causes Lisa to wake up, and she doesn't remember what happened after the bell rang.
They then devise a scheme to trap Gramp the Vamp. They succeed (but not in the way they intended), and the vampire turns out to be Uncle Leon. His motive was to get the inheritance of the hotel away from Lisa. He invented the story of Lisa's grandfather being a vampire, and somehow unknowingly hypnotized her, with the bell being a post-hypnotic trigger that would make her think she was a vampire. That way, she would be put in a mental institution, and the hotel would be given to him. The paper found by the gang was an order from Uncle Leon to "Exo", the local exotic petshop on the mainland, for 6 "desmo", vampire bats (whose Latin family name is Desmodontidae). He used the silent whistle to call the bats.
The next day, Lisa wants to reward the gang for helping her--Shaggy humbly tries turning it down, since Lisa's a friend of theirs. But Shaggy and Scooby quickly come around when it turns out that the reward is a large amount of hamburgers. Scooby then acts like he's been hypnotized, and scarfs it all down, leaving none left for poor Shaggy.
Characters[]
Main characters:
- Mystery Inc.
- Scooby-Doo
- Shaggy Rogers
- Fred Jones
- Daphne Blake
- Velma Dinkley
Supporting characters:
- Scooby-Dum
- Lisa Vanaugh (only appearance)
- Desk Clerk (only appearance)
- Mr. Dracul (only appearance)
Villains:
- Gramps The Vamp (only appearance)(Uncle Leon's disguise)
- Leon Vanaugh (only appearance)
Other characters:
- Ferry Captain (only appearance)
- Lisa's Grandfather (only appearance)(photograph)(deceased)
- Bug (only appearance)(no lines)
- Police Officer (only appearance)
Locations[]
- Ferry
- Great Skull Island
- Dock
- Hotel
- Europe (mentioned)
Objects[]
- Saw
- Telephone
Vehicles[]
- Boat
- The Mystery Machine
Suspects[]
| Suspect | Motive/reason |
|---|---|
| Mr. Dracul | Had an overly meaningful name and wanted a coffin (where vampires live). |
| Desk clerk | Strange manner. |
| Leon Vanaugh | He told Lisa that her grandfather was really a vampire. |
Culprits[]
| Culprit | Motive/reason |
|---|---|
| Leon Vanaugh as Gramps the Vamp | To stop his niece from taking over running the hotel. |
Cast[]
| Don Messick | Scooby-Doo
Ferry Captain |
|---|---|
| Casey Kasem | Shaggy Rogers
Mr. Dracul Police Officer |
| Frank Welker | Fred Jones |
| Heather North | Daphne Blake |
| Pat Stevens | Velma Dinkley |
| Janet Waldo | Lisa Vanaugh |
| Daws Butler | Scooby-Dum |
| John Stephenson | Leon Vanaugh
Gramps The Vamp |
Notes/trivia[]
- This was the first Scooby-Doo Show episode to use a title card (pictured above). The title card would be reused (albeit with the artwork redrawn) in season 3, then re-used for most of the Scrappy-Doo era.
- "Skull Island" is the traditional name of King Kong's home. This is the second of three known times that the gang has visited a place called "Skull Island". The first was in the Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! episode Go Away Ghost Ship, while the second was in a later The Scooby-Doo Show episode The Creepy Case of Old Iron Face.
- The VHS release of Scooby-Doo's Spookiest Tales features an alternate, possibly work-in-progress cut of this episode with many differences:
- The title card is missing, probably because the two episodes that this one airs in-between have no title card at all.
- Character animation is generally rougher, with many shots in the finished cut completely redrawn to stay closer to model guidelines, with several unique medium shots and closeups replaced with stock assets. Many shots are also framed differently.
- When Scooby-Dum photographs Great Skull Island, he merely chuckles upon snapping. In the finished version, he says "Smile!" before snapping, and his shot uses the camera's flash.
- After Fred says, "Next stop: Lisa's hotel!", the Mystery Machine's driving animation is more smooth, and the vampire materializes from its exhaust accompanied by a spacey sound. In the finished cut, the Mystery Machine has more crude animation, there is no exhaust smoke, and the camera merely zooms out to show the vampire.
- Different sound effects were used for Scooby-Dum's reactions as he and Scooby-Doo try to load the coffin into the Mystery Machine.
- When Shaggy and Dracul carry the coffin, the transition from light to dark is rougher.
- After Velma says to Daphne "I've locked the door and the windows, so nothing can get in here", the two immediately rush into their beds without explanation. In the finished cut, an exterior shot of window's shutters slamming shut in the wind is inserted.
- When Shaggy and Scooby crash into the girls' room, only the crash is heard before the shot immediately changes to a medium shot of Fred and Velma. In the finished version, the two are shown sliding down the closet door before the medium shot.
- Velma's "And that RAT was real enough..." was corrected to "And that BAT was real enough" in the finished version, through noticeable audio manipulation instead of a separate take.
- When Daphne answers the phone, she says "Hello? Hello? Is anybody there? Hello?". In the finished cut, only the first and last "Hello?"s are kept.
- The scene where Shaggy and the Scoobys are blocking the door from the vampire (as Lisa gets her post-hypnotic trigger phone call), the door is to the left. In the finished version, the shot is flipped so that the door is on the right, and decal in the background is changed.
- After the vampire finds Shaggy and Scooby in the wardrobe, there is an additional "Help!" from Shaggy that is not retained in the finished version.
- When Shaggy and the Scoobys are hiding from the vampire in the ballroom, the blue carpet disappears in some backgrounds. In the finished version, the carpet is kept throughout to maintain continuity with previous shots.
- When the Scoobys trap the vampire in the coffin at the pool, he merely sinks. In the finished version, he continues to bob up and down.
- The copy of the episode available on iTunes and other online services omits the title card, but otherwise is the regular version of the episode.
- The episode title was misprinted as "Vampires, Bats and Scaredy Cats" on the back cover of the Headless Horseman of Halloween VHS.
- Mr. Dracul is named after the iconic monster from Bram Stoker's novel, Dracula.
Animation mistakes and/or technical glitches[]
- In the scene in which Shaggy discovers a room filled with coffins, Scooby-Dum's collar is blue in one scene before being red again in the next scene.
Inconsistencies/continuity errors and/or goofs/oddities[]
- The Desmodontidae family name appears to be deprecated.
- After Shaggy says, "Zoinks! It's old pointy teeth!" and Scooby-Dum jumps into the vampire's arms, Shaggy's mouth moves again, but there is no sound.
- After Shaggy yells for help a moment later, the scene cuts to the rest of the gang, who act as if he is still yelling, but the audio has cut out and the gang is reacting to nothing.
- When Lisa turned into a vampire and Scooby-Dum saw her, Shaggy and Scooby were pushing the bed to the left, but then when Scooby-Dum ran to them, they were seen on the right.
- Right after the vampire tries to attack Daphne and Velma in their bedroom, Shaggy and Scooby run towards the door intending to barge into the room. Velma was the whole time wearing a pair of white fluff slippers, but oddly she appears barefoot for a single moment when she opens the door to allow Shaggy and Scooby into the room.
- Daphne's nightgown has no sleeves, showing her bare arms, but when Fred examines the room curtain, the nightgown has long sleeves.
- When the gang was about to set their trap, the vampire called for Lisa through the vent which kick-started the gang's plan in a hurry. However, for some reason the audio had cut out again and only Scooby reacting to the sound was seen and then suddenly Fred declared that the vampire is coming.
- Daphne says that they were newspaper clippings, but they were just ordinary photos.
- Not all works of vampire literature agree on the "no photographs" rule.
In other languages[]
| Language | Name | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| French | Vampires, Chauve-souris et Chats noirs | Vampires, Bats, and Black Cats |
| Brazilian Portuguese | Vampiros, Morcegos e Outros Bichos | Vampires, Bats and Other Animals |
| German | Zu Gast auf der großen Schädel-Insel | A Guest on the Great Skull Island |
| Italian | Scooby-Doo contro vampiri e pipistrelli | Scooby-Doo Against Vampires and Bats |
| Polish | Wampiry, nietoperze i tchórze | Vampires, Bats, and Cowards |
Home media[]
- Scooby-Doo: The Headless Horseman of Halloween VHS released by Turner Home Entertainment on September 10, 1996.
- Scooby-Doo's Spookiest Tales VHS released by Warner Home Video on August 21, 2001.
- Scooby-Doo's Spookiest Tales DVD released by Warner Home Video on August 21, 2001.
- Best of Warner Bros. 50 Cartoon Collection: Scooby-Doo! DVD set released by Warner Home Video on August 13, 2019.
Quotes[]
| Daphne: There isn't even anybody at the front desk.
Shaggy: Like maybe the coffin is for the desk clerk! |
| Shaggy: (pulling a lampshade off Scooby's head) I was right about Dracul, his coffin's a day bed. |
| Shaggy: (bat flying) Stay away. I gave at the blood bank! |
| Gramps the Vamp: It's time for you to rest, my dear.
Lisa: (hazily) Yes... Grandfather. |
| Gramps the Vamp: I WANT BLOOD!
Shaggy: You wouldn't like mine! It's yellow! |
Gallery[]
