At the Missouri Comic-Con 2024 this last weekend, your humble “Anime Superhero” reporter got a chance to attend a “Q&A” panel with voice actor Scott Innes, best known as the voice of Shaggy and Scooby in the late 90’s and early 2000’s (the first voice to replace the legendary Don Messick as the voice of Scooby-Doo in the “Scooby-Doo” franchise). The panel provided us a chance to interact with Innes and for him to answer several burning questions (or to just make us laugh).
Innes voiced the famous cartoon dog for the first time in 1998’s “Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island”. His credits also include the string of “Direct to video” Scooby movies from the late 90’s/early 2000’s (for which he voiced both Shaggy and Scooby), and he also voiced “Scrappy-Doo” in the 2002 live action Scooby-Doo movie. He also voiced the duo for various Cartoon Network appearances (like the famous “Harvey Birdman” episode where Shaggy and Scooby are arrested for “getting high”). While Casey Kasem and others would return to voice the Shaggy and Scooby (starting with 2002’s “What’s New, Scooby Doo?”), Innes would continue voicing Shaggy and Scooby in commercials and in video games for the rest of the 2000’s.
Among the stories Innes shared was the recording for “Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island”, which was the last recording done at the old Hanna-Barbera Studios before the studio was moved to Cartoon Network. Innes described being brought on board for the project and finding the Hanna-Barbera building empty, with the only offices still being used were the offices for William “Bill” Hanna and Joseph Barbera (the guys the studio was named after). Innes remembered meeting Hanna in his office and when Hanna told him to “make yourself comfortable”, Innes (for a laugh) put his feet up on Hanna’s desk (which the Scooby-Doo creator took in stride) but when Innes was later guided from the room to the recording booth, he was reprimanded by staff (the line that was said was “Did you really just put your feet on Bill Hanna’s desk?!?”).
Asked what was his favorite Scooby-Doo project that he worked on, Innes shared it was indeed “Zombie Island”, as the hook of “This time, the monsters are real!” was a breath of fresh air. He said it was the right movie, at the right time, in the franchise’s history. While he said that period in the Scooby-Doo franchise was nice for featuring “real monsters”, he doesn’t think that formula would be as acceptable today, and thinks it’s perhaps best that the series went back to “man in a mask” scenarios.
Innes was also asked if Shaggy was truly a vegetarian, but Innes dismissed that notion, stating it was a change pushed onto the character by Casey Kasem (a known vegetarian by that point in his life), to get Kasem to come back to the role in the 2000’s. Innes states he believes you shouldn’t change a character to match the voice actor. He was also asked what he thought a “Scooby Snack” tasted like, to which he answered in his mind, he imagined it tasted like a “Double Cheeseburger with steak fries”.
At another point, the voice actor was asked what character he never got a chance to voice that he would’ve loved to have done. In response, Innes broke out singing “The Rainbow Connection” (in other words, Kermit the Frog. He would’ve loved to have done Kermit the Frog). He was then asked if he had a favorite song that he’d performed for Scooby-Doo, to which he responded by performing a “sing along” with the audience of the “How Groovy” song from “Scooby Doo and the Alien Invaders”.
Later in the day, I saw Innes at his booth talking warmly with his fans, signing autographs and taking selfies with them. As I wandered the convention floor, I later on saw him walking around on his own, and visiting other booths and casually interacting with fans. The voice actor was among the most “down to Earth” celebrities in attendance (not limiting his access to the fans and just appearing to have a great time wherever he went). If Scott Innes attends a local convention where you live, it’s well worth the time to meet with him and listen to him speak, even if it’s just for him to slip into his Scooby voice and ask for a Scooby snack.
