It’s always bugged me that the very first “Scooby-Doo” series, produced by Hanna-Barbera in 1969, was titled “Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!” sans question mark. “Where are you?” is a question, not a statement. But then, I feel the same way about “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” which, without a question mark, can only be read as an independent clause within a sentence. As in: “Judge Doom, who framed Roger Rabbit, is a horrid varlet.”
Or “Eight Legged Freaks.” Without the hyphen, it’s a movie about eight “freaks” who are legged. Yes, I am the semantic jerkwad. Yes, I’m incredibly fun at parties.
“Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!” lasted a long time as far as 1960s cartoons go. It ran for 41 episodes across three seasons (with Seasons 1 and 2 releasing from 1969-1970 and Season 3 debuting in 1978), with its story following four young adults and their talking dog as they tool around in a van solving supposedly supernatural mysteries. These mysteries, however, are always perpetrated by corrupt humans who use ghostly disguises to serve their nefarious purposes. The group included the square Fred, the gorgeous Daphne, the brainy Velma, the slacker Shaggy, and the English-speaking Great Dane Scooby-Doo. The series launched a franchise that’s still going to this day. “Scooby-Doo” media persists because of its pliability.
Sadly, many of the show’s cast members have passed away, including Don Messick (Scooby-Doo), Pat Stevens (Velma in Season 3), Casey Kasem (Shaggy), and Heather North (Daphne in Seasons 2 and 3). Others, mercifully, are still with us, so let’s check in on them.
Frank Welker (Freddie Jones)
Frank Welker is one of the best voice actors to have ever taken on the profession. His professional voice career started with “Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!” when he was only 23, and he quickly filled a niche, racking up voice credits by the score. By the mid-1970s, he was a star player on Hanna-Barbera cartoons, often playing lead characters like Wheelie, Dyno-Mutt, and Jabberjaw. Your favorite Saturday morning cartoon, whatever it was, likely included Welker at some point. He’s known for voicing Fred on “Scooby-Doo,” but when Don Messick passed away in 1997, Welker eventually took over playing Scooby-Doo. 1980s kids will recognize him as the villain Megatron (a voice inspired by Barry White) on “Transformers.” He was also Slimer and Ray on “The Real Ghostbusters.”
Whether or not you realize it, you’ve probably heard over 100 Frank Welker performances without even trying. He’s one of Hollywood’s go-to vocalists for animals and creatures, having first provided the dog sound effects for the movie “Cujo” in 1983. He later played the Gremlins in “Gremlins,” the cat in “Tales from the Darkside,” the bat in “Graveyard Shift,” the reindeer in “Prancer,” the monkey in “Aladdin,” Goro in “Mortal Kombat,” and the anaconda in “Anaconda,” and that’s barely scratching the surface Welker even has a few live-action credits, including small roles in comedies like Disney’s “Now You See Him, Now You Don’t,” and Steven Soderbergh’s 2009 film “The Informant!”
Listing all of Welker’s credits would take far too much time. Needless to say, he has remained prolific for decades, and he’s greatly admired for his talents. He remains active at 80, having recently voiced Fred on “Jellystone!” and Emperor Argall on “Invincible.”
Indira Stefanianna/Stefanianna Christopherson (Daphne in Season 1)
Indira Stefanianna Christopherson, known alternately as Indira Stefanianna and Stefanianna Christopherson, played the hip, groovy Daphne on “Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!” for the show’s first season. She eventually left the series, presumably to work on her music career, handing the reins over to Heather North.
Stefanianna was a professional singer and had been acting for a few years before she worked on “Scooby-Doo.” She apparently first appeared on TV in a 1967 episode of “The Dating Game” as a contestant. Stefanianna had also, in her early 20s, appeared in episodes of “Mayberry R.F.D.” and “Here Come the Brides” before landing a regular voice role in the animated series “Here Comes the Grump.” “Scooby-Doo” came shortly thereafter. Upon leaving the series, she appeared in a few additional TV shows, including an episode of “Sanford and Son,” an episode of “M*A*S*H,” and “Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels” (where she voiced various background characters). Since then, though, Stefanianna kind of stayed away from the screen for the most part.
More than anything, though, she was interested in music. Stefanianna, apart from Daphne, might best be remembered for singing the “Reach Out and Touch Someone” jingle for AT&T, which won a Clio Award. Fans of the 1986 sci-fi movie “Star Crystal” will similarly recognize her voice from that movie’s closing credits song. Stefanianna is now 79.
Nicole Jaffe (Velma in Seasons 1 and 2)
Nicole Jaffe played the voice of the brainy (and possibly queer) Vemla Dinkley during the first two seasons of “Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!” before handing the role to Pat Stevens for the show’s third season. At 85, Jaffe is now retired and spent years of her career as a talent agent. She began acting professionally in the mid-1960s and stayed active until the mid-1980s.
One of Jaffe’s first screen credits was acting opposite Elvis Presley in the 1969 movie “The Trouble with Girls.” In a fun coincidence, Frank Welker also appeared in “The Trouble with Girls.” That said, Jaffe’s first on screen role was actually as a background player in 1968’s “The Love Bug.” She would go on to play Velma (one of the most loquacious of the Mystery Gang) for 25 episodes of “Scooby-Doo” and stayed active with Hanna-Barbera for years, reprising Velma for several movies and lending her voice to shows like “Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels” and “Dyno-Mutt, the Wonder Dog.”
After the mid-1980s, Jaffe seemingly retired from acting, although she returned very briefly to play Velma once more in the 2003 movies “Scooby-Doo! and the Legend of the Vampire” and “Scooby-Doo! and the Monster of Mexico.” In 2013, she was given a glowing write-up in Deadline, which pointed out that she had been a star agent for decades and was moving on to a new agency. I don’t know about you, but if I were an aspiring actor and the woman who voiced Velma Dinkley was my agent, I would feel like I was in good hands.
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