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Chase songs: the music behind Scooby-Doo
Scooby-Dooby-Doo, check out these tunes!
Have you ever watched Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? and thought...dang, these songs are catchy! In season one, the chase scenes featured instrumental music composed by Ted Nichols, but season two had all these groovy pop and rock songs! Hanna-Barbera enjoyed creating music with La La Productions for Josie and the Pussycats, so they decided to team up with them to write music for Scooby-Doo. La La Productions tasked producer Danny Janssen and singer Austin Roberts to create songs for the chase scenes.
The songs don't really sound like they're part of a spooky chase, but rather like the upbeat rock music of the Laurel Canyon era. You can imagine that these are songs that the cool teens in Mystery, Inc. would play in the Mystery Machine...as they're driving away from werewolves and vampires! The music created by Janssen and Roberts sounds like it would be played on the radio for '70s teens alongside the Beach Boys and the Mamas and the Papas.
Let's take a look at all the groovy tunes in Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?.
"Recipe For My Love"
Scooby saves Shaggy from the Ghost of Mr. Hyde, who has trapped Shaggy and tried to turn him into a frog. The song "Recipe for My Love" plays as Scooby wheels Shaggy to safety. In addition to writing songs for Scooby-Doo, songwriter Danny Janssen also wrote the theme song for The Partridge Family and the songs in Josie and the Pussycats.
"Pretty Mary Sunlight"
A wax phantom chases Scooby and Shaggy in "Don't Fool with a Phantom". This song was rerecorded by Jerry Reed in The New Scooby-Doo Movies.
"Tell Me, Tell Me"
In "Who's Afraid of the Big, Bad Werewolf?", Shaggy and Scooby run away from a werewolf to the tune "Tell Me, Tell Me". Susan Steward, the song's cowriter, was also a voice actor and played Helga in the episode "Nowhere to Hyde".
"Seven Days a Week"
"Seven Days a Week" contains the lyrics "Got me going round in circles", which is exactly what Scooby and Shaggy do as they run away from a caveman who Mystery, Inc. accidentally helped unfreeze in "Scooby's Night with a Frozen Fright".
"Daydreamin'"
Fun fact, this song sounds like a woman sings it, but it's still Scooby-Doo singer Austin Roberts! He had a 3 octave vocal range and was able to sing women's parts in cartoons, including this song in "Jeepers, it's the Creeper!"
"I Can Make You Happy"
Unlike the other chase songs, "I Can Make You Happy" is a car chase song as Fred drives the Mystery Machine away from the Scare Pair in "Mystery Mask Mix-Up". This song was also re-recorded later on by Davy Jones for The New Scooby-Doo Movies.
"Love the World"
This song plays while Shaggy, Scooby, and Velma run away from the Headless Spectre in "Haunted House Hang-Up". The song was later recycled to a more fitting ABC Saturday Superstar Movie, Tabitha and Adam and the Clown Family, an animated movie where characters from the Bewitched series perform a musical act to save the local circus.
Theme song
The Scooby-Doo theme song was recorded for season one by Larry Marks and then rerecorded by Austin Roberts. Roberts often visited children's hospitals with Scooby dolls and would perform the theme song for the kids there.