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Exploring the fan theories behind ''Red-Shirt Shaggy''
Red shirt, more like red flag!
When you think of Shaggy Rogers, beloved sidekick of Scooby-Doo, what do you think of? Gigantic sandwiches, Scooby Snacks, perhaps a green t-shirt? For nearly 16 years, Shaggy consistently wore a green t-shirt in every episode and special, but then everything changed when The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo premiered in 1985 and suddenly, Shaggy was now wearing a bright red t-shirt.
Shaggy would wear that shirt for the rest of the series and for three Scooby-Doo feature specials in a row; Scooby-Doo and the Boo Brothers, Scooby-Doo and the Ghoul School, and Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf. Then, in 1988 another Scooby-Doo series premiered: A Pup Named Scooby-Doo. This new series takes place during Shaggy's childhood, so now he was back to a green shirt. But a change had been made and Shaggy was back to green shirts until 2001's Scooby-Doo and the Cyber Chase where Mystery Inc. meets the video game versions of themselves — including a Shaggy who is wearing a red shirt.
Fans were left with more questions than answers; why did the studio or the animators or whoever make Shaggy wear only red shirts from 1985 to 1988, and then again in 2001? Why make the change at all? Were they trying to signal something to us? "Red-Shirt Shaggy" became a phrase among fans, desperate to understand why a generally consistent character was suddenly different. The studio and creators of Scooby-Doo have never directly addressed Red-Shirt Shaggy, so fans naturally went wild with theories and explanations.
Let's jump into some of the fan theories behind Shaggy's red shirt.
1. Red Shirt means that monsters are real
An unofficial theory, but a fun one, is that when you see Shaggy in a red shirt, the culprit of the investigation is not some crook in a mask, but rather a real monster or ghost. While this theory holds up for the episodes and specials where Red Shaggy encounters real monsters, but there are a few other times (specifically in Scooby-Doo and Scrappy Doo) where Shaggy encounters a real ghost or monster in his green shirt.
2. Red-Shirt Shaggy is stuck in a time loop
Hold on to your hats because this one is weird. Some fans believe that in Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf, where Shaggy is turned into a werewolf by Count Dracula; as Shaggy turns back into a human he gets stuck in a time vortex which is how he ends up as the video game alternate-reality Shaggy in Scooby-Doo and the Cyber Chase.
3. The studio ran out of green and had to use red instead
Some fans have theorized that the studio ran out of green paint or that green paint was more expensive than red. This theory doesn't hold up because in all of the Red-Shirt Shaggy episodes and features, there is green everywhere — green grass, green swamps, green ghouls! But no green for Shaggy? Seems unlikely.
4. Color blindness
Another fan theory is that Shaggy may have red-green color blindness, so to Shaggy both the green and the red shirt look the same. Who is with Shaggy the most when he wears these shirts? Scooby and Scrappy, who are DOGS and also cannot see red and green very well! This theory is so close to working but Daphne is also with Shaggy in The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo. It's hard to imagine Daphne, the fashionista of Mystery Inc., not mentioning Shaggy's new look.
4. They just wanted to update Shaggy's look
This reasoning is the most realistic, and most boring, explanation. The Scooby-Doo gang had been on TV for 16 years and needed to look more modern and relevent to an eighties audience. In The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, Shaggy's look changes, but so does Daphne's. Daphne's outfit and hair change into a more Charlie's Angels style look. A refreshed look for the 1980s is the most logical conclusion for Red-Shirt Shaggy, and then we got green shirt Shaggy back as they stepped back in time to A Pup Named Scooby-Doo.
The truth is we will never really know why Shaggy was given a red shirt for three years, but what we do know is that it confused us all.
