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The whirlwind production of the Scooby-Doo theme song
The classic theme song was created in a time crunch!
As far as theme songs go, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! towers above the rest. But did you know that this classic theme song was produced in less than a week? Animation and pop culture historian Marc Nobleman covered the production of the theme song on his blog's "Super '70s and '80s" series, where he interviewed the theme song's singers, producer, and surviving family of one of the writers. Based on these interviews, Nobleman discovered that the theme song was produced in a shockingly short amount of time.
It started when Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera selected David Mook and Ben Raleigh to write the theme song together. Mook had written other theme songs, including for Hanna-Barbera. Mook's wife, Rose Marie Mook, interviewed with Noblemania about her husband's role in creating the theme song and recalled, "Hanna-Barbera had this idea to do a cartoon show about a dog whose name was going to be Scooby. They called David and said we need a song and you're going to write it with Ben Raleigh, one of their freelance songwriters. We need an opening song. It's gotta be catchy."
Mook was given a picture of Scooby and then drove up to Palm Springs that Tuesday, wrote the song with Raleigh, and drove back down to LA to present it to Hanna-Barbera. According to Rose Marie, it took one day to write the song and present it, and she remembered it being on a Tuesday because "Everything good that's ever happened in my life has happened on a Tuesday."
The Scooby-Doo theme song was then produced by Danny Janssen, who had produced songs for other shows like The Partridge Family. Janssen had recently left his position as a teacher to produce music full-time, and he shared that his experience teaching is what led him to Hanna-Barbera, "I had an awful lot of fun teaching kids...The principal of my school said, 'Will you promise me you won't forget the children? You're so good with them.' Every year since, I've done something for kids, including series like Josie and the Pussycats and Scooby-Doo and The Partridge Family."
Danny Janssen quickly connected with A. Schroeder, a music publishing company, and they recommended Larry Marks to sing the theme song. Marks recalled, "We cut the tracks on Wednesday, and the show was on the air on Saturday...That was pretty quick. We knew it was going to be okay, but you don't want to cut it that close if you can avoid it."
Marks sang both the lead and background vocals, recording each part one at a time. The recording session was very fast-paced, but Marks was able to leave his mark on the theme song by improvising the line "Scooby Dooby Doo, here are you." The song was written on Tuesday, recorded on Wednesday, and on the air that Saturday for the premiere of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!
The song has stood the test of time, and Marks theorized, "I think because it was written by a hit songwriter. It had a different attraction to it. It was a little bit hipper." Marks also had a theory on why Scooby-Doo was such an instant hit with audiences, "I heard a theory why this show was so popular...It was the only show at the time that really had a plot with a real whodunit where kids had to think and pay attention. There was no other show like that."
