What is the origin of Scooby-Doo's name?

What is the origin of Scooby-Doo's name? - Person Holding Brown Shoe With Water

According to Wikipedia, Scooby-Doo's name comes from Frank Sinatra's scat line from the song Strangers in the Night. The song was released in 1966 and the first Scooby-Doo cartoon was released in 1969.

However, Sinatra's line is "doo-be-doo-be-doo" and has no "scoo" part as far as I can hear. I wonder where this came from. The 1968 song Picture Book by The Kinks has a line "a-scooby-dooby-doo" which is much closer to Scooby-Doo's name (and practically identical to his catchphrase "scooby-dooby-doo").

Was Scooby-Doo's name inspired more directly by somebody other than Sinatra? Perhaps The Kinks?



Best Answer

Here is a video of Fred Silverman, CBS' head of daytime programming back in 1969, discussing the creation of Scooby-Doo. Starting at about 1:40, he describes hearing "Strangers in the Night" while on a plane and conceiving the Scooby-Doo name on the spot:

On the plane, I couldn't sleep -- y'know, it was a Red-Eye, and I'm listening to music -- and as we're landing, as we're going in for the landing, Frank Sinatra comes on, and I hear him say "Scooby-dooby-doo", and it's at that point I said, "Yeah, that's it! We'll take the dog, we'll call him Scooby-Doo, move him up front, and it'll be the dog show!"

So this is about as authoritative as you can get: Scooby-Doo's name was inspired by the Frank Sinatra song, and not the Kinks song. As you note in the question, and as others have noted in the comments, "scooby-dooby-doo" may not have been the actual lyric, but having been listening to it through tinny 1960s speakers, Silverman clearly misheard it.




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What does Scooby-Doo stand for?

Definition of 'scooby doo' 1. something that helps to solve a problem or unravel a mystery. 2. See not to have a clue.




More answers regarding what is the origin of Scooby-Doo's name?

Answer 2

Fred Silverman's explanation cited in F1Krazy's answer has always suffered from the fact - as noted in the comments - that Sinatra sings 'doo be doo be doo'.

(Frank, incidentally, reputedly described Strangers in the Night as 'the worst f*ing song I've ever heard' - but that's neither here nor there.)

Scoubidou is the name of a 1959 hit (in France) for Sacha Distel, who had to settle a copyright claim by Abel Meeropol, the songwriter of the original from which it had been adapted without permission.

(Something else that's neither here nor there, is that Meeropol was the adoptive father of the orphaned children of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.)

It's not implausible that somebody wishing to avoid copyright problems might go to some effort to establish an alternative narrative.

This is, of course, entirely unsubstantiated.

Answer 3

As a boy, Scoobydo was a knotting craft fad. We'd make these squared off plaited things with colorful, flexible wires. Nice. With that in mind, I googled, and got "Scoubidou (Craftlace, scoobies) is a knotting craft, originally aimed at children. It originated in France, where it became a fad in the late 1950s and has remained popular. It is named after the 1958 song of the same name by the French singer Sacha Distel." So who knows? Dooby doo Sinatra style, mistakenly heard as Scooby doo and voila! A hound is born!

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