Animation Guild | We are 839 Digital Magazine
Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1203639
D E PA R T M E N T 39 KEYFRAME SPRING 2020 39 this paget: The gang added Scrappy-Doo to the group in 1979. whole storyboard section in a hotel room. It was quite a challenge." Along with working as a storyboard artist on more than 10 Scooby-Doo Direct-to-TV movies and Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, Amancio also draws for DC comics. But his heart belongs to Scooby: "I love the style. Sometimes when I'm working, I forget I'm not drawing for fun. Then I stop and go, I'm drawing Scooby-Doo!" Experimentation has its risks. Zac Moncrief was the supervising director on an adult show for Comedy Central when he was approached by executives at Warner Bros. in late 2013. "They informed me that they were looking to do a more comedy-driven version of Scooby-Doo, and wondered if I'd like to bring the experience I had directing on Phineas and Ferb to this new show," he says. For Be Cool, Scooby-Doo!, one of the more recent series in the franchise, Moncrief and his team played around with the familiar characters and "were able to broaden the scope of who they really are. The comedic approach I wanted to explore was more from character and the writing than from a broad visual style. I truly enjoyed diving in and creating engines that drove these characters, all starting from the nuggets of what we knew about each one from past series." This kind of experimentation, though, has its risks. Moncrief explains, "Familiarity plays a huge part, especially in something as universally known and loved as Scooby-Doo. I am so proud of the amount of true, diehard fans that finally gave this version a chance, and were able to see, and really enjoy, what we were trying to do. Once we won over the diehards, I knew that what we were doing was working. That's rewarding." "Scooby and the gang represent all that we are as human beings," he says. "Scooby and Shaggy are that inner voice that tells us something is off. And Fred, Daphne and Velma represent the other side of humanity that inevitability wants to get to the bottom of that injustice and make it right again. It's why Scooby will always be relevant and why it will always have an audience." A Scby-D Purist Prop designer Mark Bachand estimates that he's spent about one-third of his 25-year animation career working on Scooby-Doo projects, including seven Direct-to-TV movies and three series: What's New, Scooby-Doo?, Scooby- Doo! Mystery Incorporated and the current Scooby-Doo and Guess Who? While his Scooby journey began in the late 1990s, his work experiences were steeped in the show's origins. For the first Direct-to-TV movie Bachand worked on, he says, "[Producer] Scott Jeralds was instrumental in bringing Iwao back to the property. They were friends at Hanna-Barbera, and Scott said, 'Iwao's absolutely gotta be on this. He's the original designer. He knows the characters inside and out.' I've worked on a number of other projects that you realize are very special, but it makes it more so when you're working with the creative forces behind it." Another time, on "Scooby-Doo and the Legend of the Vampire," Bachand remembers how Jeralds and character designer Scott Awley "thought it would be a great idea if they could get all the original Scooby voice actors together, with the exception of Don Messick who had passed by that time. Along with Nicole Jaffe as Velma, Heather North as Daphne and Frank Welker voicing Scooby and Fred (who he continues to voice to this day), acclaimed Top 40 DJ Casey Kasem returned as Shaggy, and "it really did affect the chemistry." While Bachand might be considered a Scooby-Doo purist, he has enjoyed his moments of adding something new to the franchise. "I remember one Direct-to-TV "Sometimes when I'm working, I forget I'm not drawing for fun. Then I stop and go, I'm drawing Scooby-Doo!" – ALUIR AMANICO Left (Top): Getty Images. This page: Scooby-Doo (1982), RUBY SPEARS PRODUCTIONS / Ronald Grant Archive / Alamy Stock Photo