Scooby-Doo

"Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?" — Thirty Years Before Hallmark, Fifty-Four Years Since

Scooby-Doo Where Are You! premiered on CBS on September 13, 1969 — created by Ken Spears and Joe Ruby for Hanna-Barbera Productions, featuring a Great Dane named Scooby-Doo who travels with four teenagers (Fred, Daphne, Velma, and Shaggy) in a psychedelically painted van called the Mystery Machine, solving mysteries that always turn out to be criminals in disguise rather than actual supernatural events. Scooby was voiced by Don Messick from the show's debut through 1997. The show has run in various forms continuously for over five decades, making it one of the longest-running animated franchises in television history.

Hallmark began producing Scooby-Doo ornaments in 1999 — thirty years after the show's debut, as the Henry Ford notes in its description of the 1999 Lunch Box Set. The founding entry was not a straightforward figure ornament but something more culturally specific: a pressed-tin lunch box set with a matching thermos, illustrated by Rich LaPierre, the lunch box opening and closing like the real thing, Scooby and Shaggy encountering a ghost on the front and the full gang on the back. The thermos coordinating. The lunch box measuring culture rather than just the cartoon. It is in The Henry Ford. The 2001 Mystery Machine — Robert Chad's van — is also in The Henry Ford. Two of the twelve Scooby-Doo Keepsakes are in the museum that holds Rosa Parks' bus.

Tips for the Collection

• 01
  The 1999 Lunch Box Set is two ornaments — display both pieces together. The 1999 founding entry (QX6997) is a set of two pieces: the pressed-tin lunch box (with the latch that opens and closes, Scooby and Shaggy on the front, the gang on the back) and the matching thermos. Both are part of the same entry and should be displayed on adjacent branches or together on a single wide branch. The lunch box without the thermos is incomplete.
• 02
  Display the 1999 Lunch Box and 2001 Mystery Machine together as the Henry Ford pair. Two of the twelve Scooby-Doo Keepsakes are in the permanent collections of The Henry Ford museum — the 1999 Lunch Box Set (Rich LaPierre) and the 2001 Mystery Machine (Robert Chad). Together they represent the earliest and most culturally recognized entries in the collection. Display them prominently near each other as the founding pair acknowledged by the museum.
• 03
  The 2005 "Speak! Scooby-Doo" Magic Sound needs accessible placement. The QXI8905 Magic Sound ornament plays Scooby's voice when pressed — position it at a reachable height on an outer branch. Nothing says Christmas party more than pressing a button and hearing Scooby speak from the tree.
• 04
  All 12 Scooby-Doo Hallmark ornaments — 1999 through 2023 — are at Already Christmas. The lunch box, the Mystery Machine, Shaggy in a Santa hat, the Magic Sound, and Scooby clutching Shaggy at the sight of another ghost in 2023. Twenty-four years. Twelve ornaments. Ruh-roh-raggy.