MovieChat Forums > Scooby Doo, Where Are You! (1969) Discussion > How Old are they supposed to be? (facts ...

How Old are they supposed to be? (facts and opinions welcome)

posted 17 years ago by Error_PC_LOAD_LETTER
15 replies | jump to latest

How old are these characters supposed to be? High School? College? Slightly out of college?

Fred, Daphne, Velma, Shaggy -- I work with (school age) kids and the 'debate' came up.

The consenses seems to be they are Juniors and Seniors in High School, (about half the children I work with say the scooby doo characters are in college) but the lifestyle they live is more like college students or young adults from college to the mid-to-late '20s.

High Schoolers are NOT that mature or responsible (as seen in this show), being more concerned with their self-image. -- nor that free and independent. How could High Schoolers cruise the country and solve mysteries?

In all honesty they seem mid '20s to me, though most people on the show refer to them as 'kids' putting them in the teenage bracket.

Fred seems the most mature and about 25. The others seem in the college age bracket. What say?

How old ARE THEY SUPPOSED TO BE -- and/or What Age do they SEEM LIKE to you?

And 'cause' never was the reason for the evening,
--Or the Tropic of Sir Galahad.

[–] dirni 17 years ago

I had a Scooby calendar years ago and I remember it saying.

Fred - 18
Daphne - Sweet 16
Velma - 15
Scooby - 7
Shaggy - 17

They're in their early 20s in the direct to video cartoons ie. Zombie Island, Witch's Ghost, Alien Invaders etc.

[–] Error_PC_LOAD_LETTER 17 years ago

Well, they might be able to solve a few local mysteries at those ages -- like, who stole the bubblegum machines from Ed's Market.

But for all the adventures we see on these cartoons, they'd have to be runaways.

And 'cause' never was the reason for the evening,
--Or the Tropic of Sir Galahad.

[–] 17 years ago

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[–] 17 years ago

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[–] ItsEddieHaskellBeyotch 16 years ago

They were definitely in their teens in the earliest episodes of "Scooby Doo" but in the later ones (particularly the Scrappy episodes) they're clearly either in college and in their early twenties.

"A commitment to cinema means to lead a technically deviant lifestyle."

[–] SVU14_1 16 years ago

Well it's obvious how old they are in "A Pup Named Scooby Doo"

But in "Scooby Doo Where Are You?" I think they're supposed to be Seniors in High School. Remember the Creeper episode: they were attending a School Dance (conveniently set in a barn in the middle of nowhere where a Creeper was running around)

However in the New Scooby Doo Movies, with all the guest stars...in the episode that Tim Conway guest stars, the gang visit Velma's old university meaning that by 1973, the gang was supposed to be out of college.

In newer 80's episodes, Daphne is a newspaper reporter.

So my guess is the gang's age changes from 17/18 to around late 20's.

[–] 16 years ago

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[–] jessica_sites_8 14 years ago

They are definitely in high school - 16 or 17, maybe. I don't think they would be in high school and solve mysteries - when I've seen descriptions of the show stating "HIGH SCHOOL kids solve spooky mysteries with their Great Dane."

In the newer Scooby movies (Alien Invaders, Zombie Island, etc) and cartoons, they are definitely in their early-mid '20s.

Just my opinion though, I don't have any rock-solid facts.

"Oh, but Auntie Em, there's no place like home!"

[–] lnyk 13 years ago

I thought they were on school break ,and solved crimes during the summer.

[–] Insomniac_Jack 13 years ago

its a cartoon, but in my head i imagined the same scenario that happens in hundreds of movies and tv shows: people playing teenagers who haven't seen 21 in 10 or 15 years.

but to give my real opinion, i figured they were either all seniors or JUST OUT of high school. the reason they're always stumbling across these mysteries all over the country is that they travel for one reason or another. most episodes they're either leaving late from a rock concert in god-knows-where, or they're visiting a distant realative who lives in the middle of god-knows-where.

[–] Oddark123 12 years ago

I always thought they were as other said just on the verge of getting out of high school when the series starts.

By the Scooby Doo Show years they are traveling around the world visiting lots of friends who are studying abroad, so i assumed that during the New Scooby Movies was their college time. Velma was really smart maybe she graduated early for the Tim Conway episode

Then as time went on they got older.

If we are assuming What's New Scooby Doo is still continuing Hanna Barbera's strange sense of cannon being holy sometimes and nothing more than a holy sheet of paper, then i'd say it's one of those strange time stream damage moments like how the real adventures of Jonny quest's second season comes after the first, yet the fact the kids went back in age.

Overall i'd say by the end of the Zombie Island/Witch's Ghost/Alien Invaders/Cyber Chase they are all barely reaching 30 and then they get a little time stream damage to go back to a middle 20s for What's New and the following movies.

Personally i'm not including Get a Clue into the HB world cannon, nor obviously not Mystery Incorporated that's in it's own world.

I refuse to argue on IMDB until the general populous actually uses their brains

[–] snsurone 12 years ago

I'm less concerned with their ages than with the fact that they NEVER change their clothes!
You can almost smell their BO on TV.

Of course, the same was true of all those cheap Hanna-Barbera toons: ARCHIE, JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS, etc.

[–] as537 12 years ago

Although the first Scooby Doo where Are You episode,What a Night For a Knight was broadcast Sept 13,1969,a note Daphne reads has June 10,1969 on it. A really specific date.So the action in the first season is in the same broadcst year.Fred is old enough to drive a van,and a yacht in three episodes,but they're still in school for the first two seasons.So they're all about 16 at least.Scooby is full size,so he might be as young as one when the series starts.The DVD "third season" episodes run up to November 11,1979.So that's ten years.Scooby is eleven,the gang are in their latte twenties.Large dogs like Scooby rarely live much older than that,so the original spans the lifetime of the original dog.Scooby passes away,and is replaced by a Scoobert Doo,a puppy he sired through Scooby Dee. All other series exist on different timelines.

[–] b-touch 11 years ago

From interviews with the creators (Joe Ruby and Ken Spears), and the folks who work on Scooby-Doo: Mystery Inc. and had to unearth the original 1968-69 development material, the kids are juniors and seniors in high school (the ages given in an above post are correct).

Parents, school, etc. were removed from the situation during development (save for "Scooby-Doo and a Mummy Too") for the sake of run-time, story structure (read: setting up an easy-to-duplicate template for stories) and ease of animation (less characters).

[–] PopSixSquish 10 years ago

Perhaps they were supposed to be high school teens in the show's fictional world, but in reality, they'd definitely be mid-20s-ish. That's how they look and act--and for real, a bunch of high schoolers just dropped out of school to drive all over the country with a dog, living out of a van and solving mysteries?? Like you said...pretty danged implausible.