Shaggy & Scooby-Doo Get a Clue!

Due to internal struggles at Time Warner, DeLaurentis was only allowed to use characters associated with the Hanna-Barbera library and was offered Scooby-Doo as the previous series, What's New Scooby-Doo, was considered too similar to the original series and wanted something more broad.

Phibes was created because DeLaurentis was a fan of over-the-top villains and specifically chose Jeff Bennett to voice him during development.

DeLaurentis commented on this; admitting that he was not a fan of the look of the final series, calling it "dark" compared to previous incarnations, "they just assigned those people to me… the unit production managers are literally the only people in the production that have no skill set [sic] are given this sort of leeway to drive people crazy." Eric Radomski was in charge of the design of the series.

This is also the first series in which Casey Kasem does not voice Shaggy, but is instead done by Scott Menville, although Scott Innes or Billy West portrayed the character in many of the Scooby-Doo animated movies made for television or home video.

However, in this series, Kasem does voice Shaggy's rich and on-the-run Uncle Albert.

Much like The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo on ABC in 1985 (which had actual ghosts and monsters) and the Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo shorts in 1980, this show is different from the usual "crooks masquerading as ghosts and monsters" series.