Scooby-Doo Coloring Pages

Every Scooby-Doo story runs on the same happy recipe: a spooky place, a strange figure, a lot of running, a few clues, a trap that goes slightly wrong, and a mask pulled off at the end. These Scooby-Doo coloring pages follow that recipe from the first creaky floorboard to the last sandwich.

Scooby sniffs a trail of crumbs down a dusty haunted hallway, tiptoes past a row of closed doors, squeezes through a kitchen pet door, looks at his reflections in a hall of mirrors and hides under a tablecloth in a small café. He gobbles candy on a haunted banquet table, hugs a sandwich as big as he is, balances a tray of sandwiches in a bow tie and puts on a detective cap to blow bubbles from a pipe. A big portrait of Scooby smiling, collar tag and all, is the page to start with.

The rest of the gang has pages of their own. Velma kneels with her magnifying glass over a wet footprint, Fred pulls a dust sheet off a grand piano, Daphne climbs a rope ladder into a barn loft, and Shaggy peeks out from behind a suit of armor. Together they stare up at a sandwich stacked taller than any of them, follow footprints across the sand, and point at a masked knight caught in a rope trap. Shaggy and Scooby ride a runaway trolley, peek out of an old mine behind a loaded minecart, share a giant sandwich in a diner booth, and hide inside a horse costume on a theater stage while Fred looks on. An old diving suit standing on the dock gives Scooby a good reason to be nervous.

The newer pages give every member of the gang more time on the case. Scooby-Doo balances a tower of donuts on his nose, follows paw prints through the woods, spins in circles, digs by an old shed, drives the van, hugs a giant bone and gives Fred a high five. Shaggy hides in a trash can, digs into a stack of pancakes, shakes as a ghost peeks from behind a curtain, juggles cookies down a hallway, snores in a hammock and raids the fridge at midnight. Fred studies a muddy handprint, fixes the van's engine, readies a rope trap, shines a flashlight around a doorway and rows a boat. Velma reads in the library, dusts a vase for fingerprints, solves a puzzle box and takes notes on a rock, and Daphne sketches the haunted mansion, climbs through a trapdoor, swings from a chandelier and poses beside the Mystery Machine. Scooby celebrates every holiday too: a jack o'lantern and a witch costume, a Christmas tree and a Santa hat, a birthday cake, an Easter basket, a heart balloon and a snowman.

Mystery Inc. and its dog

Scooby-Doo first appeared on television in September 1969, in Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, made by the Hanna-Barbera studio. The show was created by Joe Ruby and Ken Spears, and the look of Scooby himself came from the designer Iwao Takamoto, who started from a Great Dane and then turned everything a breeder would value upside down: a sloping back, bowed legs, a small chin. That is why he is so easy to recognize and so much fun to draw.

The gang has barely changed since:

• Scooby-Doo, the Great Dane who is scared of everything and will do almost anything for a Scooby Snack.
• Shaggy Rogers, his best friend, just as hungry and just as scared.
• Velma Dinkley, who finds the clues and keeps losing her glasses.
• Daphne Blake, who has a talent for walking into trouble and out of it.
• Fred Jones, who leads the group and builds the traps.

They drive the Mystery Machine, a painted van, from one spooky case to the next. And the monster is always a person in a costume, which is why the show has been a gentle first mystery for young viewers for decades.

The gang's colors

The characters wear the same clothes in nearly every episode, so each one is easy to get right:

• Scooby: light brown with black spots, a blue collar and a gold diamond tag.
• Shaggy: a green shirt, brown trousers and sandy brown hair.
• Velma: an orange turtleneck, a red skirt, orange knee socks and square black glasses.
• Daphne: a purple dress, a green scarf, a purple headband and red hair.
• Fred: a white sweater, an orange ascot, blue trousers and blond hair.

The Mystery Machine is blue and green with orange flowers. The haunted places look best in dark blues, purples and grays, which make the gang's bright clothes stand out even more.

Big faces and busy haunted houses

The simplest pages keep Scooby large with little around him, like the portrait and the giant sandwich. Quick to color, above the grid, begins with:

• Daphne's trapdoor
• Scooby spins
• Giant bone

The detailed pages fill the scene with floorboards, cobwebs, candles and bricks. Lots of detail begins with:

• Caught in the trap
• Sharing at the diner
• Scooby's Easter basket

Solve a mystery while you color

These pages make a good rainy-day game. Pick a page with a clue on it, like Velma and the footprint or the gang on the beach, and ask a child to invent the mystery: who left the footprint, what the monster looks like, and who will be under the mask at the end. Then color the "unmasking" page last. A handful of crackers as Scooby Snacks makes the afternoon complete.

Printing a mystery

Every page is a free A4 PDF drawn at 300 dpi. A4 prints at full size, and on US Letter "fit to page" shrinks the drawing by about six percent so every ear and every sandwich stays on the paper. The printing guide shows the setting. Add to pack gathers a whole case into one file. More classic cartoons are in the Looney Tunes coloring pages and the Curious George coloring pages, more dogs in the dog coloring pages, and more spooky fun in the Halloween coloring pages.