SUBMITTED BY Neville Longbottom

June 11, 2002 — With this week's release of a live action Scooby Doo being highly anticipated by fans off all ages, the Chicago-Sun Times decided to take a look back on the history of Scooby Doo.

"Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?" premiered on Sept. 3, 1969, on CBS--but it almost didn't make it on the air. The network's children's programming executive at the time, Fred Silverman, wanted to create an animated show centered around a group of teens who travel around and solve mysteries. The initial concept combined elements from "I Love a Mystery," a popular radio mystery from the '40s, and used the characters from another CBS show, "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis," as archtypes for the show's mystery-solving protagonists. Hanna-Barbera studios did the initial storyboards for the series, at the time titled "Who's Scared?" There was just one problem. CBS executives in New York turned the project down because they felt it was too scary.

Hanna-Barbera tinkered with the show's concept before deciding to add a talking great dane. Silverman is credited with naming him after listening to Frank Sinatra's recording of "Strangers in the Night," where the singer scats "scooby dooby doo." Barbera told Cartoon Network that the decision changed the tone of the show, emphasizing more comedy. After toying with the title "Mysteries Five" they finally settled on "Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?" and the rest is animation history--sort of.

To read more on the trials of keeping it on the air, click below.