Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated (2010 — 2013)

Mystery Incorporated returns to the early days of Scooby and the gang, when they are still solving mysteries in their home town, though it makes multiple references to previous incarnations of the franchise. The series takes a tongue-in-cheek approach to the classic Scooby-Doo formula, with increasingly outlandish technology, skills and scenarios making up each villain’s story, and a different spin on the famous “meddling kids” quote at the end of every episode. Contrasting sharply with this, however, are two elements that have never been used in a Scooby-Doo series before: a serial format with an ongoing story arc featuring many dark plot elements that are treated with near-total seriousness, and ongoing relationship drama among the characters.

Fred Jones, Daphne Blake, Velma Dinkley, Shaggy Rogers and Scooby-Doo are a team of teenage mystery solvers who live in the small town of Crystal Cove, the self-proclaimed “Most Hauntedest Place on Earth”. The allegedly “cursed” town’s long history of strange disappearances and ghost and monster sightings form the basis for its thriving tourist industry; as such, the adults of the town (chief among them being Fred’s father Mayor Fred Jones Sr. and Sheriff Bronson Stone) are not happy that the kids are debunking all the supernatural goings-on that bring in so much revenue as the overwrought schemes of charlatans and criminals.