The Scooby-Doo Project is a 1999 American live-action/animated found footage horror comedy television Halloween special satirising The Blair Witch Project and the Scooby-Doo franchise. It aired during Cartoon Network's Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! marathon on October 31, 1999, broadcast in small segments during commercial breaks, with the segments re-aired in their completed form, with an extended ending, at the end of the marathon. The special won an Annie Award.
Development
In 1999, when three different Scooby-Doo marathons were scheduled for October, three Cartoon Network animators got assigned to create individual packaging and promotion for them. When the film The Blair Witch Project became a major success in August, it resulted in the three of them requesting if they were allowed to pool together their resources to make a satire of the cultural phenomenon. They put together a short proof of concept video consisting of the character Daphne running through the woods and the higher ups at the network approved the idea.
The script was written and produced to air in sketch form within intro and outro bumps across the programming stunt, with the whole content still making sense when compiled together after the fact. The budget given for original animation was limited, so the animators made sure to get all of the characters from the back as part of the package deal; a lot of lipflap was used several times over. The mockumentary-style suburban neighborhood interviews were filmed at one of the producer's mother and fathers' house and both of them appear in the final product. The forest scenes were filmed in the backyard of the home. They all drove up there after regular work hours to stage the tents, piles, and sticks. All live-action footage was shot on Mini-DV. There was also a set of scenes at a drive-in theater which was not included in the marathon. The car used for the Mystery Machine was on a promotional tour in Canada at the time, so a couple of the producers involved flew up and got that footage in a day. The press conference footage was filmed in a conference room by the cafeteria in the middle of a workday. The deputy in the background was played by a programming exec who had worked at several of Cartoon Network's major shows in the last 20 years, and several more from the company who were at the office that day did the voice acting for the press people shouting questions.
The voice cast of the Scooby Gang was recorded over the phone from Los Angeles, and was the same team that was making Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island at around the same time. The whole thing was put together at Turner Studios in Atlanta. The crew was somewhat stricken with panic; they noticed many other people started doing Blair Witch parodies for fall TV premieres on other networks, meaning they had beat them to air, but expressed relief when the press started crowning their special as one of the better ones when it finally premiered. Due to how well received the work was, it ended up being the excess over programming agreed to play the whole special strung together already at the end of the last night.
Plot
Standing outside the Mystery Machine, Velma introduces each member of Mystery Inc. and explains that she is documenting one of their new mysteries.
The footage cuts to the gang's interviews with locals of Casper County, each describing the monster reported to be haunting the woods. The final interview presented is with an elderly woman who warns them not to enter the location. The gang arrives at the woods regardless, with Shaggy noting that the woods look "more realistic" than their own, cartoon woods. When they arrive at the cemetery inside of the woods, the place where the county's curse began, Shaggy is horrified to learn that they will be sleeping nearby. Velma proceeds to explain the curse, but is drowned out by Shaggy and Scooby.