Bedlam in the Big Top

Bedlam in the Big Top is the tenth episode of the first season of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!
== Premise ==
The gang stumble upon a circus that is supposedly haunted by a ghost clown who hypnotizes people with a gold coin.
== Synopsis ==
Mystery Inc. is driving through the woods and encounter two carnies experiencing bike trouble. Samson the Strongman and Max the Midget introduce themselves, and explain they are leaving the circus because of strange happenings. Mystery Inc. goes to the circus and speaks with the manager, Mr. Barnstorm, who explained that there is a ghost clown haunting the premises and warns them to leave. Freddy, Daphne, Velma, and Shaggy leave, but Scooby is mistakenly left behind and hypnotized by the ghost clown with a gold coin.
The rest of Mystery Inc. return and split up to look for Scooby. Velma and Shaggy find Scooby balancing across the high wire in a trance and managed to save him, while Fred and Daphne go into the costume tent, where Fred is locked in a trunk by the clown, who then hypnotized Daphne. Scooby, Velma and Shaggy find her riding a unicycle and wearing a ballerina costume. They save her as well, thanks to the spray of an elephant, and rescue Freddy. Then the gang set up a trap to capture the ghost clown in a cage, but it backfires when the clown hypnotizes Shaggy and sets him taming lions. Scooby saves Shaggy and they flee, with the clown in pursuit. They manage to lead the clown into the cage, but he vanishes from inside it.
Fred's frustrated cry unlocks Shaggy's memory; the clown uses a gold coin to hypnotize his victims. Going out again, the clown tries to hypnotize both Shaggy and Scooby, but the two counter-act with a mirror (while closing their eyes) and trick the clown into hypnotizing himself into acting like a chimp. They lure the chimp-clown into a cage and then unmask him as Harry the Hypnotist. Harry used to be a hypnotist in his own act with the circus, but he was caught stealing and was fired and imprisoned as a result. He came back to get revenge and dressed up as the ghost clown to do so.
== Characters ==
Main characters:
* Mystery Inc.
** Scooby-Doo
** Shaggy Rogers
** Daphne Blake
** Fred Jones
** Velma Dinkley
Supporting characters:
* Samson the Strongman (only appearance)
* Max the Midget (only appearance)
* Mr. Barnstorm (only appearance)
Villains:
* Ghost Clown (only appearance)(Harry the Hypnotist's disguise)
* Harry the Hypnotist (only appearance)(no lines)(cameo)
Other characters:
* Elephants (only appearance)(no lines)
* Lion (only appearance)(no lines)
* Circus attendees (only appearance)(no lines)
== Locations ==
* Circus
== Objects ==
* Scooby Snack (mentioned)
* Super-duper Hero Sandwich
* Ghost Clown's gold coin
* Tightrope
* Trampoline
* Ladder
* Scooby's umbrella
* Balloons carrying Scooby
* Ghost Clown's darts
* Rubber ladder
* Trumpet
* Net
* Sousaphone
* Drums
* Bucket
* Whip
* Chair
* Ghost Clown's whistle
* Balloon copy of the Ghost Clown
* Tutu
* Mirrors
* Bananas
* Leash
* Rope restraining Harry the Hypnotist's arms, wrists, and ankles
* Child's balloon
== Vehicles ==
* Max the Midget and Samson the Strongman's tandem bicycle
* The Mystery Machine
* Daphne's unicycle
== Suspects ==
* None
=== Culprits ===
Culprit 	Motive/Reason
Harry the Hypnotist as the Ghost Clown	To get revenge on Mr. Barnstorm for firing him and having him sent to prison.
== Cast ==
Don Messick 	Scooby-Doo
Mr. Barnstorm
Max the Midget
Casey Kasem 	Shaggy Rogers
Frank Welker 	Fred Jones
Stefanianna Christopherson	Daphne Blake
Nicole Jaffe 	Velma Dinkley
John Stephenson 	Samson the Strongman
Barry Richards 	Ghost Clown
== Full credits ==
The following credits are how they are seen on-screen (or as close as possible).
Show
== Notes/Trivia ==
* In this episode, Shaggy states that Daphne cannot ride a bicycle, and he implies that he is good at track athletics.
* Mr. Barnstorm's name is a play on words; it means "to tour rural districts putting on shows, esp. theatrical, athletic, or acrobatic shows".
* This is the first time members of Mystery Inc. have been hypnotized; namely Scooby, Daphne, and Shaggy; Fred and Velma, on the other hand, are the only ones of the Mystery Inc. gang who do not get hypnotized.
* This marks the first time that the monster kidnaps not just Daphne, but also some members of the gang.
* The exciting circus music heard during Scooby's stunt is from Wacky Races, another Hanna-Barbera cartoon.
* This episode marks the first time that Shaggy is the one who devises a working plan which actually captures the villain.
* It is revealed that Scooby can speak and understand the language of the elephants, as he was able to speak with one of the them to squirt water and wake up Daphne (who was hypnotized).
* Harry The Hypnotist looks very similar to Pietro, the culprit from the previous episode "The Backstage Rage".
* Coincidentally, in a trance Shaggy called a lion Simba, decades before Disney's The Lion King, which features a lion named Simba as the protagonist. This can be easily explained, as "Simba" is the Swahili word for "lion".
=== Miscellaneous ===
* Disguises: None.
* Traps:
* Scooby Snacks bribe: None. (They're mentioned, but it isn't followed through.)
* "Ruh-roh" count:
* "Zoinks" count:
* "Jeepers" count:
=== Adaptations ===
* Gold Key Comics adapted this in Scooby Doo... Where Are You! #9, renaming it to The Phantom Clown. Differences include:
** Velma saving the day.
* The Ghost Clown is a past villain of the theatrical Mystery Inc. as revealed in Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed, where its costume has been put on display at the Coolsonian Criminology Museum.
* Elements were borrowed for video game Scooby-Doo! Who's Watching Who?, where Samson S. Samson wanted to expose his bad boss by haunting the grounds of Sugarland as the Ghost Clown.
* The Ghost Clown cameos during the montage sequence before the closing credits of Scooby-Doo! Curse of the Lake Monster.
* The episode is adapted in the book Big Top Bandit, which is part of the series, Scooby-Doo! Mini Mysteries, published by Picture Window Books.
=== Animation mistakes and/or technical glitches ===
* When Velma reacts to the tandem bicycle going out of control, Daphne's lips move (or at least just barely).
* Samson points off to his left, saying that Max flew off the bicycle in that direction, yet Scooby finds him hanging from a tree off to the strongman's right.
* Velma's mouth doesn't move when cheering for Scooby after he rescues Max.
* It takes mere moments for the rest of the gang to get out the van and out of its reach, after Scooby saves Max.
* At first, Max is standing behind Scooby, with Samson next to him, then suddenly Max is by Scooby's side, and Samson is gone.
* While unhypontizing Scooby when the Ghost Clown says you shall not work in this circus his eye sockets turn yellow
* When Shaggy says, "Don't tell me that there are two of them", his head is up instead of right.
* The Clown's lips are colored red, but when hypnotizing Daphne, they suddenly turn grey. It does flicker red at the beginning of his sentence, though.
* Perhaps for more detail, Daphne is not only given white sclera, but also blue irises when being hypnotized by the Ghost Clown.
* When the Ghost Clown yells "Give me back that whistle", the black part of his costume is colored red.
=== Inconsistencies/continuity errors and/or goofs/oddities ===
* Samson hangs onto the bicycle handlebars, keeping his arms in exactly the same position, even though the handlebars are no longer attached to the bike.
* It is revealed in this episode that Daphne can't even ride a bicycle. However, she rode one in the The New Scooby-Doo Movies episode The Dynamic Scooby-Doo Affair, very proficiently. Logically, she could have practiced a lot since then.
* Velma's fine with clowns in this episode, which contradicts the later produced What's New, Scooby-Doo? episode A Terrifying Round with a Menacing Metallic Clown, in which claims she's had a phobia of clowns since her 5th birthday.
* How did the gang not even realize that Scooby is not with them when they were leaving the circus?
* When the gang (minus Scooby) were leaving the circus with the Mystery Machine going from left to right it is obvious that the animators simply flipped the cells of it going from right to left. Unfortunately, this results in the steering wheel being on the left side and the gang being in the opposite positions (Fred, Daphne, Velma, and Shaggy from left to right) from where they should be when the animators change to the front view.
* The Ghost Clown was controlling Scooby like a puppet but that is impossible to do since he just hypnotized him.
* The Clown attempted to convince the gang that there were two of them when they attempted to capture him. The Clown they captured was a balloon that was deflated to make it appear as though the Clown had disappeared into thin air. However, wouldn't the gang have seen the balloon in the cage once it had deflated? (Perhaps they did not check until after they had caught him.)
* Right before the Clown is finally captured, Scooby and Shaggy hold up a mirror to prevent themselves from being hypnotized. The Clown should have stopped the hypnotism chant when he saw the mirror; instead, he hypnotizes himself.
* Mr. Barnstorm states that the lions had begun acting like scared kittens, yet the one Shaggy tames seems to be acting perfectly normal. It is possible the Ghost Clown reversed his hypnosis on that lion, assuming this is why the lions were acting scared.
* Shaggy says about going back to the hero sandwich in the cage (that the Ghost Clown balloon would be caught in), but there would be no reason why it would be there, especially since he would've surely eaten it not long after getting it.
* Shaggy, Velma, and Scooby hold the net tightly to stop Daphne and when it doesn't work, Shaggy and Scooby are thrown on top of musical instruments, but why wasn't Velma thrown with them too?
* Daphne says she hopes Scooby doesn't try the high wire again, even though she wasn't on-screen with Velma and Shaggy when it happened. It's possible she peeked inside the tent off-screen and saw Scooby on the high wire.
* It is not revealed how the Ghost Clown/Harry the Hypnotist was brought out of his trance.
* At the end of the episode, a young boy in the audience is inexplicably holding a balloon shaped similar to Scooby's head.
== In other languages ==
Language 	Name 	Meaning
Brazilian Portuguese	Confusão na Elevação	Confusion at the Elevation
French 	Le Fantôme du Clown
Quel cirque sous le chapiteau	The Ghost of the Clown
What a Circus Under the Tent
Greek 	Ο Κλόουν του Τσίρκου
Παλαβομάρες σε Σχοινί	The Clown of the Circus
Crack-braining on a Wire
Hungarian 	A bolond bohóc 	The Crazy Clown
== Home media ==
* Classic Scooby-Doo: Foul Play in Funland VHS released by Turner Home Entertainment on August 6, 1996.
* Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!: The Complete 1st and 2nd Seasons DVD set released by Warner Home Video on March 16, 2004.
* Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!: The Complete 1st and 2nd Seasons DVD set released by Warner Home Video on June 20, 2005.
* Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!: Volume 3 - Hello Mummy DVD released by Warner Home Video on September 1, 2009.
* Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!: The Complete Series (limited edition) DVD set released by Warner Home Video on November 10, 2010.
* Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!: The Complete Series DVD set released by Warner Home Video on November 21, 2011.
* Big Top Scooby-Doo! DVD released by Warner Home Video on October 9, 2012.
* Big Top Scooby-Doo! Blu-ray Disc released by Warner Home Video on October 9, 2012.
* Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!: The Complete Series DVD set released by Warner Home Video on November 13, 2012.
* Scooby-Doo! and the Circus Monsters DVD released by Warner Home Video on March 12, 2013.
== Quotes ==
Ghost Clown: (hypnotising Daphne) You will pay attention for a time... and soon your thoughts shall all be mine. Watch the pretty coin of gold, and you will do as you are told.
Mr. Barnstorm: (upon seeing who the Ghost Clown really is) I know that man. He’s Harry the Hypnotist. He had an act with us, but we caught him stealing and sent him to prison.
Velma: Looks like he wanted to get revenge.
Daphne: As the Ghost Clown, he knew he could ruin your circus.
Fred: He sure had us fooled with this balloon copy of the Ghost Clown. You see, he inflated it with this gas cartridge, and it disappeared when he deflated it.
== Gallery ==
File:Scooby Being Hypnotize.png
File:Harry the Hypnotist.png