151A Scratch

## Scratch

**Scratch** (later **Scratch McGee**) is one of the two titular main protagonists (alongside Molly McGee) of *The Ghost and Molly McGee*. He is a fussy, short-tempered, but funny ghost who is one of Molly's best friends.

## Personality

Scratch is a grumpy, anti-heroic ghost whose joy comes from spreading misery. When one of his spells backfired, he finds himself forever cursed in Molly's presence. He is described by Molly to be lazy, grumpy, and hungry. Additionally, before the McGee family arrived in Brighton, he was largely a loner and greatly values his privacy, showing tremendous embarrassment and ire whenever Molly cuts into his personal time. Despite being bound to her for all eternity, Scratch remains determined to scare Molly and her family away for good.

Later on, in the series however, he seems to start to warm up to Molly and her family, showing a softer, almost parental stance towards the McGee family, stating he's a "McGee adjacent" and returning their affection.

Regarding him always being hungry, he is indeed a massive glutton that will drastically do anything just to grab himself lots of treats and stuff his stomach full, even it means being underhanded such as stealing. It is revealed in "Festival of Lights" that he has a soft spot for fried foods in general, and in Chibi Tiny Tales, he consumed the entire world believing it was a piece of candy.

While it may not look like it, deep down Scratch is very insecure and self conscious about what others think of him, especially those he cares about. For this reason, he often lies and tells half truths about himself.

In "Not So Honest Abe", he lies to Molly about knowing Abraham Lincoln because he didn't want Molly to find out how he is ¨a loser in the Ghost World¨. It's hinted that he is embarrassed of his unpopularity among other ghosts.

Another example of his insecurities is in "Friend-Off", where he admitted to Libby that he was rude to her because he was afraid that Molly would rather hang out with Libby than with him. This shows that Scratch suffers from some abandonment issues, probably due to his friendless background.

## Appearance

Scratch is a light blue ghost. He has green teeth, a large light blue nose (similar to Squidward's from SpongeBob SquarePants), yellow-green eyes with small black pupils and a purple tongue. He has wrinkles on his forehead, inner cheeks and under his eyes. Scratch's body is translucent and typically appears lumpy but he is able to change in shape and size when he wants to, for example when attempting to scare Molly and her family. He has been shown to be able to give himself legs and manifest bugs onto his body.

## Powers and Abilities

As a ghost, Scratch possesses a myriad of supernatural powers.

* **Levitation:** He can float off the ground and fly fast enough to nearly keep up with a jet airplane.
* **Telekinesis:** He can move people and objects without touching them. Upon meeting Molly for the first time, he used this ability to force her to leave his attic.
* **Intangibility:** He can move through solid objects.
* **Ectoplasmic Constructs:** He can form items out of ectoplasm, such as a pencil and notepad.
* **Invisibility:** He can render himself invisible to most others, except to animals and members of the McGee family.
	+ **Selective Invisibility:** He can choose who is able to see him, shown when he reluctantly agrees to reveal himself to Libby.
* **Shapeshifting:** Being made of ectoplasm, he can manipulate his body into any shape he desires. He mainly uses this ability to appear scarier, form extra arms, and can turn into a fully functioning human leg. Also, he has demonstrated this power when he turned into a bat in ”Mazel Tov, Libby!”.
* **Elasticity:** His body and limbs can be stretched seemingly without limit. Molly exploits this by using his arm to pull him towards her.
* **Regeneration:** His body is made of a seemingly limitless supply of ectoplasmic goo. This is first seen when he angrily covered Molly and her family in ectoplasm, showing no ill effects afterwards.
* **Curse inducement:** He can curse anyone to be haunted by him for an eternity. However, it has the opposite effect on Molly, who sees it as an opportunity to have an eternal best friend. Apparently, he's also capable of doing other curses such as preventing someone from saying certain words until midnight (like when he made it so Molly couldn't say "no" and he couldn't say "yes" just to settle a bet on who'd be better off with this limitation), but it wasn't until after both found out the downside of that particular curse that Scratch realized it is possible to switch the effect of the "Yes/No" curse until it wears off.
* **Possession/Overshadowing:** He can possess and control people and inanimate objects to varying degrees. On Molly's first day at school, he possessed Andrea to convince the other students to accept Molly and Libby and not bully them. Later, he took control of the Lemmings' equipment to help them win the state championship.
* **Invulnerability:** As he is already dead, he cannot be hurt or killed by conventional means and poisonous substances have no effect on him. On Molly's camping trip in episode “Howlin' Harriet”, he consumed several poison berries with no harmful effects.
* **Portal creation:** He can create and travel through portals to the ghost world.
* **4th Wall Awareness:** Seen only in musical numbers, Scratch is somewhat aware he is a fictional character. He attempted to personally rewind the online video the show's intro song was being played on, without success, then later asks the audience if his tongue is burned at the end of his number in "Festival of Lights". This is played for a joke and not genuine as this mindset resets only seconds later.
* **Teleportation**: He can move instantaneously from one location to another in a puff of mist. This is first seen in “First Day Frights” when he puffed to open the door and puffed on stage when Molly tried taking Andrea to the nurse’s office, but didn’t go as planned. Also, he can poof items he wants and poof them away whenever he wants like in episode “Getting the Band(shell) Back Together” when he poofs himself a pair of star shaped sunglasses to make him cool and poof them away.
* **Enhanced strength**: Despite being a ghost, Scratch is deceptively strong. While helping rebuild the Brighton Bandshell, he was able to lift and carry three concrete blocks and an old man at the same time.
* **Transmutation**: Seen during his gladiator fight with Libby, Scratch turns a portrait of Molly and himself into a ghostly broadsword. It is unknown if he can do this in real life.
* **Swordsmanship**: In "Friend-Off," Scratch demonstrates some skill with a sword, and manages to defend himself against Libby armed with a giant weaponized friendship bracelet. While this particular skill is mostly used in a fantasy sequence, it is shown in a way that hints that his swordsmanship might be genuine, as he had held his own until he needed to stop and catch his breath, and then continue the fight.
* **Size Alteration**: Scratch can adjust his size at will. He mainly uses this to remain undetected and enter his dollhouse.
* **Duplication**: He can create multiple versions of himself. In "Scratch the Surface," he demonstrates this skill when he was singing with Molly about keeping his secret from Libby, creating up to six clones of himself.
* **Absorbancy:** According to Molly in "Festival of Lights", ghosts don't even go to the bathroom, and yet no matter how much Scratch eats (and he can eat so much that a large stack of latkes seem to be his limit), the food inside of him always manages to disappear sooner or later, leaving him able to return to his usual default size, albeit with a larger "belly" for a while.

## Weaknesses:

* Animals can see him even if he’s invisible and sometimes attack and injure him, as shown in "Mama's Gotta Hustle".
* His ghostly ability to scare humans doesn't work on everyone and Molly is one example.
* Although able to pass through solid objects, he ends up getting electrocuted when he passes through an electric fence and becomes inebriated in the process.
* Scratch tires quickly, seen during his fight with Libby.
* He cannot make others become intangible along with himself. He has tried and failed to do this with Molly at least twice.
* In "Friend-Off" it's revealed that Scratch's invisibility doesn't work very well on cameras, as a selfie with him and Libby together shows his otherwise invisible self as a glowing, smiling blur. While this seems to be the case for digital cameras, this problem might also apply to old fashioned film snapshots.
* Insofar, despite being smarter then Geoff, Scratch is shown to not be very bright, especially when he's casting curses, as he tends to jump right into casting one without thinking the consequences all the way through, such as binding himself to Molly forever (or until she leaves the house for good) in an effort to get rid of her, or when the "Yes/No" curse kept him from accepting a once-in-an-afterlife promotion from the Ghost Council. He has to see the loophole in the curse to get around it (ex. when he cast the "Yes/No" curse, he specifically worded it "Until Midnight, one of us can only say 'no' and the other can only say 'yes'". Since he didn't use specific names while casting it, but was pointing instead, he was able to switch the effect of the curse around until it wore off), but without a loophole or an escape clause filled out to a tee, he's stuck with it (ex. He has to be wherever Molly is whenever she calls for him unless she leaves the house forever).
* His ability to be solid while shapeshifting is limited, so he cannot use his body as a blockade like he thought he could in "Getting the Band(shell) Back Together", though so far only the McGee family took advantage of that very weakness, for (as Scratch himself pointed out) walking through others is "considered very rude in the Ghost World".
* He can be afflicted by ailments and illnesses, such as in "Festival of Lights" when he hurt his tongue for eating too much deep-fried food.
	+ In "Innocent Until Proven Ghostly", it is revealed that he has a carob allergy despite being dead, which causes him to swell up enough to fill every room in the house and get stuck there until the swelling goes down.
* As shown in Ready, Set, Snow!, Scratch is vulnerable to extreme temperatures.

## History

Scratch haunted a house in Brighton alone, spreading misery all throughout the town before the McGee family moved into the house. His cause of death and/or past is currently unknown.

In *"The Curse"* , as the McGees arrive in their new forever home and Molly McGee goes towards the attic to begin preparing her new bedroom, sweeping some spiderwebs off a corner of the room. Scratch sees this and stops her, telling her that "ghost webs are vintage.", Molly, seemingly unfazed about seeing a ghost, gets excited as she had never met one before and immediately pulls him into a ghost hug. This annoys Scratch even more and so he curses her: "I curse you, Molly McGee! Wherever you go, whatever you do, for the rest of your days, I'll be there, haunting you, tormenting you, turning your every waking moment into an unending nightmare!", however the curse backfires, making Scratch and Molly bonded forever until she or her family leave their home forever and thus Molly determines him to be her best friend. Scratch tries to scare Molly's parents out of the house but to no avail as Molly quickly shuts him down with a snack. It wasn't until Molly, as a suggestion from her Grandma Nin, offered him her old dollhouse to reside in that he agreed to accept the McGee's living there "on a trial basis", hinting he's still determined to break his curse, though he did call a truce when Nin suggested leaving him food and drink to keep him happy, and he unwittingly bonds with Molly by admitting he likes tacos and strawberry soda.

In the following segment, *"First Day Frights",* he sees an opportunity to scare Molly out of the house forever (thus breaking the curse) by playing on her social anxiety, but his efforts were not necessarily needed to give Molly "the worst first day in the history of first days" as she flubs things herself by mispronouncing the name of the most popular girl in school, Andrea Davenport, twice. Just when it seems that Molly's as good as packed, however, he hears someone call her "the worst of the worst"-- something he has been called in the ghost world on a regular basis-- triggering feelings of guilt in him for the first time in his (after)life and causing him to, quite reluctantly, possess said popular girl, Andrea, to not only make people think she doesn't care about how her name is said anymore, but also undo the outcast effect she put on both Molly and Libby (who got shunned for the same reason as Molly since first grade). After school, Molly confronts Scratch about it in a sing-song manner, and while he denied it and claimed they'd both end up in jail if he didn't help, she constantly teased him with the fact that he actually cares about her as only a true friend would.

In "Mazel Tov, Libby!" he had (in a fit of literal minded mischief) brought bats to Libby's Bat Mitzvah to liven it up, though after Molly finally let them out of the closet to get rid of the unwanted guests, Scratch soon found himself regretting the idea when the bats attack him as well.

In "*The Turnip Twist*", he uses Geoff to sabotage the Turnip Festival in Brighton (which is hosted by Molly), to make its misery level higher, but he was not really happy about it as he started worrying about Pete McGee, Molly's dad, getting sad because of it.

In "*All Systems No*", he curses Molly and himself to be able to only say "Yes" (Molly) or "No" (Scartch) for one day, but then they flip the curse to stop a swarm of bees attacking their home.

In "*Talent Show*", he's at first excited to see Libby perform on stage, as she sings terribly, bringing more misery, but then he becomes shocked, as it turns out Libby is good at slam poetry singing.

In *"Scratch the Surface",* after he and Molly have a crazy weekend together (which somehow involved a mop and a fish), he had to stop her from telling Libby about it, as he has to be kept secret so he'd be able to scare people. Afterwards, upon seeing that Molly was getting stress hives from lying about it instead, he (finally) explains to her the downsides of being a ghost, most notably the fact the Ghost Council will punish him if he isn't scary enough. In her desperation to keep her friendship with both him and Libby, Molly comes up with the crazy scheme of pretending to be her own Canadian cousin to categorize her friendships as an alternative to telling the truth, which Scratch (feeling it'll keep him out of the Flow of Failed Phantoms) encouraged, and he found ways to help up the charade like creating the illusion of her eating a burger covered in maple syrup (which she hates) when he really ate it himself. In due time, Molly got sick of lying to Libby and tried to run and hide from her, but when that didn't work and Libby thought their friendship was over, Molly once again asks Scratch permission to tell the truth about him... this time politely... and he finally caves in on the condition that Libby is the only one outside the family that knows the truth.

In "*Friend-Off*" he argues with Libby (who now knows about him) about who's a better friend for Molly, but ends up befriending Libby after saving Molly together. While they were officially bonding-- mainly over how hard it is to keep up with their shared best friend-- Libby stated that Molly brought bats to her bat mitzvah, and Scratch (embarrassed by that memory and not wanting to spoil the new bond by admitting it was really HIS idea) went along with that conclusion.

In *"Festival of Lights",* he and the McGee family join Libby and her mother at the Stein-Torres' family bookshop, Book Marks the Spot, for a celebration of the final night of hannukah, only for the event to be interrupted by a town-wide blackout. Although the generator only had enough fuel for an hour, the bookshop's lights and heat kept going for the full eight hours the blackout took place in, and after the first hour, Scratch was just announcing himself officially bored when the smell of the holiday's traditional food-- which Libby explains is all deep fried in oil-- changed his mind. Later on, he joined Molly, Darryl, and Libby on a gambling spree with "gold coins" during a game of dreidel, but after Libby won the jackpot by spinning gimel and revealled the "coins" were actually made of chocolate, Scratch-- who thought they were real gold-- was devistated by the revealation. Another thing that gave Scratch an emotional ride was when Libby introduced the McGee family to her family's tradition of the Miracle Box, in which everyone is supposed to fill by writing down a miracle that happened to them that year (which Scratch gladly did, thinking that nobody would see it) and then have them read out loud and have everyone guess who wrote what! Upon learning all the rules, Scratch did everything to delay his secret miracle from being read, and even shrunk down into the box when his was one of the last two in there, but despite his efforts, his miracle got read by Pete anyway: "I used to haunt a house, now I haunt a home". Libby and the McGee family were all touched by that sweet statement, and reluctantly pulled him into a group hug, during which he muttered in embarrassment "this is why (he) don't say nice things". By the time the power came back on all over Brighton, Scratch had a full belly from all the latkes and a smile on his face, as he declared hannukah one of the tastest holidays ever.

In *"Saving Christmas"*, when Molly, eager to celebrate her family's first Christmas in Brighton, asks how things could get better, Scratch knowingly answered by stating that the holiday's Snowflake Festival includes a cookie contest that has every holiday cookie flavor from gingerbread to snickerdoodles... unfortunately, because a short circuit burned all the Christmas Decorations that the festival needs, and because there were budget cuts keeping said decorations from being replaced, the Snowflake Festival was cancelled and, with it, Christmas was ruined, and the only hope to fix it was if the Davenport family-- the only family in town rich enough to pay for everything on such short notice-- gives a generous contribution, but much to the disappointment of everyone (including his own daughter, Andrea) Mr. Davenport refuses to pay; a concept that saddened Molly enough to crush her Christmas spirit, which Scratch wouldn't stand for, prompting the ghost to bring the story "A Christmas Carol" to life in an effort to scare the scrooge out of Mr. Davenport, no matter what it takes. His efforts do manage to somewhat convince Mr. Davenport to cooperate by making him realize he should spend more time with his daughter after forcing him to see how miserable Andrea has been feeling, hence saving the Christmas of Brighton.

In "Citizen McGee", he helped Molly when she was accidently elected Mayor for life. After that, they decided to find the real mayor, Brunson. Molly and Scratch decided to use Scratch's ghost powers to get Brunson to be Mayor again.

## Relationships

### Molly McGee

 File:Scratch Helps Molly For 1st Time.png
Scratch is initially angered when Molly and her family take over the house, insisting that she leaves and attempt to scare her. He then attempts to put a curse on Molly which backfires, instead cursing him and forever binding him to her until she or her family forever leave the home. Her enthusiasm over his scares unsettle and confuse him. He shows distain at the idea of being friends with Molly forever, becoming distraught when she shows joy over 'having a new friend'. When Scratch realizes he is bound to her, he attempts to undo the curse by scaring her family, which fails when Molly convinces them to stay. Scratch eventually allows her and her family to stay around 'on a trial basis' when she offers him a small house to reside in, along with offerings of food and drinks. He shows enthusiasm at opportunities of her and her family leaving, taking any chances which could scare them into leaving and is upset when she interrupts his personal time. Scratch attempts to ruin Molly's first day of school in hopes that her social life being ruined would make her want to leave and laughs whenever she ridicules herself. He constantly pushes Molly to leave, although his attempts fail because of her constant optimism. When Molly is called 'the worst of the worst' Scratch remembers the time he was called the same and shows to feel remorse over his actions. He then takes over Andrea's body and pretends that she has gotten over Molly mispronouncing her name. Scratch is still shown to be grumpy at the idea of being Molly's friend and lies about helping her only so that he would not be dragged into trouble along with her.

### Geoff

As with Molly, Scratch and Geoff have a one-sided friendship. Scratch sees Geoff as little more than an annoying coworker and hates being around him. Due to his fun-loving nature, however, Geoff likes Scratch unconditionally and loves spending time with him, a feeling that he does not share. Despite this, the two ghosts make a perfect team when facing common enemies, somewhat changing Scratch’s opinion of him.

### The Ghost Council

Like many ghosts in the series, Scratch is tasked with spreading fear and misery among the living, and the members of the Ghost Council and their Chairman are his bosses in this regard. Despite being "adequate" at his job, none of the council members consider Scratch an equal and frequently deny him entry into their exclusive club, much to his irritation. Even with Molly now holding his leash, Scratch does his best to stay on the Council's good side and meet their quotas for scaring people. In All Systems No, they seemed to be pleased with him enough to give him one chance (and only one) to join the Ghostly Elite as a promotion, but whether or not they were bluffing is never revealed on account that-- due to a temporary curse causing him to say "no" to everything-- Scratch was tearfully and reluctantly forced to turn down the offer. In several episodes, most notably The Turnip Twist and Scratch the Surface, it is strongly hinted that he is as afraid of their harshest punishment, The Flow of Failed Phantoms, as any other ghost, yet calmly brushes off his own mentioning of it in a way that shows he accepts that unnerving detail as a normal fact of the afterlife.

### Andrea Davenport

Scratch has a mixed opinion of Andrea, but mostly seems to dislike her. He plays along with her outcasting of Molly at first, then later possesses her to convince the school to treat Molly and Libby better. After Andrea steals the production of Molly's horror movie out from under her, Scratch doesn't hesitate to frighten Andrea at Molly's command. At the school talent show, however, he enjoys her pop song routine and expresses interest in becoming one of her "Fawn-dreas".

### Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) is the 16th President of the United States and currently a member of the Haughty Haunts club. Like many of the more famous residents of the Ghost World, he initially ignores Scratch and refuses to help him get past the club's bouncer. While not a friend in the strictest sense, after hearing out Scratch's problem, he nonetheless agrees to help him save Molly from embarrassment during the presentation of her history project. It was Lincoln's "truth stare" that causes Scratch to finally be honest with Molly and himself about his friendship with her.

### Darryl McGee

Unlike with Molly, Scratch has a somewhat better relationship with her brother, likely due to their very mischievous personalities. When the McGees volunteer at Brighton's retirement home, Scratch finds Darryl's Obnoxitron amusing and helps him cheat at cards. In No Good Deed, when Darryl did a dangerous trick, Scratch thought it was awesome and was even amazed of what Darryl did with the teachers.

### Grandma Nin

Of all the members of Molly's family, Scratch likes Molly's grandmother Nin the most, mainly because she supplies him with many Thai snacks. After learning about the tensions between Nin and Sharon, Scratch decides to help them resolve their differences to prevent Nin from leaving for good, saving his supply chain in the process.

### Ezekiel Tugbottom

Scratch knows Ezekiel by his reputation as a blowhard and narcissist, thus he has a huge hatred for Ezekiel. Over the course of the episode "Monumental Disaster", he helps Molly see the truth about him, as well.

### Sally Tugbottom

Sally is an acquaintance of Scratch, who is also Ezekiel's older sister and the true founder of Brighton. With this knowledge in mind, Scratch travels to the ghost world and somehow convinces Sally to stop her brother and save Molly.

### Libby Stein-Torres

Libby was initially unaware of Scratch's presence, though he mostly respected her friendship with Molly. In "Scratch the Surface", however, when Libby gets close to learning Molly's secret, Scratch has no choice but to reveal his existence to her. In the following episode "Friend-Off", Scratch and Libby initially despise each other and fiercely compete for the title of Molly's best friend. After working together to save Molly, however, they form a mutual bond over her overbearing nature.

## References

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1. ↑ Disney's The Ghost and Molly McGee Reveals New Name, Logo, and Cast. Retrieved on September 24, 2020.
2. ↑ Molly at end of The Greatest Concert Ever: "Scratch, you saved the day! You went the extra mile because you're a real McGee now!"
3. ↑ Scratch at the end of "The Greatest Concert Ever": "Alright. Well, maybe I'm, like, uh, you know, McGee-adjacent"