A Clue for Scooby-Doo

A Clue for Scooby Doo is the second episode of the first season of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!

Premise
At Rocky Point Beach, the gang encounter the ghost of an old sea diver. A sailor claims it to be the ghost of Captain Cutler, who, according to legend, died at sea many years ago when his boat got wrecked and he is getting his revenge.

Synopsis
Mysterious glowing footprints appear along the shore of Rocky Point Beach. As a wave washes them out, the scene pans to a mysterious glowing diver, who slowly disappears back into the sea.

The gang arrive at Rocky Point Beach and begin cooking hot dogs and dancing while Scooby goes surfing. He begins paddling along the sea when he paddles into a mysterious object, which he pulls up revealing it as the glowing diver. Scooby quickly dashes back on shore and tackles Shaggy, telling the gang about the ghost. They themselves catch sight of the diver and Shaggy runs and hides behind a rock, having run into an umbrella on the way. The rest of the gang catch up and Velma convinces Shaggy to come out of the umbrella. Shaggy hesitates to after he's seen "what he saw", and the rest of the gang watch as the ghost again disappears back into the sea.

The gang head to the Malt Shop and read a news article about another yacht mysteriously disappearing and how the sheriff and the coast guard are baffled by the "mysterious disappearances". Ebenezer Shark, in the said article, reveals the diver as the ghost of Captain Cutler.

The gang pay a visit to Ebenezer Shark himself, who reveals that Captain Cutler was in a yacht accident that took his life and sunk him down into the Graveyard of Ships, and that his ghost is back for revenge, stealing yachts from the marina.

Scooby falls into a hole where he discovers a diving suit, which he mistakes for again being the ghost. It falls on him and he growls again and again until he gets the gang's attention. Ebenezer Shark then suggests visiting Captain Cutler's wife in the lighthouse if they want more answers.

The gang split up this way: Fred and Daphne keep an eye on Ebenezer Shark, and Velma, Shaggy and Scooby go up to the lighthouse and visit Captain Cutler's wife. There, they find she practices witchcraft, and they find mysterious cans, one of them containing hyena laughs. While looking at a book with Velma, Shaggy is frightened off by Captain Cutler's wife greeting him, which also frightens Scooby.

Captain Cutler's wife explains how she and her witchcraft brought Captain Cutler back from his "watery grave", and that if she had known he'd take his revenge, he would've been kept down in the said "watery grave".

Velma, Shaggy, and Scooby leave the lighthouse and find a clue: glowing seaweed, which Shaggy at first mistakes for being the ghost due to it appearing to move by itself. They follow it towards a drain pipe, and order Scooby-Doo to go in. Scooby tries passing himself off as being too fat, but Velma doesn't buy it and instead gets Scooby change his mind with a Scooby Snack. Once he goes in, Scooby manages to retrieve the glowing seaweed from a mouse that was making it appear to move on its' own.

The gang get back together and discuss the seaweed they found, revealing it's only found in the Graveyard of Ships, and that maybe the ghost himself could be found there too. They take a boat and drive to the Graveyard of Ships, where several wrecked ships are, and find a bottle with a note in it. The note is revealed to just say "No deposit, no return". They then see a boat moving by itself with no one aboard and the motor not running and decide to follow it until it disappears behind a cove, meaning the gang has run into a dead-end, so they turn around and drive back to the Graveyard of Ships.

The four teens are ready to dive, but Scooby is hesitant to do so and is therefore high up on a wrecked ship. Shaggy decides to get him down and does so successfully, only he himself gets caught on the rope and plummets down with Scooby. Scooby lands on a barrel but Shaggy manages to wreck a hole in one of the ships as he crashes right through it.

The gang begin swimming and split up again, but differently: Shaggy and Scooby go the opposite direction, and Fred, Daphne and Velma will continue going the current direction.

Fred, Daphne, and Velma discover a body inside the cabin of a wrecked yacht, which at first they theorize might be Captain Cutler, until Fred reveals that the diving suit is old-fashioned meaning the body had been down there for 100 years. Just as Fred concludes his revealance, the ghost appears and locks the trio inside the cabin and runs off. The trio then realize they're locked in when they're unable to get the door open.

Shaggy and Scooby spot the ghost heading towards them, and Scooby inflates his diving suit to make himself look fat. Unappreciative of this, Shaggy punctures the suit sending Scooby hurtling through the Graveyard of Ships, hitting the ghost along the way. A steering wheel of a wrecked ship catches Scooby and he's sent the opposite direction, wrecking through another wrecked ship, and ends up in a room where several scuba tanks are being stored. Scooby then realizes he's found a clue and quickly swims out of the room.

As Shaggy wonders where Scooby is, Scooby slams through a door, which in turn slams into him. Scooby tells Shaggy he's found a clue, before being chased away by the ghost. They go onto a wrecked ship, where Shaggy assumes a cannon is loaded and he can light it with a match. However, it doesn't work out for him and he realizes that matches don't light underwater. The duo then begin swimming away from the ghost again and hang on to two separate wrecked ships. After scaring off a fish, Scooby yet again sees the ghost and the duo again begin swimming just as the ghost is about to grab Scooby. The duo crash down the door to the cabin the trio were trapped in and then begin discussing the ghost with the rest of the gang until Scooby brings up his aforementioned clue (the scuba tanks), exciting Daphne. He then leads the gang to where he found the clue: the aforementioned room inside the wrecked ship he'd wrecked into earlier.

Fred discovers glowing footprints like the ones at the beginning of the episode and the gang decide to follow them until they find the prints dead end at the side of a cliff. Shaggy sits down but doesn't realize he's sitting on the button (shaped like a rock) that opens a secret entrance at the side of the cliff until it goes down and opens the door. The gang swim through it and end up in an underground cavern, where they discover the yacht from earlier that had vanished into the cove.

The gang make a trap for the ghost, which intentionally is to spray the ghost with sudsy water, making him slip and from there send the ghost into the net. They start sounding a ship bell, whistle and siren to lure the ghost to the trap. However, the plan doesn't work correctly but still catches the ghost as the hose gets out of control and sends Shaggy flying around with it. Scooby gets sudsed and hosed into a boat, which starts up by itself and sends Scooby hurtling around the cavern. Daphne cries out in worry about Scooby being unable to see where he's going. Scooby's boat eventually hits a dock and crashes into the ghost.

The ghost is then unmasked as a man whose identity is unknown until Shaggy finds some seaweed and puts it on him as an imitating beard, therefore revealing the man as Captain Cutler. He and his wife spread the phony story about Captain Cutler dying so they could steal the yachts from the marina, which would then allow them to repaint and sell them. Cutler was storing extra scuba tanks in the Graveyard of Ships so he had spares when they were needed. The glowing seaweed Velma, Shaggy, and Scooby found made Cutler's diving suit glow.

With the gang reviewing the case at the Malt Shop, Scooby closes the episode by drinking the gang's drinks and then snickering after being questioned as to how he did it by Daphne before winking at the viewer.