The new CGI Scooby-Doo movie Scoob! will feature an origin story of how the world’s most famous Great Dane first met his human companions and formed investigatory outfit Mystery Inc. And in between posting images and gifs from the film, its official Twitter account has now referenced the Ultra Instinct Shaggy meme.
First, though, you might well need some context for this one. Ultra Instinct stems from action anime series Dragon Ball Super, a sequel to the long-running Dragon Ball Z. In it, saga protagonist Goku gains the named ability, allowing him to fight independent of conscious thought and react at a speed bordering on precognition.
Its application to Shaggy came about after DTV animated film Scooby-Doo! Legend of the Phantosaur, which sees him beat up a gang of bikers after being hypnotized to remove his trademark cowardice, a clip of which was edited to mimic Goku’s transformation into the overpowered state.
The meme then mutated into Shaggy imagined as a godlike being capable of cosmic-level feats using only small percentages of his power, which the tweet references in a response to the Dragon Ball Legends account declaring an update to include co-op battles, posting an image of Shaggy with a surge of energy flowing through him in incandescent blue flame. Most fans reacted positively, either declaring the concept to now exist in canon, or embracing the post in the spirit it was intended, while others were critical of the use of a meme aged beyond eternity in the eleven months since its trending.
In any case, you can see the aforementioned image that was shared on Twitter below, which came accompanied with the following caption:
Don’t make Shaggy use 5% of his power @DB_Legends …#DragonballLegends #DBLegends
While Scoob! is unlikely to include its version of Shaggy displaying a level of omnipotence that the gods themselves would envy, it’s a fun acknowledgment of a moment in the online cultural spotlight that highlights the character’s enduring popularity even from people who might have only a vague awareness of his origination, and its largely positive reaction certainly bodes well for the movie’s reception.
