Daphne Blake is a main character in the Scooby-Doo franchise.
Personality
Together with her other teenage companions, Fred Jones, Norville "Shaggy" Rogers, Velma Dinkley and Shaggy's pet great Dane, Scooby-Doo, Daphne would engage in solving various mysteries. Daphne was portrayed as the enthusiastic and very beautiful, but clumsy and danger-prone (hence her nickname "Danger-Prone Daphne"; revealed by her cousin, Shannon, being danger-prone is a Blake family trait in Scooby-Doo and the Loch Ness Monster) member of the gang, who always follows her intuition. She serves as the damsel in distress and would occasionally get kidnapped, tied up, gagged and left imprisoned. Scooby and Shaggy usually save her, but sometimes Fred and Velma do it. Very occasionally, Daphne's rescued by all of the gang. But as the franchise went on, she became a stronger, more independent character who can take care of herself. Daphne's character is the most developed in the starring cast, going from a klutzy teenager to a successful journalist to an ingenuous fashionista to a black-belt karate master. When Scooby is nowhere to be found, Daphne also yells, "Scooby-Doo! Where are you?!"
While not as clever as Velma, Daphne would always solve her problems in a different way. Daphne later became more confident and started playing a more active role as time went on, a result of changing attitudes toward women during the 1970s and 1980s. In What's New, Scooby Doo?, Daphne has also been known to open locks or do other tasks with strange items from her purse.
The youthful Daphne portrayed in A Pup Named Scooby-Doo would commonly call upon her butler, Jenkins, to do various tasks, such as ridding her of unwanted people, beating up a monster, freaking out, etc. The younger Daphne is shown (along with her parents) not believing in ghosts/monsters/supernatural (one of her catch phases in that series was "There is no such thing as ghosts [monsters]!"), a trait she lacks outside the A Pup Named Scooby-Doo series.
In the movie Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island, Daphne had a very successful investigative TV series called Coast to Coast with Daphne Blake on a fictional channel called "Americana", on which the show had aired for two seasons. The producer of the show was Fred Jones.
Appearance
Daphne Blake is a slender teenage girl with fair skin and long ginger shoulder-length hair. Her usual outfit consists of a purple dress, pink pantyhose, purple shoes and a green scarf. In Scooby-Doo and the Cyber Chase, she wore a purple and green three-piece suit with matching shoes. In one level she is a damsel in distress being guarded by a dragon. As a child, She Wears a White Headband she wore a pink sweater, red skirt, Frilly White Panties, Pink Pantyhose with white go-go boots. In The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, she wore some other purple clothes with purple pants and purple high heels.
Appearances in films
Daphne was portrayed by Sarah Michelle Gellar in the film Scooby Doo and its sequel, Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed. Her husband, Freddie Prinze, Jr., played Fred in these same Scooby-Doo movies. In the movies, Daphne and Fred began a relationship in the first, that followed on through the second. Unlike the previous incarnation of the character, Gellar's version of Daphne is trained in martial arts during Mystery Inc.'s two-year absence in the first film, as she is tired of being a damsel in distress on every case in which she is involved with the gang. In the first movie, she is captured by the masked wrestler Zarkos, but she beats him in a fight at the end.
Daphne is portrayed by Kate Melton in the third film, Scooby-Doo! The Mystery Begins (released as a TV movie in 2009), and its sequel, Scooby-Doo! Curse of the Lake Monster, which premiered on October 16, 2010.
In Daphne and Velma, she is portrayed by Sarah jeffery
Relationships
Relationships of Daphne, including her four identical sisters, shown during the series' run include:
Scooby-Doo
Shaggy Rogers
Fred Jones
Velma Dinkley
George Robert Nedley Blake and Elizabeth Blake
Daphne's parents. In Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, however, the two are named Barty Blake and Nan Blake. Voiced by Frank Welker and Kath Soucie.
Daisy
Daphne's sister, a doctor. Voiced by Jennifer Hale.
Dawn
Daphne's sister, a model.
Dorothy
Daphne's sister, a race car driver.
Delilah
Daphne's sister, in the Marine Corps. Voiced by Jennifer Hale.
Uncle Matt Blake
Daphne's uncle, a cattle rancher.
John "J.J." Maxwell
Daphne's uncle, a movie director.
Olivia Dervy
Daphne's aunt.
Jennifer
Daphne's cousin.
Danica LaBlake
Daphne's cousin, a famous French model. Voiced by Vanessa Marshall.
Shannon Blake
Daphne's Scottish cousin. Voiced by Grey DeLisle.
Anne Blake
Daphne's younger cousin in the Scooby-Doo videogame.
Thornton Blake V
Daphne's uncle, owner of a Golf Course near Lake Erie
- Note: Frank Welker, Kath Soucie and Jennifer Hale voice the Blakes in Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated (currently running) series, Vanessa Marshall voiced Danica in the What's New Scooby-Doo series and Grey DeLisle voiced Shannon in the Scooby-Doo and the Loch Ness Monster (direct-to-DVD) film. Welker also voiced George on A Pup Named Scooby-Doo. The late voice actor Don Messick voiced two of Daphine's uncles: Matthew "Matt" Blake on The Scooby Doo Show and John Maxwell on Scooby-Doo, Where are You!.
Voice portrayals
Daphne was voiced in the first season (1969-70) of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! by Indira Stefanianna Christopherson. When Christopherson married in 1970, Heather North assumed her role. North continued to voice Daphne until 1980, when Daphne was dropped from the series.
Daphne returned to Scooby-Doo with The All-New Scooby and Happy-Puppy Hour Show in 1983, and North resumed her role as voice actress until Scooby-Doo was cancelled in 1986. North returned to play Daphne in the Johnny Bravo-Scooby Doo crossover episode before taking leave again. She returned once again to play Daphne in Scooby-Doo! and the Legend of the Vampire and Scooby-Doo! and the Monster of Mexico before leaving for good. Kellie Martin voiced the junior-high school aged Daphne in A Pup Named Scooby-Doo from 1988 until 1991. Mary Kay Bergman voiced her from 1998 until in 2001, where she was replaced by Grey DeLisle (2001-current) following her suicide on November 11, 2000.
Objects
- Scooby-Snacks
- Flashlight
- Magnifying Glass
- Cell Phone
Gallery
Trivia
- The Blakes have a long history of getting themselves into danger.
- A common goof throughout older episodes would be the disappearance of one or more of Daphne's pink pantyhose, replaced with
her natural skin color in some shots.
- Due to different animators, Daphne's eye color is completely variable, ranging from black, to blue, to green. Black is the base color used for almost every character from 1969-1991.
- From Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island to Scooby-Doo and the Cyber Chase, she had blue irises; interestingly, when she hypnotized was in the Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! episode, Bedlam in the Big Top, she had blue irises in a close-up.
- In the opening sequence of Scooby-Doo! Abracadabra-Doo, she had green pupils.
- One question on the quiz included on Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!: The Complete 1st and 2nd Seasons, relates to Daphne's father funding Mystery Inc. and buying them the Mystery Machine, which is based on what was claimed on Scooby-Doo: Behind the Scenes, a special with eight segments which was featured on WHV's VHS release of Scooby-Doo's Original Mysteries. (It also aired on Cartoon Network under the name, Those Meddling Kids.)
- That special was made independently (even if it did use the then
current cast of voices) and none of what was claimed has made it into canon. If the gang were supported then they wouldn't need to look for a job like Shaggy Rogers, Fred Jones, and even Scooby-Doo did in the TSDS episode, High Rise Hair Raiser. Although it seems to ignore, but not out right contradict the WNSD episode, It's Mean, It's Green, It's the Mystery Machine (although the special was made before the episode in question, which itself already available to buy before the WAY set), that depicted the Mystery Machine to have originally belonged to Flash Flannigan who used it as a tour bus for the Mystery Kids, for which he was the keyboardist. It's possible, but not definite that Mr. Blake brought the van from Susan Dinwiddie, the mother/manager of the Mystery Kids.
- Some fans have posited that Fred and Daphne share an attraction to each other,[12] but this has yet to be truly declared as such in the series itself (though Cartoon Network, in its various promotional bumpers, has had fun with this notion), although Scooby-Doo! Stage Fright didhave the two of them finally admit this behind each other's backs, as well as actually kissing each other on the lips during their song.
- According to The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, Daphne is presumably ticklish.
References
External links
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