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NOTE: This article is about the incarnation of Dick Dastardly from the Hanna-Barbera Cinematic Universe. The mainstream version can be found here: Dick Dastardly.
Richard Milhous "Dick" Dastardly commonly known as Dick Dastardly simply known as Dastardly is the main antagonist of the 2020 Warner Bros. animated film Scoob!, the first installment of the Hanna-Barbera Cinematic Universe. He is a ruthless and sadistic supervillain of the Blue Falcon, and Muttley's owner and boss.
Dastardly is shown to be sly and charismatic, as he was able to fool the Mystery Inc. with the disguise of a female police officer in order to search for Scooby. He is also cocky, egotistical and very ambitious and power-hungry, due to his desires for world domination. Dick does have some good qualities, however, as he genuinely does love and care for his faithful companion and lackey Muttley who he went as far as risking his own life to rescue from the Underworld.
Appearance
Dastardly is 6 feet tall with a hunched posture, muscular build, pasty skin, a strong jawline, white teeth and a prominent nose and has short, oily, tousled, black hair along with a thin pointed mustache and wears a dark purple trenchcoat with a silver buckled black belt, a black sweatshirt, gray leggings, and knee length buckled boots. He also wears elbow length crimson leather riding gloves.
All in all, his appearance is a slightly updated version of his traditional appearance in Wacky Races, minus his traditional hat and racing goggles.
Abilities
Cunning: Dick Dastardly is very devious and strategic, able to trick the Mystery Inc. with disguises to his advantage. He fooled Shaggy by disguising himself to lead the former to Scooby Doo and the last skull.
Disguise Mastery: Dick Dastardly is exceptionally skilled at disguises, able to wear rubber masks and perfectly imitate the voice and body of whoever's face he wears. He disguised himself as a attractive female police officer to trick the rest of Mystery Inc. and imitated Fred to fool Shaggy into taking the former to Scooby and the last skull.
Mechanical Tinkering: Dick Dastardly is an ingenious inventor and tinkerer, as he created the Rottens, adorable little sentient machines that can change their shape for inanimate disguise, aerial transportation and combat.
Stealth: Dastardly is very sneaky and has some skill at stealth, able to use the hall of mirrors to bewilder Scooby. He also pulled a Stealth-Hi on Scooby when it appears that the former was still looking for him and was able to sneak past Cerberus to save Muttley.
Durability: Dick Dastardly has exceptionally high durability, able to tank Dynomutt's kick (when the latter came to save Scooby from Dastardly) and survived a high fall with no injury but mere frustration from his failed attempt to capture Scooby Doo.
Strength: Dastardly is very strong and physically formidable, able to kick open a door despite it being barricaded by several arcade cabinets by Shaggy and Scooby. He also send Dusty flying with an frustrated elbow strike before tearing his head off effortlessly, and manhandled Fred, who was stated to be the muscle of Mystery Inc.
Biography
Backstory
Prior to the events of the film Dastardly was already an established criminal who worked alongside his faithful sidekick Muttley in all of his endeavors. In one of their schemes for fortune they devised a portal to the Underworld, hoping to steal all of the treasure belonging to Alexander the Great. When the machine was complete, Dick sent Muttley through the portal to get the treasure much to the latter's annoyance. Muttley returned shortly after holding several handfuls of treasure but found himself unable to go through the portal much to the shock of both he and Dick. Cerberus then came before Muttley and pulled him upward all the while Dick screamed Muttley's name in horror as the portal fell apart.
After this Dastardly made it his mission to set Muttley free and finish the job of taking the treasure.
In the beginning of the film, Dick Dastardly had sent small robots called "Rottens" to capture Shaggy and Scooby Doo at a bowling alley, although they failed to as the duo were beamed into Blue Falcon's ship the Falcon Fury. He and his minions soon followed and engaged in a chase, ordering the Rottens to attack; just as it is revealed that Dick is attempting to retrieve three skulls to revive the Greek monster Cerberus and open the gates of the Underworld, the villain used harpoons from his ship the Mean Machine to drag the Falcon Fury towards him, but Dee Dee Sykes commanded Dynomutt to send out the same beam that sucked up Shaggy and Scooby and put it on the reverse setting, and it pushes the ship away from the Mean Machine.
Inside of the Mean Machine, Dastardly is lamenting over the fact that Scooby got away. He becomes upset at the Rottens because, in his mind, they are not nearly as good as his last sidekick, Muttley, a dog, who is no longer with him. One of the Rottens apologizes for their failure, but that only upsets Dick more. He calls him a "suck-up" and, to prove a point to the other Rottens, removes his head and replaces it with the top of a vacuum cleaner.
Dastardly then traveled to Funland, an abandoned amusement park in Romania, and revealed to the recently arrived Scooby, Shaggy, Dee Dee, the Blue Falcon, and Dynomutt that he was the one who sent Blue Falcon the DM and that he has just retrieved the second skull from the Gobi Desert. He then proceeded to chase after the former two, having Shaggy be sent flying into a Ferris wheel seat after telling him he was not important at all and going after Scooby in an abandoned mirror house. In there, Dick convinces him to join and harness his destiny in Dastardly’s plans. However, Scooby refuses, just as before the former properly introduced himself out of one of the mirrors, to which Scooby called him “Rick”; Dick Dastardly, much to his chagrin, tried to correct the dog twice before becoming enraged on the third attempt. He then realized Scooby escaped from the mirror house, to his dismay. Dastardly continued his pursuit as he chased after him and Dynomutt in bumper cars on a roller coaster along with Shaggy and Blue Falcon until Dee Dee deployed the beam and pulled the four into the Falcon Fury, leaving Dastardly to fall many feet into the ground; Dick is then alerted by the Rotten in the Mystery Machine of the existence of Fred, Daphne, and Velma.
He later tracked them down under the guise of a female cop and had the trio imprisoned in his airship; they however managed to get out thanks to one of the Rottens, a robot named Dusty because of his head being a vacuum cleaner, and secretly witnessed Dick Dastardly using the two skulls of Cerberus to reveal the location of the third and final skull in a place called Messick Mountain. Velma, Fred, and Daphne then over to a room with a communication radio, using it to deliver this information to the Falcon Fury before they get captured again by Dastardly. He reveals that he wants to open the gates to the Underworld so that he can rescue his dog Muttley, who was trapped there after they tried entering it to steal its riches, and that Dastardly needed Scooby Doo to do so due to being the descendant of Alexander the Great's dog companion Peritas.
Meanwhile, the Falcon Fury arrives near the Messick Mountain; Blue Falcon, Scooby, Dee Dee, and Dynomutt find the skull being guarded by Captain Caveman, but Dastardly arrives and takes it. He releases Shaggy, Fred, Daphne, and Velma before destroying the Falcon Fury, damaging the Mystery Machine, and then kidnapping Scooby as Dick departed in the Mean Machine.
Traveling to the Parthenon in Athens, Greece, Dastardly uses the three skulls to unveil the gate and Scooby's paw to open it, in which Cerberus escapes and begins causing havoc. Intimidated by Cerberus at first, he flees near the gate while Scooby and the other civilians run away from Cerberus and Dick manages to get inside the treasury in order to search for Muttley and Dick soon found him unconscious; Dick started apologizing in a regretful way, only to hear his snickering and realize that Muttley's alive. The two rejoiced at seeing each other, and grabbed as much treasure as they can carry before running away from the Underworld.
However the Rottens, now good, capture Muttley and Dastardly and bring them to the Mystery Inc gang, all tied up. They unmask Dastardly, revealing him to be Simon Cowell; upon realizing that this makes no sense, Velma unmasks him again, revealing him to only be Dastardly. Dastardly and Muttley are then dragged away by Blue Falcon, Dee Dee, and Dynomutt to be imprisoned.
During the end credits, Dick Dastardly eventually broke out from prison with the help of Muttley, his prison break will lead eventually to put him on the newspaper cover under the title Dastardly Escapes.
Wacky Races
As Dick Dastardly eventually broke out of prison with Muttley's help, it indicates him to be a common antagonist in most of the Hanna-Barbera Cinematic Universe including background Easter eggs of cars from Wacky Races.
Dick Dastardly is set to also be the main antagonist of an upcoming Warner Bros. animated film Wacky Races, a future installment of the Hanna-Barbera Cinematic Universe.
Quotes
“
Nobody gets away from Dick Dastardly!
„
~ Dick Dastardly
“
I need what it's in that ship or I will never get my treasure. DO. NOT. FAIL. ME.
„
~ Dick Dastardly to The Rottens.
“
And I thought my last sidekick was worthless! At least he had a backbone... [pauses to look at a picture of Muttley with utter saddness] with fur, and a wet nose. [turns to Dusty] But you. Oh, you've lowered the bar to new depths of craven ineptitude I didn't even think were possible!
„
~ Dick Dastardly
“
(Dusty: [robotic voice] Thank you!) That's not a compliment! You aluminum imbecile! You're not a partner. You're a disgrace, a lemming, a boot-licking... [looks at a vaccum nearby Dusty] suck-up.
„
~ Dick Dastardly
“
I don't care about you. You are remarkably unimportant. It's the dog I need.
„
~ Dick Dastardly to Shaggy.
“
[echoing] Scooby Dooby-Doo... Where are you...? Come now, don't be scared. [chuckles] I love dogs. Had one to myself once, an ill tempered brute with a ghastly underbite who STUNK. And caused me endless headaches! He's lost now...
„
~ Dick Dastardly describing Muttley.
“
You, my friend, are special. You see within you, lies a key. (Scooby Doo: [stutters] But, but I don't have your key! No pockets!) No, you are the key!
„
~ Dick Dastardly
“
Dick! Dick! DIIICK!!!
„
~ Dastardly frustratedly correcting Scooby on getting his name wrong.
“
Drat! Drat! Double Drat!
„
~ Dick Dastardly after failing to capture Scooby a second time.
“
(Velma: How did you find us?) Oh let's just say I had inside information.
„
~ Dick Dastardly upon being questioned by Velma.
“
You have the right to remain silent, and everything you say ABOUT MY FACE...can and will be used against you at the court of claw!
„
~ Dastardly kidnapping Fred, Daphne and Velma.
“
The poor man's Hemsworth comes with me.
„
~ Dastardly preparing to make a disguise of Fred.
“
[intimidated] Uh oh! Little more than I bargained for. [to Scoob] If I were you, I'd RUUUUUUUN!
„
~ Dastardly, when witnessing the ferocious Cerberus emerge from the gates of the underworld.
“
Oh no. I'm too late. I've been searching for years my friend, and I did not make it in time. […] I'm sorry. I'm so... so sorry! There's so many things we never got to do together!
„
~ Dastardly upon finding Muttley's sleeping body and mistaking him for dead.
“
Drat! No one ever goes for the double unmask!
„
~ Dastardly after his Simon Cowell disguise failed.
“
I would've gotten away it if it weren't for you mismatched meddling miscreants!
„
~ Dastardly said his final words.
Trivia
The movie seems to suggest Dastardly escapes, this makes him likely to be a recurring antagonist in the HB shared universe - this befits Dastardly's status within pop-culture as one of the company's most well-known and beloved villains.
Scooby Doo has crossed over with Wacky Races before in cartoon format, this is the first time that they have crossed over with a premise of a full-scale shared universe (as crossovers in past were done mostly as one-time deals, with no real attempt to canonize the events beyond a single episode).
Compared to the rather skinny and slim appearance he was originally depicted in Wacky Races, Dastardly instead has a huge, muscular build in the movie. He is even jokingly mentioned by his voice actor, Jason Isaacs, to have "a giant simian jaw and a huge kind of Mr. Incredible body."
In addition, Dastardly is a supervillain in Scoob! instead of being a racer like his mainstream incarnation; however, it is possible that, considering the hidden Easter eggs surrounding Muttley's shrine, he had the latter occupation but either retired or simply quit before becoming a full-fledged criminal.
Dick Dastardly apparently drinks alcohol, specifically scotch, judging by Velma's examination on his single mustache strand.
In the scene where Velma, Fred, and Daphne viewed a portrait of Muttley, there is a poster of Dick Dastardly seen dressed in his original uniform from Wacky Races and holding a can of “Winchell Motor Oil”, referencing the late actor Paul Winchell (the original voice actor for Dick Dastardly).
Dick Dastardly supposedly doesn't even remember his own date of birth.
This incarnation of Dick Dastardly is the most competent version of the normally ineffectual villain so far.
This isn't the first time where Dick Dastardly and Muttley have shown they cared about each other; both Yogi's Treasure Hunt and the 2017 Wacky Races series had Dick Dastardly get depressed without Muttley and vice versa.
Dick seems to be the lesson for Shaggy letting his jealousy of being the "weak link" and Scooby becoming important consume him.
Cinematic Universe Villains
