
The four teenage lead characters of Scooby-Doo were inspired by four of the main characters from the 1959–63 American sitcom The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, with Shaggy having been derived from the character Maynard G. Krebs, as played by Bob Denver. Maynard’s beatnik-style goatee, general appearance, and use of the word “like” as a form of punctuation all found their way into the character of Shaggy, with the base personality of the character updated to make him a hippie rather than a beatnik.