A Hand from the Wall!

 

Three weeks ago, we looked at the cover story from Gold Key's Scooby Doo... Where are You? #6 (June 1971), which was based on one of the original Saturday Morning episodes. 

This week, we'll look at the back-up story from this issue. As with "The Ghost of Redbeard," the writer is unidentified and the artist is Warren Tufts. 

"The Hand From the Wall" is only five pages long, so it jumps into the story quickly. When the Mystery Machine runs out of gas, Shaggy and Scooby are delegated to make the hike to get more.

This is quite a hike, though. The two sit on a random door step to rest, but (of course) strange things begin to happen.

A treadmill door step takes them inside, where a series of weird things scare the heck out of them. (Though, granted, it's not THAT hard to scare Shaggy and Scooby). Finally, arms coming out of the walls grab hold of Shaggy.

The rest of the gang shows up and soon discover that the "villain" is retired operator of a Spook House, who now scares random people to stave off boredom. He makes up for scaring Shaggy by giving them passes to the local Fun Park.

The story is very quick and simple, but it works because Warren Tufts' art is energetic and captures both the look and feel of the cartoon. It's a filler story, but it good filler.