• Serve up some dog-themed Scooby snacks at the party.dog biscuits image by Kathy Burns from Fotolia.com
  
  If your child is a fan of the Mystery Machine gang, host a Scooby Doo theme party for his or her next birthday. Use decorations, games, activities and Scooby snacks to transport your guests straight into the cartoon; try recreating your child's favorite episode, or design your very own episode especially for the party.
  
  

Invitations

• Invite guests to come chow down on Scooby snacks for your child's birthday celebration; use colorful paper cutouts to create invitations that resemble the Mystery Machine, and stamp or draw a paw print on each one for Scooby's seal of approval. Mail these invitations two or three weeks in advance of the party.
  
  

Decorations

• Decorate the party space with retro items like lava lamps, beaded door curtains and colorful flower cutouts. Try creating large cutouts of spooky trees, a haunted house or monsters, mummies and ghosts to evoke the creepy, mysterious feel of the show. Make a large cutout of the Mystery Machine using cardboard; cut a hole for the driver's side window and use it as a photo opportunity to make it look like your guests are driving the van.
  
  

Games and Activities

• To warm up the guests' sleuthing skills, hide small pieces of candy around the party space and have a hunt for the missing Scooby snacks; give each child a sack to hold the treats they find. For a group activity, divide the children into two teams and provide each one with a roll of toilet paper for a mummy wrap race; one child from each team will be the "mummy," and the other children will race to wrap him up completely from the neck down. Another game option is to play "Pin the Tail on Scooby" in which each child gets a turn to be blindfolded to try and accurately stick a paper tail on a larger cutout of Scooby Doo.
  
  

Scooby Snacks

• No Scooby Doo party would be complete without Scooby snacks. Make "dogs in a blanket" using mini cocktail sausages and cheese wrapped and baked in biscuit dough, or try making finger sandwiches cut into dog bone shapes; for guests with bigger appetites, serve hot dogs or Shaggy's favorite, pizza. For a sweet treat, cook up some puppy chow using crispy cereal, peanut butter, chocolate and powdered sugar. Another option is to bake some sugar cookies in the shape of dog bones, and then set up a decorating station with icing, sprinkles and other items for the guests to make their own Scooby creations.