Linda Cardellini provides the voice for Hotdog Water. She played Velma Dinkley in the live-action films Scooby-Doo (2002) and Scooby-Doo 2 - Die Monster sind los (2004).
This is the second series in the franchise to have a narrative arc through which it is necessary to watch each episode to understand the plot. The first time this happened was in Die 13 Geister von Scooby-Doo (1985), where each episode had a narrative and not an episodic story. Some of the material for the series-long story arc was based on development work done on an unproduced animated series adaptation of Die Goonies (1985).
In developing this series, producers Spike Brandt and Tony Cervone and producer/head writer Mitch Watson began with the original 1968-69 development art for Scooby-Doo, wo bist du? (1969) by Joe Ruby and Ken Spears, which included information about the Scooby-Doo characters' ages, parents, and home/school life that never made it onscreen in the original series.
In Ruby and Spears' original series bible, Fred and Shaggy are each 17 years old, Daphne is 16, and Velma is 15. For the purposes of this series, the kids were made roughly the same age: 16-17 in season 1, and 17-18 in season 2.
Casey Kasem provides the voice of Shaggy Rogers' father, Colton Rogers. Kasem was the original voice of Shaggy Rogers in most of the previous incarnations of the Scooby-Doo franchise.
This series, the 11th, is the longest Scooby-Doo series ever made so far.