The gang was originally a rock band

Before they settled on the premise of a group of teenagers in a funky van, the original plan was a rock band that solved mysteries between gigs. The original pitch even had an extra character.

Going by the original names of Geoff, Mike, Kelly, Linda and WW, they also had a bongo playing dog named Too Much. Thankfully, the network thought that wasn’t a good idea, so they axed the idea and asked Hanna-Barbara to start from scratch.