Hanukkah. The scene opened in a synagogue. There were children spinning dreidels, adults gathered around doing Jew stuff. All is joyous - it's great. Entire families walking across the street on their cellphones to celebrate the occasion.

And then suddenly, a dark spectre swung down from the rafters, snatching up the menorah and the chocolate coins before swinging back up. From a ceiling beam, the fiend made an announcement:

"Ha ha ha ha ha!"

The crowd gasped. Scooby and Shaggy stopped whatever they were doing and looked on, shocked.

"It is I! The Messiah! I have come to deliver you! If you do not recognize me as your lord and savior, you'll never see this stuff I took again!"

With that, he waved the menorah and chocolate gold in an ominous manner before disappearing in a puff of white smoke.

"Scooby! Shaggy! You have to help us!" begged the Rabbi, as he shook his outstretched palms.

"If he gets away, we'll never have Hannukah again!"

"Zoiks" exclaimed Shaggy, "Like... no Hanukkah? That means no latkes, no chocolate coins?! Nothing?!"

"That's right, Shaggy," gasped the exacerbated Rabbi.

"No chocrate growowd?! Re got to strop hiiiiiiiiiim!" exclaimed Scooby-Doo, riled into a frenzy like never before.

Shaggy grabbed the excited dog's collar. "Like, zoiks, Scoob... hold it. If we want to catch the 'Mad Messiah,' we're going to have to follow the clues!"

"Crues? Right!"

Scooby began sniffing frantically, walking along until he came to a table. With one paw, he lifted the cloth and revealed a red substance on the floor beneath.

"Raggy! Rook!"

Shaggy ran over.

"Like, zoiks, Scoob! What's that?"

Shaggy dipped his index finger in the puddle and tasted it.

"Like, jeepers, Scoob! That's wine! But what's it doing there?"

"Ri ruh roh!" shrugged the befuddled dog as he licked up a good portion of the spilled beverage. Suddenly, the rabbi pointed frantically to the adjacent stage. "The 'Mad Messiah!'" he exclaimed.

There the spectre emerged from a fog.

"Ha ha ha ha! Meet my demands by twenty-four hundred hours
or you'll never see your precious menorah again!"

But this time, before he could vanish, a young Jew shouted and threw a broken glass at him. It shattered as it made impact.

"Take that, you monster!"

"Ow!" yelped the intruder as he vanished once again. Scooby and Shaggy rushed to the stage.

"Look, Scoobs! Another puddle!"

Scooby lept to the spot and began licking frantically.

"Raggy! Rine! It's Rine!"

"Wine?! Scoobs, do you know what this means?!"

"Ruh uh!"

"Like, me neither, Scoobs, but we're gonna get to the bottom of it!"

Shaggy and Scooby got to work creating an elaborate trap in the rafters. Upon tripping over one rope, another rope with a weight attached would fall and trigger a chain reaction which would leave the mysterious 'Mad Messiah' tied to a ceiling beam.

A few hours passed by, then. Scooby and Shaggy lay in wait as the festive proceedings carried on, with people acting as though nothing had happened. Just when it seemed as though the bizarre phantom would not make another appearance, the lights began to flicker and the familiar smoke spewed out overhead.

"Ha ha ha ha!" cackled the masked 'Mad Messiah' as his shadowy figure came into view, his arms on his hips in a decisive victory pose.

"It is time! Have you made your decision?"

Below, Scooby-Doo held one end of a rope between his teeth.

"Now!" commanded Shaggy, and Scooby pulled hard on the rope, raising the other end of the rope on the beam. The spectre tripped over it with a "Whooooo-ooooah!" and it ensnared his feet as he fell.

But all did not go as planned. As the second rope fell with its weight attached, the combined force of the descending weight and ensnared 'Messiah' broke two beams and pulled out numerous nails. When the smoke had cleared, the strange intruder was trapped, arms out, in a familiar position. Suspiciously familiar.

The detective/doggy duo approached the strange massive lowercase t that now stood on the bimah. The culprit still wore his menacing black hood.

"Now to find out who you really are!"

Shaggy tore the hood from his face, and gasps filled the room.

"Why, you're not the messiah at all! You're Jesus of Nazareth!"

The now-unveiled huckster shot winces into the crowd.

"And I would have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn't been for you meddling Jews!"

The duo laughed and celebrations resumed once more as the police carted Old Man Jesus out of the synagogue, still nailed up. A sack nearby revealed the stolen menorah and candy gold. Everyone danced, music played.

"Nice goin', Scoob!" laughed Shaggy as the great dane did that Jewish dance thing, complete with full Hasidic garb.

"Ranks, Raggy!"

Suddenly, he lost his balance, fell sideways over a chair and landed comically in a heap of bagels.

"Ree hee hee hee hee!"

Fin.