Tim Curry’s Most Beloved Scooby-Doo Villain Moment Was Reportedly His Single Favorite Line of His Entire Career

Horror fans have spent the past few days revisiting some of the most memorable performances from a career that spanned decades, and one animated role keeps rising back to the top of the conversation. It’s a performance that turned a beloved family franchise into something genuinely unsettling for anyone who watched it as a kid.

Long before he became known for his work in prestige horror, Tim Curry had already proven he could turn even a Saturday morning cartoon into something delightfully menacing.

That reputation traces directly back to ‘Scooby-Doo! and the Witch’s Ghost,’ where Curry reportedly considered the incantation used to summon Sarah’s ghost to be his single favorite line of his entire career. It’s a striking claim given the sheer breadth of Curry’s résumé, and it speaks to just how much the actor relished sinking his teeth into the role of Ben Ravencroft.

Released in 1999, the direct-to-video film follows the Scooby-Doo gang as they cross paths with Ravencroft, an eccentric horror novelist who invites them to his hometown of Oakhaven, Massachusetts. What begins as a seemingly harmless mystery tour eventually reveals Ravencroft’s true intentions, as he sets out to unlock the dark power of his ancestor Sarah, a supposed witch imprisoned within her own spell book generations earlier.

Curry’s performance has become something of a cult favorite among fans who grew up with the franchise, largely because of how effectively he shifted from warm and charismatic to genuinely sinister once Ravencroft’s true colors emerged. Longtime viewers have pointed to lines like his declaration that Sarah’s blood running through his veins makes him “a warlock” as a defining example of the actor fully committing to the character’s theatrical menace.

Curry was reportedly a devoted fan of the Scooby-Doo franchise himself, which likely contributed to how much he enjoyed bringing Ravencroft to life. He would go on to return to the franchise for another installment, ‘Scooby-Doo! and the Goblin King,’ further cementing his connection to the property beyond just this single role.

The performance also fits neatly within Curry’s broader legacy as one of animation’s most reliably captivating voice actors, a career that included turns as Hexxus in ‘FernGully: The Last Rainforest,’ Nigel Thornberry in ‘The Wild Thornberrys,’ and even Chancellor Palpatine in ‘Star Wars: The Clone Wars’ following Ian Abercrombie’s death in 2013. Across all of these roles, Curry brought a distinct sense of precision and theatrical menace that made him instantly recognizable even when his voice was unrecognizable.

That legacy has taken on renewed weight following news that Curry died at his Los Angeles home at the age of 80, a loss that has sent fans and former collaborators searching through his decades of work to celebrate everything he brought to both live-action and animated projects. For many, revisiting Ben Ravencroft’s transformation into a scenery-chewing warlock feels like the perfect way to honor an actor who never seemed to phone in a performance, no matter how unassuming the project appeared on paper.

Given how beloved this particular villain turn remains among fans more than two decades later, it’s easy to understand why Curry singled out this moment as such a personal highlight. It stands as a reminder that great performances don’t require prestige packaging, sometimes all it takes is an actor who fully commits to the material in front of him.

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