Who Is 'Ultra Instinct Shaggy' And Is He Canon?

The highly anticipated Super Smash Bros. inspired fighting game Multiversus has been out for about a month now, and if there's one thing a lot of players can agree on, it's that Shaggy is an A-tier character. But Shaggy doesn't play like you might expect him to and that becomes obvious when you first see him surrounded in blue fire and powering up like a Super Saiyan.

What you're witnessing is Ultra Instinct Shaggy, an immeasurably powerful version of Shaggy born in the meme-verse who has now been officially introduced to the Warner Bros. canon. Here's what you need to know.

Where Does Ultra Instinct Shaggy Come From?

Going "Ultra Instinct" comes from the anime series Dragon Ball Super. It's kind of like going Super Saiyan, a state that Saiyans can achieve that gives them immense power, only the next step up. The Dragon Ball Universe wiki. describes Ultra Instinct as "an ultimate technique that separates the consciousness from the body, allowing it to move and fight independently of a martial artist's thoughts and emotions." When Dragon Ball fans and memers first saw Goku go Ultra Instinct, it inspired a series of memes where characters from other media properties are edited achieving the state, peaking in late 2017.

Ultra Instinct Shaggy made his first appearance online in October 2017, when a YouTuber named Midya posted an edit of a scene from Scooby-Doo! Legend of the Phantosaur. In the edit, Shaggy fights off some bikers to the song “Ultimate Battle” from Dragon Ball Super. The video was deleted, but reuploaded months later, with over 1.3 million views at the time of writing.

How Is Ultra Instinct Shaggy Used In Memes?

In the months that followed, Ultra Instinct Shaggy became a runaway meme hit. People became obsessed with the absurd idea of Shaggy, a chill dude by all means, going Ultra Instinct and having immense power in general. The video inspired further fan art and memes showing Shaggy in his Ultra Instinct state, introducing the world to a new side of Shaggy that was ultimately very non-canon. People even started to demand Shaggy as a DLC character in Mortal Kombat 11 thanks to the meme, although Warner Bros. didn't listen.

By 2018, the meme evolved and detached from its Ultra Instinct roots a little bit, becoming the Shaggy's Power meme. Shaggy's Power memes play off the same idea of Shaggy being incredibly powerful, only this time around he doesn't necessarily need to achieve Ultra Instinct state to use that power. These memes depict Shaggy using his power (often only 10 percent of it) to dominate powerful characters and do things that only a super-powered being with immeasurable ability could do. From this point on, Shaggy became well known online as a secretly powerful entity, never quite shaking the joke.

Is Ultra Instinct Shaggy Canon?

The first time Warner Bros. really leaned into the Ultra Instinct Shaggy meme was in their August 2021 film Mortal Kombat Legends: Battle of the Realms. At the start of the movie, the Waner Bros. logo pops up and Scorpion jumps out of it, followed by an unmistakable Ultra Instinct Shaggy opening the logo and pulling Scorpion back in. The animation is an obvious reference to fans demanding Shaggy in Mortal Kombat and, in many people's eyes, confirmed Ultra Instinct Shaggy as canon since it appeared in an official Warner Bros. movie.

More recently, Warner Bros. made Ultra Instinct Shaggy's status in the canon undeniable by adding him into Multiversus. While the character is just called "Shaggy" in the roster (the creators of Dragon Ball might not be cool with them stealing "Ultra Instinct") the character's main fighting style relies on Shaggy gaining power through an action that resembles going Ultra Instinct just a little too much to be a coincidence. So, no, "Ultra Instinct" Shaggy, meaning a Shaggy that goes Ultra Instinct like in Dragon Ball, isn't canon, but a Shaggy with immeasurable power from a mysterious source that kind of resembles going Ultra Instinct? Yeah, that's canon.

For the full details on the Ultra Instinct Shaggy, be sure to check out our entry on the meme here for even more information.