Scooby-Doo: Mystery Incorporated was one of the most serious attempts at creating a fully fleshed-out world and plotline around the titular mystery solvers. One of the biggest revelations in the series even suggested that the group was part of a much older tradition than they realized. In fact, there was a previous Mystery Incorporated team -- who quietly showcased the worst-case fate for Scooby, Shaggy, Velma, Fred and Daphne if they grew apart and became the same kind of people the gang usually tries to bring down.
One of the major mysteries of Scooby-Doo: Mystery Incorporated surrounded the original Mystery Incorporated, which operated twenty years before the events of the show. Brad, Judy, Cassidy, Ricky and Ricky's parrot, Professor Pericles, were precursors to Fred, Daphne, Velma, Shaggy and Scooby respectively. In some cases, they had defined connections to their successors -- Brad and Judy being Fred's birth parents, while Pericles and Scooby shared an ancestry with the ancient Anunnaki aliens. After working together for years, the group discovered a treasure map in the ruins of a nearby church. In reality, their investigation had unearthed proof of the Planispheric Disk -- the key to unlocking untold treasures. The Disk was also connected to an ancient sarcophagus, which could unleash an ancient and evil Anunnaki.
Because of this, the disk also had an innately corrupting influence, cursing those who sought it with vicious greed. Corrupted by its influence, Pericles betrayed his friends and arranged for the splintering of the group alongside the villainous Fred Jones Sr. Jones, who went on to trap Pericles in an asylum and kidnap Brad and Judy's son to raise as his own, and their attempts to reunite with him resulted in their own corruption.
Meanwhile, Ricky became a reclusive manipulator known to the present-day Mystery Inc. as Mister E, eventually working alongside Pericles. Cassidy, on the other hand, was the only one uncorrupted by their adventure, but she went into hiding, taking up the false name Angel Dynamite and aiding the next generation of mystery solvers under her own death, saving them from Pericles.
Much of Scooby-Doo: Mystery Incorporated is focused on the present-day group unraveling the mystery of what happened to their predecessors, and then trying to prevent the release of the creature they'd stumbled upon. Their eventual discovery also serves as a genuine nightmare scenario for the present-day group.
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On top of falling apart, the original Mystery Inc. largely became the kind of people that the series has long featured as villains. They donned disguises, threatened innocent lives and lied to try and gain riches -- often turning against each other at the earliest convenience and ignoring the bonds that used to define them. Their machinations spread chaos across Crystal Cove, and their attempts to disguise their plans only resulted in the kinds of mysteries that the Scooby-Doo characters are often defined by solving.
At its core, the Scooby-Doo franchise has always been about a group of inquisitive young people trying to uncover the lies that others use to control the world. Every incarnation of the franchise has explored what this means on some level, even if just a cursory surface-level form of entertainment.
By showcasing how easily that dedication can be corrupted into greed, the original Mystery Inc. became the darkest kind of enemy the primary gang ever confronted: proof that their long-standing friendships could easily break, and that by growing up they might end up just as bad as the criminals they constantly bring to justice. Their short-sighted betrayals ended up getting them all killed and almost doomed the world -- with only a cosmic retcon caused by the Evil Entity's defeat sparing them a truly tragic fate.
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