Hey, look I'm back. Isn't that crazy?

It has been a long time. Years in fact. Yeah. I was without Internet for a very long time. It sucked. But that's over, sort off, and I am back and ready to get this blog up and running again. And speaking of running why don't I kick off this return with a Marathon of Scooby-Doo?

Why?

Why not?

 

Okay I know this is a little random. But I can explain. I had heard for some time that “Scooby-Doo! Mystery, Inc.” (the last Scooby-Doo Series) was actually really good. So, I had been meaning to watch it. I never got around to it, until I saw a few episodes of the new series “Be Cool Scooby-Doo“. The new series is pretty good, aside from the fact that the character designs make it look like a bit from Family Guy.

Tell me you can't see Peter Griffin walking

into this scene.

Anyway I watched Mystery Inc. and loved it. It is awesome you should watch it. Afterward, I wanted more Scooby-Doo. So I decided to watch the Scooby movies. All of them. And let me tell you there are a lot of them.

I figured since I was going to watch them I might as well review them. And thus it is explained.

Be warned I will be giving away the endings to these movies. So if you don't want to be spoiled read carefully.
   

So let's start with the first "movie". I used quotes because Scooby Goes Hollywood is not a movie. It was an hour long prime time special that first aired in 1979. But it's listed on Wikipedia as a movie, so I watched it. Hell, if you can't trust Wikipedia what can you trust?

Okay, so Scooby-Doo Goes Hollywood is an interesting "movie". The premise is that Shaggy convinces Scooby that he is such a huge star, he should be doing serious dramatic work. To clarify in the world of this movie Scooby, Shaggy, Daphne, Velma and Fred are actors in the Scooby Doo show but they are also themselves. I don't know if this means that the show is a retelling of their adventures or what. To be honest this special doesn't warrant any deep thought.

Anyway, Shaggy and Scooby decide to visit the head of the studio and show him, I guess you can call them test reels, in the hopes of getting Scooby a different part. This is all a setup to show send ups of 70's TV shows with Scooby-Doo in them. Shows like Laverne and Shirley, Happy Days, and Charlie's Angels to name a few.
 

I found this movie to be a little dull. The only skit I enjoyed was the Happy Days one, but without Henry Winkler as the voice of the Fonz, or the Groove, as he is named in the skit, it fell a little flat.

The bits with Scooby trying to enter Hollywood high society are okay, as is the scene where the gang holds a casting call to find a talking dog to replace Scooby.  Apparently talking dogs are rather common in this world. Which, considering how many of Scooby’s relatives can talk, makes sense.

Aside from that this movie has very little going for it.

Also Shaggy is portrayed really odd in this. You're never quite sure of his motivations. I couldn't help but feel like he was riding Scooby's coat tails and was pushing for Scoob to get a more serious role so that he can get one himself. At the end of the movie he is even shown trying to get his own project off the ground. Shaggy acting like a bit of an asshole is so out of left field. It just derails the entire special.

The animation is about what you'd expect onpar with and maybe slightly better than your average 70's Scooby episode. The voice acting is spot on though, Rip Taylor is great.

All in all I'd give this move 4 out of 10.
               

                         

Next was the first real Scooby movie, Scooby-Doo Meets the Boo Brothers from 1987. That is an 8 year gap between movies. During that time a lot happened. First Fred, Velma and Daphne where written out of the show, then a new character was introduced, Daphne returned along with another new character and finally Daphne and the second new character were removed. Leaving Scooby, Shaggy, and the first new character.

As you can tell I'm dancing around something here. The thing is I know that there are a lot of strong emotions, all negative, tied into that character. A character that stars in this film, but if you are willing to put those emotions aside this movie is, well, still not great.

So let's talk about the puppy in the room. This movie stars Scrappy Doo.

I don't hate Scrappy Doo. I know I'm supposed to. I just don't. I do get the hate. The thing is I haven't seen the Scrappy episodes in a long time, when I did see them I was young enough for his shtick to amuse me. Looking back on it if I saw those episodes now I'd probably want to kill him.

However, he isn't that bad in this movie. They really down play his character, they write him to be as smart as Velma and as capable as Fred, which is kind of amazing. So you don't want to choke the life out of his tiny body. Maybe Scrappy's shtick just doesn't come off that terrible when compared to the Boo Brothers' and their wannabe Three Stooges crap.
                   

Anyway as for the movie itself, it's fine. Not great, not terrible, very middle of the road. There is one interesting aspect to it. This is the first Scooby movie to have real supernatural elements. The aforementioned Boo Brothers. This isn't the first time for that in the series as a whole, that would be The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo which debuted in 1985. The odd thing is that while the supernatural is real, as shown by the Boo Brothers, the main antagonist is a guy in a mask.

The plot of the movie is your basic Scooby plot. Scooby and Shaggy end up somewhere spooky, this time an old mansion left to Shaggy by his deceased uncle, and then, gasp, GHOSTS! The only difference between this and every other Scooby plot are the Boo Brothers, three Ghost Busting ghost brothers.

This is a very average Scooby Movie, it can be a little dull and Scrappy, while nowhere near as bad as he can be, is still a little overbearing, but all in all not bad. Having said that, this is not a must watch.

The animation is a step up from the previous movie. It's smooth and the darker color pallete is pleasant. The voice acting is fine but the Boo Brothers are just too much.

5 out of ten.
             

      

Next up we have Scooby-Doo and the Ghoul School from 1988.

This is another Scooby, Shaggy and Scrappy outing. The set up here is a little different. Our three heroes end up somewhere spooky and shenanigans occur. I know that sounds similar but trust me it's different. You see Shaggy and Scooby land a job as Gym teachers, which makes a very odd kind of sense, at a school for monster girls. Now that I think about it begs the question 'Why hasn't Scooby-Doo crossed over with Monster High?'.  Or are teenage and preteen girls to sophisticated for Scooby-Doo? Anyway Scrappy tags along because his parents want as little to do with him as most people.

This is another Scooby movie where the supernatural is real. Unlike the previous film our culprit isn't a guy in a mask. Which is a nice change of pace.

One thing about this film is that there is no mystery here. We are shown from the beginning who the bad guy is and are told their motivations. That isn't a change I like. Part of the fun of Scooby-Doo, at least the more modern films, is trying to guess who the bad guy is.

Instead of a mystery we get a story about the rivalry between a Finishing School For Girls and a Military Academy. There a lot of questions brought up by this scenario. Why is an all boy's Military School facing an all girl's Finishing school in physical competition? How does a school full of monster offspring continue to lose against normal preteen boys? Who would build a military school next to a haunted swamp? How did Miss Grimwood know Scooby and Shaggy needed jobs? Did she run an add in the paper? If so what paper? Why would Shaggy and Scooby even want to be Gym Teachers?

I could go on but you get my point.

Look at that little mummy girl. She is adorable.

The thing is none of that matters. This is a fun movie. Mainly because of the supporting cast of Ghouls. These girls have just enough character to set themselves apart from each other. Some more so than others.

Like I said this is a fun movie. Definitely a step up from Scooby-Doo Meets the Boo Brothers. This isn't a must see but it is something to check out on a rainy day when you have nothing else to do.

This movie has good animation, I love the character designs, and the voice work is great. Technically I can't fault this movie. The only reason it doesn't get a higher rating is that the movie doesn't have a mystery. A Scooby-Doo movie needs a mystery.

7 out of 10

  

The fourth Scooby Movie is Scooby-Doo! and the Reluctant Werewolf (1988), spoiler alert, Shaggy is the Reluctant Werewolf.

This is the third and final Scooby movie to costar Scrappy. So if the little pups presence is a non starter for you, then from the next movie onward you are in the clear.

As this movie begins we met Dracula, not the Dracula from the previous movie a different one. This brings me to the subject of continuity. Even when you assume there is continuity you can never really be sure. The three Scrappy movies should share continuity but this movie blows that theory out the window. Let's just accept that when this film came out continuity meant nothing.

Anyway, the plot of this movie is odd. When the film opens we meet Dracula and a slew of other Universal type monsters. They are about to enter their yearly best monster contest. The only problem is that the Werewolf decided, fuck that noise I'm retired, which is a problem.

For the competition to go forward Dracula has to find a new werewolf. Shaggy, as it turns out, is the descendant of werewolves’ so, boom, we have a movie.  I wonder if that means that Shaggy is related to Fangface?

What follows is a very long episode of Wacky Races, with Dracula playing the role of Snidely Whiplash. This isn't a great movie but it can be entertaining.

The bits with Dracula making fun of how stupid his bride is, are gold.  He is so cruel and she is so oblivious that I couldn’t help but laugh.

Since a large portion of this movie is the race, and the hijinks that occur during said race, there isn’t much to talk about. There is one thing I want to touch on. Shaggy has a girlfriend.
 

Look at her. That's his girlfriend. Here name is Googie. What other name would a woman who dates a guy named Shaggy have? I love the idea of Shaggy having a girlfriend. It's so out of the blue.

This is a fun flick that is a little all over the place. But considering the set up that makes sense.

Smooth animation and good voice acting add to this movie, but once again the lack of a mystery brings it down slightly. I'd say the story is weaker than Ghoul School, but the racing scenes make up for that.

7 out of 10.

We are now done with the Scrappy movies. Our next film is Scooby-Doo! in Arabian Nights from 1994. So for all of you who were waiting for Scrappy to get sent to the pound here you are. The worst Scooby-Doo movie of them all.

Why? You ask. Because it is hardly a Scooby movie.

The set up is that Scooby and Shaggy have been hired as royal food tasters for a Caliph in the middle east. I love how a defining character trait for those two is that they get hired for the most random jobs. They eat all of the food and as such are to be put to death. They of course high tail it and end up in the harem. In Scooby-Doo tradition they dress like concubines and the Caliph instantly falls for Shaggy. This leads to Shaggy telling him two stories.

Those stories make up the bulk of this movie. This is a slow, tedious, film that I'm sure was made just to leach off of the success of Aladdin. Hell the music even sounds similar.

Sure the stories star Yogi Bear and Magilla Gorilla, which is cool, but this is just a mess.

The thing is that between the last movie and this one "A Pup Named Scooby-Doo", my favorite series, aired. This could have been a movie in the vein of that series. Instead we got this.

On a side note this is the last time Don Messick will be voicing Scooby Doo in one of these movies. He had a stroke in 1996 which lead to his retirement and he passed on a few years later. It's really sad that this is what he ended his Scooby run on. If only he had been well enough to see what comes next. 

This is also the last time Casey Kasem will be voicing Shaggy for a while.

The only thing this movie has going for it is the decent voice work, Eddie Deezen is always great, but the animation and art style are just so simplistic.  Definitely the worst Scooby movie by far.

1 out of 10

I'll be back next week with the next 5 movies. Watch out for a mid week update. See you then.