At the risk of spoiling it, a good chunk of the story is spent in a chemically induced hallucination, i.e. a drug trip. Totally not kidding there. Nobody deliberately takes drugs but the trip is there, in all of its family entertainment glory. If you're watching it with children you'll probably want a heads up for the conversation that may and should happen afterwards. But hey, that's rock and roll.
As for the rest of it, the animation is as stunning as the past several direct to DVD movies have been. The gang all gets their moments. And the combination of classic KISS songs with a prerequisite Scooby chase scene through the world's trippiest amusement park certainly rivals the bulk of music videos created today.
Overall, it's a decent film. If you're into KISS, definitely go for it. If you're really into Scooby like I am, then also go for it. If you're only kind of into Scooby then there's better stuff out there.
What kind of other stuff? Well, I'm glad I pretended you asked. Scooby-Doo has a 46 year and counting history of shows, movies, specials and miscellaneous appearances including the epic fan fiction Scooby-Doo's Unsolved Mystery written by yours truly, which happens to be available on this very blog site through this link. But let's say you only kind of like Scooby-Doo and you don't want to have to peruse through the whole library yourself just to find the good ones. I'm happy to say that you're in luck, because after a painstaking couple of minutes I've complied a list of ten Scooby stories that I feel just have something 'special' about them.
10. Scooby Doo! in Where's My Mummy? (2005 DVD)
This video was part of the second wave of Scooby DVDs, heavily influenced by the What's New, Scooby-Doo? series. I simply adore the TV show, but I have to say that most of the movies from this period felt like episodes that were needlessly padded out to fill an eighty minute plot. And this one is really about the same as the ensemble around it if it weren't for one detail; the use of Velma.
It's hard to talk much about it without spoiling the plot (an aspect of Scooby-Doo that has become surprisingly important in the recent decades). But I will say that there is a point in the film where the gang believes Velma has been killed.
It's a Scooby movie, so the handling of it doesn't become overly heavy handed, but it is in there. And the image of Scooby howling for her is still a bit haunting. When you think of Scooby-Doo as a franchise you typically remember the slapstick chase scenes set to peppy music and the plethora of tropes that have entered the population's vocabulary; and those elements are important to the series. But at its core, Scooby-Doo is a kid's franchise about facing something unpleasant and overcoming it. And this video shows a poignant side to Mystery Inc. in demonstrating how they deal with death.
9. Scooby-Doo! Frankencreepy (2014 DVD)
You may remember last summer when this video stirred up a little controversy over Daphne's dress size ballooning into obesity. I think people made a bigger deal out of it that it was, but there were still a few bits that were worthy of concern. Obesity, and the way people whose bodies are obese are treated, are very important issues. It's possible that Scooby-Doo may have tapped into them a little deeper than they were prepared to handle. It's a fair discussion, but at the end of the day it's still Scooby-Doo. We don't exactly hold Fred Jones accountable for teaching kids about trespassing.
Moving past that, the best Scooby-Doo stories are the ones that could not have happened to any other protagonists, and Frankencreepy requires the Scooby gang be present. It's a double dose of homage to both the classic Universal film as well as the classic Scooby adventures. Once again Velma is at the center of the story, but the rest of the gang all have subplots targeting something about them personally. What can I say? It works a hell of a lot better than that damned 2002 live action movie.
8. Bedlam in the Big Top (1969 episode)
I really wanted to include a classic episode on this list, and Bedlam was the one that stood out the most.
Watching the old Scooby-Doo episodes is a bit like revisiting the classic Doctor Who series. It takes a bit of resolve to get through them. But here we are in the very first season, in a time before musical chase scenes and when Shaggy still actually had a bit of a spine. This was when Scooby-Doo was developing its own vocabulary and template. You can turn to What a Night for a Knight, Hassle in the Castle, or A Night of Fright is No Delight for better examples of a typical Scooby-Doo caper but Bedlam in the Big Top features a unique idea that I would love to see revisited. Namely, the fiend who coerces the gang into putting themselves into danger.
I have a theory that the quality of a Scooby story correlates to whether or not Daphne matters. And while this episode didn't exactly give her any development, she at least had some screen time. And there was something about the way Ghost Clown brought out a smile in her as she was being hypnotized that has always stayed with me. You have to wonder what kind of darkness she actually carries in her.
But the payoff in the episode is Shaggy. As a child I had very few characters I felt like I could relate to, and by default Shaggy was my guy. The Ghost Clown had already put Scooby on the trapeze and Daphne on the tightrope, but when he sent Shaggy into the lion's cage I felt this rare mix of concern and excitement. It was more than a little gratifying to see that Shaggy is the one who figures out how to defeat the clown at the end.
7. E-Scream (2006 episode)
What's New, Scooby-Doo? is probably the apex of the Scooby series. It seems like every one of its 42 episodes found a different trope to deconstruct, and it never got old. Clearly this show was created with a multi-generational audience in mind, as some of the mysteries are surprisingly sophisticated. You can't look at an episode like The San Franpsycho without wondering how the production team managed to cram a back story, a guest voice, multiple red herrings and three chase scenes into a mere 22 minutes.
Fred steals practically every episode, with veteran Frank Welker finding that sweet spot between no-nonsense leader of the old series and the buffoon of A Pup Named Scooby-Doo. Mindy Cohn has taken over as Velma and also find the perfect blend of classic enthusiasm and humor-potential snark. But it's Daphne who gets the most needed makeover. Grey DeLisle-Griffin's background in comedy invariably had an influence on the way her character was written. To this day Daphne's personality has yet to be nailed down, but DeLisle-Griffin is clearly having fun fleshing her out.
I could recommend just about any mystery in this series, but it's the finale episode that really breaks the mold. To say anything about E-Scream would ruin the fun. Suffice to say, it's telling just how vital each member of Mystery Inc. is to the show's dynamic; in that you can end a series with the dog's name in the title on a Velma-centric episode and it still feels right.
6. Scooby-Doo! and the Witch's Ghost (1999 DVD)
I'm sure there's a reason they sometimes put an exclamation point after Scooby-Doo in the titles of these things and sometimes don't.
This one came out on the heels of Zombie Island, which was really the home video that revived the whole franchise with an impressively animated foray into real supernatural occurrences. Witch's Ghost takes it a step further by bringing in Tim Curry as Ben Ravencroft, introducing the Hex Girls (who should have had a spin-off by now), and upping the ante of the Scooby formula. Twice.
First up is a romantic angle between Velma and Ben (wonder how that works out). Then of course there's the central mystery, which is spaced out carefully. And just when it feels like things are wrapping up there comes a bonus act. Again, it's hard to talk about the film without spoiling it. But it was an instant classic when it was first released, and it still works as a holiday tradition anywhere between Halloween and Thanksgiving; kind of unique.
5. Night of the Living Doo (2001 special)
Scooby-Doo has been parodied by everybody. Even House of Mouse did a nod to it on at least one occasion. But nothing has quite the gusto of Scooby and the gang lampooning themselves. There was a famous Johnny Bravo episode involving Mystery Inc. which escalated into one of the all time great chase sequences, but that was a showcase for Johnny Bravo first and foremost. Night of the Living Doo is pure Scooby.
David Cross is particularly brilliant flip-flopping between comic and straight man depending on the situation. Gary Coleman tries so hard to be the unwanted voice of sensibility. Big Bad Voodoo Daddy appears out of nowhere. And of course there's Mark Hamill, because Mark Hamill. It's the Scooby and the gang at their most irreverent.
It's a testament to just how strong these characters are that they can parody themselves and never stop being themselves. Hanna-Barbera created the show and followed it up with at least half a dozen Scooby clone shows, and none of them (Captain Caveman, Jabberjaw, Speed Buggy, etc.) ever matched the iconicness of the original team. But when you can do self-parody and still walk away, that's pretty versatile.
4. Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated (2010-2013 series)
Yep. The whole damn series. Sorry, but that's the way it goes when you ave an overarching plot that spans 52 episodes.
It wasn't their best series, but it was probably their ballsiest. There are certainly weaknesses. Fred's obsession with traps almost comes across as a fetish, and one that doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense. There's the animation shift in style, which honestly just takes some getting used to. And then there's the teen-aged relationship drama which got in the way more than it didn't. Velma and Shaggy dating? We all knew that wasn't going to end well.
But at the same time, this was the series that got to break the rules. When someone's feelings were hurt, you felt it. There wasn't a wisecrack that restored the status quo. When it was funny, it was What's New, Scooby-Doo? funny. But when it got serious, it got dark.
Season 2 in particular really took off the gloves. Bad things happened to good people. Tragedy struck. Likable characters were killed. This isn't your father's show about kicking the Creeper in the kneecap.
But this was ultimately Scooby's show. It was a fascinating character study to watch the cowardly Great Dane throw down the gauntlet when he was pushed over the line; and he was. There's an inner badass lurking beneath all of the whimpering and jumping into Shaggy's arms. If the cosmetic issues of the series kept you from giving it a chance, I'd really like to encourage you to try it again. There's a real gem in Crystal Cove.
3. Scooby Doo and the Cyber Chase (2001 DVD)
Okay, full disclosure: this is the lamest mystery the gang has ever taken for-freaking-ever to figure out. But that's not the point of this one. It's all about the romp through the virtual world, featuring (count 'em) three musical chase scenes.
The gang arrives via invitation to the anonymously named State University where their friend has invented a machine that transfers living matter into computer data a la Tron. Of course he uses this global changing technology to create a Scooby-Doo video game. But an evil virus that looks a little like Freakazoid's mannequin enters the real world and does some truly, unforgivably inconvenient things to the SU campus.
And here's the fun factor from the get-go. We know it's a real virus and not some janitor in a virus costume (?) which means Shaggy and Scooby get to dole out the biggest first act beating they've ever inflicted on the main villain. It's kind of gratifying.
Inevitably the gang winds up being pulled into the virtual world where they have to play through each of the ten levels of the game, collecting the box of Scooby Snacks that has been hidden about twenty yards away from their entry point. It's not a very good game. And while the 'anything goes' fantasy world is never fully realized, it still proves to be a lot of fun.
And then comes the final level where it really gets good. The gang encounters virtual versions of themselves, and Daphne (in probably her first real moment of character development) shows a subtle sign of not getting along with herself. We have a few surprise cameos from former monsters (What is it about the Creeper that makes his appearance so cool?) and multiple victories for the entire cast. And, oh yeah, the culprit turns out to be exactly who you think it is.
2. The Scooby-Doo Project (1999 special)
This was a series of about one minute segments parodying The Blair Witch Project that aired on The Cartoon Network and was then compiled into short film format. At the time Blair Witch was all the rage, and everybody was doing a send-up of it, but Scooby was the best.
The Scooby gang were all the 2D style drawings set to a live action background and a real Mystery Machine. The then-current voice cast all reprised their roles from Witch's Ghost including Frank Welker as Fred, B.J. Ward as Velma, Scott Innes as Shaggy and Scooby, and the much missed Mary Kay Bergman as Daphne.
This is an example of a parody that outdoes its source material. First off, the running time manages to hit all of the important beats of the movie without feeling rushed; Blair Witch should always have been a short film. Second, the insertion of the Scooby gang into the story somehow feels right. It would be harder to accept Fred and Daphne in a Paranormal Activity spoof, but Blair Witch was meant to be. Third, as funny as this is, it's also kind of creepy. To the best of my knowledge, this is Mystery Inc.'s only official venture into dark comedy. Their fate is left ambiguous.
1. Scooby Doo! Stage Fright (2013 DVD)
Okay, so why this one? What sets this above the rest of Scooby's misadventures? To begin with, the production team started with an inspired idea, take a classic horror story like The Phantom of the Opera and combine it with a (mostly) current pop culture phenomenon; in this case the American Idol craze. That's solid enough for a Scooby story, but then they got ambitious.
What we are treated to is a complicated plot borrowing quite a number of ideas (a famous Agatha Christie mystery comes to mind) carefully woven together. I can't risk spoiling the journey, but Stage Fright is one of their most cleverly crafted mysteries to date. And they still found time to work in a narrative that could only be a Scooby-Doo story.
It may be an overstatement to say this film has everything, but for the life of me I can't think of what they could have left out. Fred gets some Batman: the Animated Series styled action. Daphne gets some Meg Ryan. Shaggy and Scooby remind us that they do in fact have sleuthing abilities. And Velma gets all the best lines. The humor is sharp. The chases are choreographed. And we even have a couple of new songs to showcase the singing talents of DeLisle-Griffin and Welker.
The short version, Stage Fright is the new bar for Scooby's production staff to aim for, and it's going to be a tough feat. Just know I've got a box of Scooby Snacks here and I'm prepared to start distributing them.
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