The New Scooby-Doo Movies

Don't get me wrong, I love "Scooby Doo" as much as the next guy, and I do like this show. I think the concept was good overall, but the problem I have is basically the celebrities that Scooby and the gang met.

For instance, they met Laurel and Hardy both of whom were dead before "Scooby-Doo" even hit the airwaves. Another moment was when they met the "Three Stooges" which was cool, the only thing was that Curly was dead for 20 years prior to the show's airing (It would've made sense if they had Curly Joe who WAS alive at the time appear but nooo. They had Curly!), although Moe, and Larry were OK since they were still alive at that time. Plus, how many times did Scooby and the gang solve mysteries with the Globetrotters? I know I've seen two episodes where they solved mysteries with the Globetrotters, but wasn't there another one (I might be right on just 2)? That right there is "Recycling" since they had ANOTHER episode with the Globetrotters (Don't get me wrong, the Globetrotters episodes are my favorites, as well as the Mama Cass one, but it's best to have a guest on ONCE. It's not a good thing to have one person, or persons on more then once). However, this show also had crossovers too with "Josie and the Pussycats", and "Speed Buggy". This was cool since all of these cartoons had one thing in common: They all involved characters who SOLVED mysteries!! That was a good point right there. I think I've got this down pat.

As I said before, don't get me wrong, I DO like this show, the only thing is that the celebrities that Scooby and the gang met were either dead, or that they solved mysteries with one particular group of celebs once too many. Overall this show is good. 8/10.

I have loved Scooby Doo since I was a little kid. I looked forward to seeing him everyday after school. The station that showed it (I think TBS, mid-80's) would show the 1969-1971 episodes on Monday, half a `New Scooby Movie' on Tuesday, its second part on Wednesday, and 1976 episodes on Thursday and Friday. Without a doubt, Mondays were my favorite. Looking at Scooby as a whole, you just can't get any better than those wonderful episodes. I also liked most of the 1976 shows. But I always hated Tuesdays and Wednesdays because I hated sitting through a `New Scooby Doo Movie.' Not really knowing why, I carried the memory of them throughout the years with resentment, and over the years I would hear people praising the 1972 run whenever the topic of Scooby Doo came up. A few months ago, I decided to see if my feelings have been wrong all these years. I sat down and watched every single `Movie.' And you know what? My memory was almost exactly right. I remembered every episode and my old feelings for nearly every one of those episodes was unmoving. To me, this set of episodes is about as detrimental to the Scooby franchise as the first few miserable years of Scrappy Doo were before they mercifully scrapped his tough-pup personality for something more mellow (Although whoever it was that decided to KEEP Scrappy around for another decade will have a nice warm seat in Hades someday; right next to the seat of Scrappy's creator).

So what exactly is it that I hate about these episodes? We can start with the guest stars. I had an advantage on others my age when I was young in that I knew who most of the stars were. The problem is that the scripts are forced to haul a lot of attention to the guests and their antics, especially if the guest was a comedian or there was a large group of guests. With another big chunk of attention going to Shaggy and Scooby, there was little time for anything else. The fundamental thing that is a Scooby Doo episode---the mystery---was pushed aside and forgotten or mishandled in favor of showcasing the guests. It also caused most mysteries to be simplified, the plot either being recycled or sloppily executed. Suspects? No time! Just throw in some ghosts, a so-called crime, and call it a mystery!

Worse yet, the animation took a huge nose-dive. It's as if all the money went to paying the real guests to do their own voices that there was nothing left for a good animation crew. Sure, there were plenty of glitches in the 1969 shows, but the `Movies' went overboard on them. Direction also seemed poorer, like Hanna & Barbera just stopped caring. Even a staple of the show, the ghosts, usually looked incredibly cheap. Many episodes give us a conglomeration of poorly conceived ghosts that continuously pop up and befuddle the gang. It's not very clever and robs interest from the plot if there isn't one specific ghost to catch. Other times, they just take a crudely drawn ghost and give them no color. How boring it is to watch a colorless figure running after the gang. The worst of these (and the rock-bottom, worst episode for that matter) is the one where they merely took the Redbeard characters from 1969 and stripped them of their color. Really, if you had solved a mystery of Redbeard three years before and were suddenly hounded by his ghost again, wouldn't you immediately know it was a hoax?

Perhaps these elements wouldn't be so bad if the writing was good, but that is the most criminal aspect of them all. The humor is usually really terrible, with much of it relying on the charm of the guest star to provide its yuks, but much of the humor is so poor that it wipes away the charm of the guest. The most hideous examples of comedy are the episodes with Don Adams and Don Knotts. And you would think that these comedians would be a perfect fit with Scooby's atmosphere! There are also characters which should never, ever have been paired with Scoob: Batman & Robin, Jeannie, and the Addams Family. And there is something sad about the Cass Elliot episode, where Elliot made a bunch of cracks about her weight, an issue she was sensitive about and that would help take her life one year later. The thing that really gets to me is the flagrant time wasting. Characters will step out of the plot and do a long, drawn-out, unfunny activity. It happens all the time, but the worst is in a Globetrotters episode where we are forced to sit through the basketball playing, watching the same animated shots over and over again. Keep in mind there are THREE Globetrotter episodes, all with flagrant time wasting! Now, not all episodes are poorly written. The Davy Jones episode is the best, with good ghosts, good use of Jones, and a good plot. Same with the Three Stooges/Red Baron and Tim Conway episodes. The big shock for me was the Dick Van Dyke episode. The ghosts and story were nothing special, but the funny writing and humor with Van Dyke was so good that it made the episode exceptional.

For what it is worth, here are the episodes followed by a rating for each one, in descending order: Davy Jones--10; Three Stooges (Red Baron)--9; Dick Van Dyke--9; Tim Conway--8; Laurel & Hardy--7; Batman & Robin (Counterfeit Case)--7; Sonny & Cher--6; Phyllis Diller--6; Speed Buggy--6; Jerry Reed--5; Jonathan Winters--5; Batman & Robin (Flying Suit)--5; Cass Elliot--5; Three Stooges (Ghost Town)--5; Sandy Duncan--4 Addams Family--3; Globetrotters (Revolutionary Ghosts)--2; Josie & the Pussycats--2; Globetrotters (Haunted Island)--1; Jeannie--1; Don Adams--1; Don Knotts (Captain Moody)--1; Don Knotts (Spooky Fog)--1; Globetrotters (Redbeard)--1.

Thanks to the 1976 series, Scooby survived this blast against his credibility, only to be doused with gasoline and lit aflame a few years later with the coming of Scrappy. Still, at least it only took you thirty minutes to label a Scrappy episode as junk, not a full hour. Scrappy was bad, but for my money, `The New Scooby Movies' rank as the worst Scooby series.

Why did the Mystery Machine kids suddenly start teaming up with these characters? Why not Yogi Bear or Huckleberry Hound? Why was this cartoon an hour long? Scooby Doo, at this time, was only 3 years old. The transition of these kids and their dog will be one of the most intriguing journeys in cartoon history to track. The Scooby Movies are that incredible as well.

I do recall eventually watching these back when they aired, and clearly did not watch them straight through. The New Scooby Movies aired opposite the quickly-cancelled Saturday Superstar Movies on ABC, which I did watch instead back then in '72.

Later that year, I would check out the movies and was floored. The animation for many HB cartoons at this time was poor, plots are horrible too, so the celebs were pretty much on their own. Don KNotts does seem to be the winner here with his two appearances. In this limited animation program, he does manage to deliver some one-of-a-kind lines for a cartoon.

My siblings and I did rather enjoy the Jonathan Winters one as well, mainly for the Mother Frickert character, also voiced by Winters. Phyllis Diller seemed to have extensive fun too (when the gang is trying to open a heavy door, Diller quips "what a shame I'm not strong instead of just. . . gorgeous!" she says in an alluring manner).

I had no recollection of the Cass Elliott adventure in the candy factory, but Elliott seems to have fun, as she runs with the more exciting Shaggy and Scooby. It is interesting to study who runs with the exciting pair and who runs with the dull trio, Fred, Velma and Daphne. Sonny & Cher, the Stooges and ALL of Josie and the Pussycats would go with the trio, leaving Shaggy and Scooby to save the day.

Davy Jones adventure would stand as perhaps the only time that the group split differently with Davy taking Velma and Daphne and Fred going with Shaggy and Scooby. I do recall the ghostly knight and the moat monster from Jones' Hagglethorne Hall adventure, but I didn't recall Davy Jones til I saw the show later.

Stan Laurel died in '65, Oliver Hardy in '56 so no, neither of them did their voices. The same for Larry Fine of the stooges, who had a stroke in '71. Both Moe Howard and Fine would die in '75, so they were clearly too old to do decent voices perhaps.

Also, the real Harlem Globetrotters didn't do the cartoon voices, as that is Scatman Crothers doing Meadowlark Lemon's voice, in the Globetrotter cartoon as well as in the 3 Scooby movies.

Jerry Reed ("Little Mary Sunshine") and Sandy Duncan were voted the two worst movies.

I had no remembrance of the Dick Van Dyke, Don Adams or Tim Conway movies either, probably because I was too little to know who they were.

Hands down, the Josie and the Pussycats meeting has to be the most incredible with Josie-Daphne, Alan M.-Freddie, Shaggy-Alexander cancellations taking place left and right, especially to the point of Alexander's voice changing. Not surprising, Casey Kasem has no recollection of this meeting as he must have thought he was doing the same character's voice.

Still, the meetings are head-shaking as well. Don Adams is an exterminator, Jonathan Winters was working at a service station, Tim Conway was a coach, Dick Van Dyke was the owner of a carnival.

Good or bad, there must be something to the cartoons as they are being discussed and debated over thirty years later and counting.

This is the second incarnation of the Scooby-Doo cartoon series, where the Great Dane joins sleuths Fred, Daphne, Velma and Shaggy to solve ghostly and out-of-this-world mysteries. Now, along for the ride in each episode are celebrity guest stars like Don Knotts, Sonny & Cher, Batman & Robin, Laurel & Hardy and the Addams Family.

With this series incarnation, you continue to see some good classic detective elements in the episodes, from finding clues to splitting up to investigate, and gags and goofy comedy that the characters serve up, mostly courtesy of Shaggy and Scooby.

It can be a fun show at times, but this incarnation doesn't have as much of that spooky and suspense feel as the original series, as a result from the integration and concentration of the celebrity guest stars (which gave the series a more wacky, whimsical and light-hearted feel). I feel even the Mystery, Inc. gang characters act a little too overzealous and over-excited since they're around the guest stars, especially that of Fred, Daphne and Velma.

Overall, it's a still good childhood show, sure to generate some laughter from the kids.

Grade B

The second installment in the Scooby-Doo franchise is a bit weaker then it's predecessor but being that this is an hour show with hilarious guest stars like Don Knotts and the Harlem Globetrotters it makes up for a lot of fun.

The only let down this show had was that the hidden jokes were toned down to accommodate for the guest stars.