Scooby-Doo and Guess Who?

Scooby-Doo's 50th anniversary has been a rough one. With the DTV film Curse Of The 13th Ghost getting mixed reviews (with some criticizing it for not being true to the show it was supposed to give closure) and the new DTV, Return To Zombie Island, getting the same results (with some criticizing it for repeating the same mistakes 13th Ghost made), it seems that it may not be a good anniversary for the great dane that has solved mysteries since 1969. However, Scooby-Doo And Guess Who? is the one gem of this rocky anniversary.

With this, Warner Bros. actually brought back the original designs, ditching the horrendous cartoony designs used for Be Cool, Scooby-Doo! (which only lasted for two seasons). What makes this show great is that it revisits the concept done in The New Scooby-Doo Moves: each episode, the Mystery Inc. gang is joined by a special guest to solve the mystery of the episode, which consisted of real-life celebrities from the time like Don Knotts and the Harlem Globetrotter to fictional characters like Batman & Robin and Josie & The Pussycats. However, this show uses more recent stars, like Weird Al Yankovic, Kenan Thompson, and Penn & Teller, to fictional characters like Wonder Woman, Sherlock Holmes and even Steve Urkel.

While the episodes are thirty minutes long, it feels like the Scooby-Doo cartoons back then. The fictional characters are kept in-character (especially Steve Urkel, who is still a nerd and annoying). However, some episodes can be hit-or-miss (like the Wanda Sykes episode, which some people hated because of how Magilla Gorilla was done). But it is a good show that fixes a lot of mistakes done in Be Cool and manages to capture the feel of The New Scooby-Doo movies, even with thirty-minute episodes.

Basically a belated continuation of/homage to The New Scooby-Doo Movies (1972), but thankfully abandoning that series 43 minute format, and returning to the standard 22 minute. As in TNSDM, each episode features a guest star or stars (some real-life, some fictional characters).

Season 1: Revenge of the Swamp Monster (Chris Paul) ~ 7/10; A Mystery Solving Gang Divided (The Funky Phantom) ~ 7/10; Peebles' Pet Shop of Terrible Terrors! (Wanda Sykes) ~ 6/10; Elementary, My Dear Shaggy! (Sherlock Holmes) ~ 8/10; Ollie Ollie In-Come Free! (Ricky Gervais) ~ 5/10; The Scooby of a Thousand Faces! (Wonder Woman) ~ 8/10; The Cursed Cabinet of Professor Madds Markson! (Penn and Teller) ~ 7/10; When Urkel-Bots Go Bad! (Steve Urkel) ~ 6/10; The Fastest Fast Food Fiend! (Jim Gaffigan) ~ 5/10; Attack of the Weird Al-osaurus! (Weird Al Yankovic) ~ 7/10; Now You Sia, Now You Don't! (Sia) ~ 7/10; Quit Clowning! (Kenan Thompson) ~ 10/10; What a Night for a Dark Knight! (Batman) ~ 10/10; The Nightmare Ghost of Psychic U! (Whoopi Goldberg) ~ 10/10; The New York Underground! (Halsey) ~ 8/10; The Sword, the Fox and the Scooby-Doo! (Mark Hamill) ~ 8/10; One Minute Mysteries! (The Flash) ~ 8/10; Hollywood Knights! (George Takei) ~ 7/10; Fear of the Fire Beast! (Steve Buscemi) ~ 8/10; Too Many Dummies! (Jeff Dunham and Darci Lynne Farmer) ~ 9/10; Dance Matron of Mayhem! (Maddie Ziegler) ~ 10/10; The Wedding Witch of Wainsly Hall (Jeff Foxworthy) ~ 8/10; A Run Cycle Through Time! (Malcolm McDowell) ~ 7/10; I Put a Hex on You! (The Hex Girls) ~ 9/10; The High School Wolfman's Musical Lament! (Christian Slater) ~ 9/10; Space Station Scooby! (Bill Nye and Neil deGrasse Tyson) ~ 8/10

This first season starts off so-so, but it does get stronger as it goes along, with some real 'gold standard' episodes as good as anything Scooby has done before (certainly better that The New Scooby-Doo Movies!).

Frank Welker (Fred/Scooby), Grey DeLise (Daphne), Matthew Lillard (Shaggy), and Kate Micucci (Velma) all nail it. There are some great, spooky locations, and some top drawer writing.

Overall, 8/10.

Season 2: The Phantom, The Talking Dog And The Hot Hot Hot Sauce (Kacey Musgraves) ~ 7/10; The Last Inmate! (Morgan Freeman) ~ 9/10; The Horrible Haunted Hospital of Dr. Phineas Phrag! (Kristen Schaal) ~ 7/10; The Hot Dog Dog! (Joey Chestnut) ~ 8/10; A Moveable Mystery! (Gigi Hadid) ~ 7/10; The Feast of Dr. Frankenfooder! (Alton Brown) ~ 6/10; A Fashion Nightmare! (Tim Gunn) ~ 8/10; Scooby on Ice! (Tara Lipinsky) ~ 9/10; Caveman on the Half Pipe! (Chloe Kim) ~ 7/10; The Crown Jewel of Boxing! (Laila Ali) ~ 6/10; The Internet on Haunted House Hill! (Liza Koshy) ~ 7/10; The 7th Inning Scare! (Macklemore) ~ 7/10; The Dreaded Remake of Jekyll & Hyde! ( Sandy Duncan) ~ 8/10; Total Jeopardy (Alex Trebek) ~ 6/10; Dark Diner of Route 66! (Axl Rose) ~ 8/10; Lost Soles of Jungle River! (Jason Sudeikis) ~ 8/10; The Tao of Scoob (Lucy Liu) ~ 8/10; Returning of the Key Ring! (Sean Astin) ~ 6/10; Cher, Scooby and the Sargasso Sea (Cher) ~ 7/10; The Lost Mines of Kilimanjaro! (Jessica Biel) ~ 6/10; The Legend of the Gold Microphone (Reverend Run) ~ 8/10; Scooby-Doo and the Sky Town Cool School (Billy Dee Williams) ~ 6/10; Falling Star Man (Terry Bradshaw) ~ 6/10; A Haunt of a Thousand Voices! (Frank Welker, Grey DeLisle, Matthew Lillard, Kate Micucci) ~ 9/10; Scooby-Doo, Dog Wonder! (Blue Falcon and Dynomutt) ~ 6/10; The Movieland Monsters! (Carol Burnett) ~ 6/10

Unlike the first season, season 2 has no 10/10 episodes - but also unlike the first season it has no 5/10 episodes either! As a Brit there were more guests that I was unfamiliar with this time around, but they all enter into the spirit and there's a lot of fun. Again, Frank Welker (Fred/Scooby), Grey DeLisle (Daphne), Matthew Lillard (Shaggy), and Kate Micucci (Velma) are faultless.

Overall, 7/10

Season 1 is the better of the two, but both are worth buying. Overall rating for the two seasons combined... 7.5/10.

The last Scooby Doo TV show, "Be Cool, Scooby Doo", was poorly received and really lowered the reputation of the SD series, even though I personally think it isn't that bad and most of its flaws stemmed from behind the scenes drama. This show, "Scooby Doo and Guess Who", is a vast improvement over that series and is a great throwback to the classic show.

The show's animation is really crisp and has a vibrant color palette, but it also manages to capture the look and feel of a typical Hanna-Barbera show from the 60s. It even uses classic tactics such as the "wheel o' feet", and uses stock sound effects from the Hanna-Barbera library. It also references other Hanna-Barbera shows such as Magilla Gorilla, Speed Buggy, and the Funky Phantom. Unlike, BCSD, which tried to be comedy-focused, SDAGW focuses more on the story and characters, as well as the guest stars, and restores the characters back to their original personalities.

Speaking of the guest stars, the show usually does a really good job of inserting the stars into the story, and they work well off of the Scooby gang. They all seem like they're having the time of their life. However, sometimes they're underutilized. Like in the Abraham Lincoln episode, where he only appears for a few minutes, and most of the attention is on the Funky Phantom characters. My personal favorite stars that appeared were Wanda Sykes, Wonder Woman, Batman and Weird Al. I definitely recommend their episodes.

If you miss the classic Scooby Doo, this show is for you. Especially if you like The New Scooby Doo movies which this show is similar to.

Have been a huge fan of the Scooby Doo franchise since late single digits. The various incarnations vary in quality, with the best being the original 'Scooby Doo Where are You' and 'The Scooby Doo Show', also like a few of the shows that have a not so good reputation. And the worst being 'Shaggy and Scooby Doo Get a Clue' and most of 'Scooby Doo and Scrappy Doo' other than the surprisingly good first season. Also really like a lot of the animated films, 'Witch's Ghost' and 'Zombie Island' being my favourites.

'Scooby Doo and Guess Who' sounded very interesting and really liked the idea of the gang solving crimes with various guest stars (a mix of real life celebrities in the film, music and sporting industries and popular characters). So a more modern version of 'The New Scooby Doo Movies', loved that show as a kid and quite a lot of episodes and guest stars hold up but some episodes and guest stars don't quite do it now. 'Scooby Doo and Guess Who' is a very entertaining and well made show in my view that goes back to basics and stays true to the franchise's roots while having its own flavour. It's not consistent sure, but it was a show that showed promise from the beginning and continues to get better.

Admittedly not all the guest stars work, with some being annoying (Steve Urkel, Wanda Sykes, Jim Gaffigan though am going to rewatch their episodes and all of the show for that matter) or under-utilised (Abraham Lincoln, Christian Slater). While the humour mostly worked very well indeed, some of it went overboard on the silliness and felt forced (the Wonder Woman episode on first watch was too reliant on it).

Do agree with some regarding Kate Micucci's voice acting for Velma, which here comes over as too abrasive. Some of the clues could have gone into more depth, when Velma declares "it all makes perfect sense" or "it's all starting to come together" the viewer is like "it does/is?" Especially found it true of the earlier episodes. Again, this might all change on rewatch.

On the other hand, so much is good about 'Scooby Doo and Guess Who'. The animation has a lot of atmosphere, rich colour and even richer attention to detail. The music is dynamic and groovy, also loved the modern spin on the iconic classic theme tune for 'Scooby Doo Where are You'. The rest of the voice acting is very good, Matthew Lillard nails it as Shaggy (a more than worthy successor to the unsurpassed Casey Kasem) and Frank Welker shows no fatigue or long in the tooth-ness as Fred (and he's been voicing him for over half a century). The guest stars are also very well done and the guest stars that are not voiced by the real person resemble them surprisingly accurately (doing better in this regard than 'The New Scooby Doo Movies').

Writing is funny and smart on the whole, the classic Shaggy and Scooby goofiness endears. The stories may be generally formulaic structurally (true of much of the franchise though) are lively in pace, hugely entertaining and has suspense. Really liked that 'Scooby Doo and Guess Who' went back to basics and stayed true to the franchise's roots even when modern, with nice references to past cases and villains (ie. The episode with The Flash). There are some very creative chase scenes visually and some of the reveals are not as obvious as those in most of the previous incarnations (a few surprises actually) due to more suspects than usual rather than a frequent case of "it could only have been one person" (unlike 'Be Cool Scooby Doo').

A big standout story-wise is the unique story structure for "The Last Inmate" (one of the best episodes of the show) and the creative concept for the Malcolm McDowell episode. The villains are very cool and creepy and also loved the exotic and varied locations that include Italy, ski settings, prisons and even space. The guest stars vary, but hit more than they miss. Morgan Freeman was a major hit and also really liked Hex Girls, Batman (both franchise favourites), Malcolm McDowell and Sia. Also liked how the mysteries revolved a lot around the guest stars' jobs and made the most of seeing them in action (i.e. Darcy Lynne). The Mystery Inc are on the whole on good form, with Shaggy and Scooby spot on, apart from instances where Velma came over as too much of a know it all.

Overall, very good and certainly enough to rewatch it, namely to see whether my thoughts on the earlier episodes fare better, worse or the same. 7.5/10.

After the four Mook movies (starting with Zombie Island), Mystery Incorporated, and even Be Cool, Scooby Doo! fleshed out the characters with more complex motivations and layers of their personalities, this throwback makes them 2-dimensional again, almost caricatures who make their signature exclamations ("Jinkies!" etc.) at every opportunity. It appears to be written for a younger audience than other incarnations of Scooby-Doo of the past two decades. Even the Hex Girls seemed like simpler versions of themselves. Still, it's kind of fun with an appealing look.