Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf

Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf (1988)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Monsters from around the world gather at their annual car race but the werewolf is missing so Count Dracula demands that they get another. The Hunch Bunch decide to turn Shaggy into a werewolf so Dracula tells him that if he takes part in the race and wins that he'll lift the curse. Scooby, Scrappy and Shag's girlfriend must make sure he wins. SCOOBY-DOO AND THE RELUCTANT WEREWOLF is a fairly entertaining feature but the biggest problem is that it feels incredibly long at 91-minutes. When you consider that this here is close to five individual episodes of the TV series you realize that the subject is best served in smaller portions. With that said, outside the length this here contains some pretty big laughs including the highlight, which takes place during a drive-in horror movie where Shaggy first gets turned into a werewolf. The only problem is that he has the hiccups and keeps transforming back and forth but never realizing it. Another funny thing about the film is Count Dracula who is simply delightful. I really thought he made for some great jokes throughout and Hamilton Camp did a fantastic job with the vocals. The film features all sorts of monsters like Dracula, the mummy, Frankenstein's monster, swamp thing, the bride and various others. Fans of the genre should get a kick out of seeing all of these monsters together and packed into one film. I think the film really would have benefited from fifteen-minutes being shaved off but it's still entertaining.

Following up "Scooby-Doo and the Ghoul School," the Hanna-Barbera studio churns out another made-for-TV Scooby-Doo movie for their "Hanna-Barbera Superstar" series, "Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf!" This looks different from the two previous films, but that might be because they used a digital coloring system and some cheap computer graphics here. This film seems like a cross of "Scooby-Doo," "Fangface," "Wacky Races," "The Groovy Goolies" and "Drac Pack." It is a pretty funny spoof of those old werewolf films. However, Shaggy doesn't really look much like a real werewolf (the one that "retired" at the beginning of this film (as well as Scooby's wolf mask) looks more like the Wolfman from "Van Heisling"). Plus, in this film, Scrappy-Doo is a bit useful, and not as annoying as he is in his earlier appearances! However, we could have done without Shaggy's cheesy girlfriend and have Fred, Daphne and Velma with them. The animation is sometimes a bit corny, and the various monsters in it (Dracula, Frankenstein, Crunch and Brunch, the mummy and skeleton and slime monsters) might remind you of the cast of "The Groovy Goolies!" However, I LOVED some of the jokes in it, most of them coming from Dracula himself. This is actually quite enjoyable and much better than the newer Scooby cartoons!

This tv movie is only slightly funny because of Scooby Doo and Shaggy. They actually have an interesting plot and very surprisingly, Scrappy Doo doesn't ruin it. The monsters are also amusing. Certainly not Scooby Doo's best, but much better than Ghoul School or Boo Brothers.

I will admit, until I saw this for the first time yesterday since the last time I saw it 3 years ago, I never used to like this film. Seeing it yesterday actually changed my initial perception of Reluctant Werewolf. True the animation isn't always that great and the plot is a bit slow in places. I also didn't think much of the music, despite the admittedly groovy Tom Jones-sounding song playing in one scene, neither did I find the Hunch Bunch particularly entertaining. Still there is still a lot to like about it, namely a terrific voice cast, Casey Kasem and Don Messick are great as always, and Jim Cummings and Ron Paulsen stand out too. Best of all though was Hamilton Camp, who was gleefully enjoyable and was quite frankly born to voice Dracula. The characters in general were fun, even Scrappy wasn't as contemptible as people make him out to be. My favourite character has to be Dracula, he was charming and wickedly funny, especially with his line "I guess the bats were a little undercooked" in reference to the batburgers, the sunblock one was great too. When I saw it for the first time a long time ago, i didn't think much of the script, thinking it cheesy and unfunny. Boy was I wrong, most of the time it was the complete opposite. I also thought the monster car race was great fun though some of it could have easily been trimmed down. All in all, Reluctant Werewolf was much better than I thought it was. 6/10 Bethany Cox

You know a Scooby-Doo feature is bad when Scrappy seems benign relative to everything else. Actually the little guy for once does a good job of refraining from irritatingly hogging the spotlight in this one, but unfortunately we just might have been better off if he had.

The basic plot is that Dracula turns Shaggy into a werewolf and forces him to win an all-monster road race to have any chance of becoming human again. The race itself tries to cross the Wacky Races with the Coyote/Road Runner shorts but after the 527th failed effort to put Shaggy and Scooby out of the race and the 83rd time Dracula whines about things not going his way (with no end in sight), it gets just the tiniest bit tedious.

This (in conjunction with the concurrent "Pup" series) was the point where the Scooby-Doo franchise hit absolute rock bottom, and the cowardly great dane and friends went into a long-overdue semi-retirement.