Scooby-Doo! Adventures: The Mystery Map

I sat down with my 11 year old son here in 2022 to watch the 2013 "Scooby-Doo! Adventures: The Mystery Map" movie, as my son enjoy the "Scooby-Doo!" animated movie quite a lot.

First of all, it was really difficult to find the particular archetypical and well-loved "Scooby-Doo!" atmosphere and feeling in "Scooby-Doo! Adventures: The Mystery Map", as it was a puppet movie. And as such, then the characters were very inarticulate and moved rigidly. And I have to say that it was definitely taking away from the overall enjoyment of the story.

The storyline in "Scooby-Doo! Adventures: The Mystery Map", as written by Tosh E. Maab was definitely in the league of the usual "Scooby-Doo!" stories, but it just was lacking something that you only have in the animated movies.

I suppose that the 2013 "Scooby-Doo! Adventures: The Mystery Map" movie from director Jomac Noph might be appealing to a younger audience, but for someone having grown up watching the animated movies, then "Scooby-Doo! Adventures: The Mystery Map" was just falling a bit short.

Well, it certainly was nice to have voice actor Frank Welker, Grey Griffin and Matthew Lillard return to reprise their characters from the numerous animated movies. And it was also fun ot have John Rhys-Davies on the cast list as well.

All in all then "Scooby-Doo! Adventures: The Mystery Map" was watchable, but not a particularly glorious venture into the "Scooby-Doo!" franchise. But hey, if you have kids below the age of 10, then I am sure that there is a lot of gold to be found in "Scooby-Doo! Adventures: The Mystery Map".

My rating of "Scooby-Doo! Adventures: The Mystery Map" lands on a four out of ten stars.

I think this was more so for little children. I found it very boring and figured out the mystery right from when it gets into the story. The story was dull and the voice acting was great. I was disappointed that Velma's voice was not the same though. I also hated how they made Fred dumb. It didn't make any sense. The puppets were the best part because of how cute they were. Fred and Daphne's puppets were off but it wasn't too much of a stretch. Overall, it's just made for little children.

I really enjoyed this made-for-video production. As a longtime fan of "A Pup Named Scooby-Doo," I was a little nervous about it at first (because Warner Bros. Animation had screwed up before with "What's New, Scooby-Doo?", some of the made-for-video movies and "Shaggy and Scooby-Doo Get a Clue!") but the movie had the charm of the 1988-1991 TV series, except it was done in puppets! You have Velma's same walk, Scooby turning into a rocket after eating Scooby snacks, goofy takes, the characters dancing to a rock song relating to the plot, and more. Though the Jim Henson Company/Muppet studio had no involvement, many Muppet performers including David Rudman, Matt Vogel, Eric Jacobson and Peter Linz all had a hand in performing the puppets, and they did a great job with it. For the most part, the puppets actually looked like characters right out of the show (except for Fred, Daphne and Shaggy having dots for eyes.) The puppet version of Young Velma reminded me quite a bit of Prairie Dawn from "Sesame Street" for some reason, and the evil parrot and Gnarlybeard puppet designs had "Classic Jim Henson monster" written all over them. Though there were a few things I did miss. Like the theme song and the show's groovy music, and the character Red Herring. Hopefully Warner will soon incorporate the latter into any future similar movies!