In honor of this thread leading to this thread and the timely revelation of a new threatrical Scooby Doo movie, let's take a look back at all of the incarnations of Scooby Doo over the decades and decide which ones are worth visiting and which ones are worth skipping.
Of course, let's start this off with Mystery, Incorporated: definitely worth watching.
Just finished the series. I read the spoiler in the other thread about how it ended so I think that is part of the reason I feel the way I do, but
I think the ending was very fitting and very fulfilling, and while I'm a bit sad this show is already over like I am with most shows, I don't feel as sad/angry/upset with this show over, but I think this is mostly because I already knew how it was going to end and was well aware that the endgame was here.
Overall, after a bit of thinking I came to realize why Scooby Doo as a concept is such a verified and successful show idea and why exacty Mystery, Inc. was so invigorating as a series. The best and most long lasting cartoons are able to appeal on multiple levels to multiple age groups, usually in the form of deeper humor and meanings that most children miss but are aimed at adults. Think "finger Prince" as an example of this. This is especially true of Scooby Doo--while most kid's shows either aim too low and end up with a show incredibly stupid that only has child appeal (Johnny Test, for example), the best can weave more adult and serious themes into the show itself--the DC shows were especially good at this by taking famous comic villains and arcs and adapting them in a matter that both respected the source material and appealed to kids. With Scooby Doo, I think it's a rare case of a show that doesn't even attempt to focus on introducing more adult themes into a kid's universe, but rather taking a kid's show and trying to pull it off in a manner that doesn't make it incredibly ridiculous from the beginning. Taking the plot frame of a ghost/creature is haunting a certain area and a bunch of kids and their dog solve the mystery and prove that the monster is actually just a guy in a costume and applying it over and over without any variation sounds repetitive and stupid, but the way it's pulled off creates a sort of poetic simplicity. In a world full of debt, war and depression it's nice to just fall into a world where a bunch of kids have nothing to worry about and just go around solving mysteries.
What's so incredibly interesting about Mystery, Inc., though, is that it's able to take the original simplicity and funness of the idea of a bunch of kids solving mysteries with their dog and interweave it with the more adult and grounded themes that modern cartoons use to appeal to multiple age groups, and it does so while still keeping the original appeal of the show and without undermining why people love Scooby Doo in the first place. It's a brilliant execution, and I'm incredibly surprised that it gets so little credit for doing what it was able to do.
While the first two episodes were the best and the most satirical of the series, and the overarching story felt a bit backloaded, the rest of the series still stands up as a incredible modern re-imagining of the series even if they fall short of the bar set by the first two episodes.
Oh, and for an alternate universe where everything's supposed to be more peaceful and happier, making all of Daphne's sisters "disappointments" in the eyes of Daphne's parents just as a way to make Daphne feel better and gain approval from her parents in marrying Fred seemed pretty harsh.
Scooby Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf > Scooby Doo on Zombie Island > Scooby Doo Meets the Boo Brothers > Scooby Doo and the Ghoul School > all others.
1.Mystery Inc.
2.A Pup Named Scooby-Doo
3.Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!
4.Anything Don Knotts related (The New Scooby-Doo Movies)
5.What's New, Scooby-Doo?
I still love the classic Scooby Doo: Where are You.
I like Mystery Inc yet I hate it at the same time, really didn't like what they did to Fred (Flanderization, and yes I understand they were mocking Flanderization with this but it was still offputting to me) all though he does have the some of the best lines and I didn't like what they did to Velma. The ensemble cast can annoy me at times too (Bronson).
I do like alot of the other stuff of mystery Inc though, its also a series that keeps on getting and better (at the end of s1) for me.
What's New Scooby Doo is really hard to watch nowadays. It's...just very dull, and ugly to look at.
I have to give credit where credit is due, I liked how in an age where everything was going edgy or updating in a more modern sense, What's New stuck fairly close to its roots and didn't try to mix things up too much. It made fun of some of the original trappings, but was fairly grounded and basically just transported the cast to modern times more or less without updating them.
But still, it's just...so plain.
Pup Named Scooby Doo, I loved that show for being over-the-top cartoony, but I wish there were more episodes produced of it. When I watched it on Cartoon Network, it seemed like the same episodes repeated over and over.
When it comes to the classics, general rule is anything with Red Shirt Shaggy is probably not that good. What was up with that anyway? Why did he have a red shirt in some older media, was there some weird license issue with the green shirt during certain productions? Found it funny though how the Cyber Chase Movie (which was fairly solid) represented OG Shaggy as the Red Shirt since otherwise he'd look identical to the modern Shaggy since his design didn't change like the other characters when they met their OG series counterparts.
i just finished zombie island and actually found it kind of disappointing. voice acting compared to mystery inc was pretty bad for a lot of the characters and it wasn't until like 30 minutes in (of a 75 min movie) did the plot actually start. wasn't a bad plot in of itself but there was pretty poor charactarization all around. scooby/shaggy were just comic relief, fred and velma were...there, daphne seemed kind of unlikeable and none of the other characters caught my attention really.
i guess i expected too much watching it right after finishing mystery inc, but still...
My father when I was young always used to talk about how Scrappy sucked, and ruined the show. I always thought that was an opinion limited to him, and people liked Scrappy.
To see the film actually reference that by having him as the main villain---it was brilliant. One of my favorite movie moments of all time. My father was legitimatized as a great man at that moment, a true visionary.
I don't think so, but I still would love to see the PG-13 cut.
The film was originally set to have a much darker tone, essentially poking fun at the original series, much like The Brady Bunch Movie and was set for a PG-13 rating. Shaggy was set to be a stoner, Velma and Daphne had a side relationship,[9] and there were many marijuana references.[10] Several rumors about these aspects in the original cartoon series were passed around by fans of the original and were to be incorporated into the live action film.[11] One marijuana reference that was retained was the use of "Mary Jane" as the name of Shaggy's love interest, and another drug joke is made when we hear Shaggy and Scooby exclaiming excitedly as we see the mystery machine outside with smoke coming out of it, however, it is revealed that inside they were just cooking hamburgers on a mini-grill.
Witch's Ghost and Zombie Island are the only ones I remember really liking. I also liked that one movie with red shirt and Scooby competing with a bunch of monsters and their parents or something.
Scooby Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf > Scooby Doo on Zombie Island > Scooby Doo Meets the Boo Brothers > Scooby Doo and the Ghoul School > all others.
Holy Crap, Scooby Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf was the first Scooby Doo related thing I have ever seen. After that it was A Pup Named Scooby Doo. I didn't see the original series until I was in my 20's, when they started airing on some retro cartoon channel in Canada. 13 Ghosts was kind of amusing, on for the fact that it has Vincent Price in it.
Though one of my favorite Scooby Doo related things will always be the Johnny Bravo team up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQ7vbr5s6uc . Otherwise, I have never really been a huge fan of Scooby Doo.
I remember them, But I'm old enough to have watched Saturday Morning Cartoons throughout the 80s (a lot of 60's and 70's like Speed Racer and a lot of Hanna Barbera stuff was thrown in with the newer 80s stuff).
I still really enjoy the early seasons of Scooby Doo, Where are you?
Also, with the New Scooby Doo movies, you get team-ups...like Sonny & Cher, Don Knotts, Jonathan Winters, and Batman & Robin.
The awesome movies were Zombie Island, and Witch's Ghost.
The very good movies were Ghoul School, Boo Brothers, and Reluctant Warewolf.
All of the other movies are just mediocre sadly.
The live action Scooby-Doo is pretty good, it's sequel is not.
What's New Scooby-Doo and anything involving Scrappy Doo too extensively is dog shit. 99% of media involving red shirt Shaggy is awful.
Mystery Incorporated is the best show so far. Scooby-Doo Where are You? Is pretty good as well, just a classic.
A Pup Named Scooby Doo is the only other series worth a mention. 13 Ghosts and all that other shit? Filler, horrible.
New Direct to DVD stuff is bad, WWE, Vampires in Australia, those aliens and the black mechanic. I'm blurry on the titles of these mediocre Scooby-Doo titles.
Cyber Chase? I cannot remember if it was good, I'll label it passable. I remember the retro incarnations of the characters were pretty cool, as was the hall of fame esque nature of the monsters.
1. Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?
2. A Pup Named Scooby-Doo
3. Scooby-Doo! and the Reluctant Werewolf
4. The two theatrical Scooby-Doo movies
>everything else.
Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? was my absolute favorite show growing up. I used to love the Scooby-Doo game on SNES. I haven't actually really kept up with Scooby-Doo recently though. I keep hearing good things about Mystery Inc. on Gaf but I remember trying an episode once and hating the voices.
