I'm excited to announce that the final chapter of my fanfic, Return of the Reluctant Werewolf, has just been posted today! The story is now available to read in its entirety.
The fanfic is set immediately after the events of Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf when Dracula and the Hunch Bunch returns, and is an essentially a "cinematic universe" tying together all Scooby-Doo shows and films from the 1980s. The 1980s is definitely a standout era for how experimental it was, and I've always appreciated the films in particular, which is what inspired me to write this fanfic. The story begins with Shaggy, Scooby, Scrappy and Googie seeking refuge from Dracula's vengeance, but it slowly branches off into them returning to Vincent Van Ghoul's castle, the Beauregard Plantation and Miss Grimwood's Finishing School to hide. This fanfic took a bit more of an experimental direction for me, because a lot of my previous fanfics have been more episodic with an overarching plot, rather than just one big overarching plot. In all, there are 10 chapters. One of my favorite parts of writing is sprinkling in references from previous Scooby-Doo content, so it was really fun to take it to the next level and specifically reference things from the Scooby shows/films from the 1980s and tie them into the plot itself. I feel like it helped me grow as a writer to experiment with intentionally picking out references to past Scooby media that could be important to the overarching story, since the references in most of my previous fanfics were just random Easter Eggs tied to smaller plot points sprinkled in here and there. In general, it was such a fun creative exercise to try to tie all the 1980s media together. I enjoyed writing for Vincent Van Ghoul and Flim-Flam, who appear as recurring characters in the fanfic. What I liked the most about writing this story was tying in the Scrappy shorts from a realistic standpoint the most. When you think about it, it's pretty ridiculous that Shaggy, Scooby and Scrappy were constantly driving regular people into a state of murderous rage during that Scrappy era, so it was fun to explore than from a more realistic standpoint. It was particularly enjoyable writing my own Scrappy short based around Shaggy's misadventures cashing a check at the bank. I enjoyed delving into Shaggy's character development and explore his quick tendency to fear. We don't really get any explanation of that in the franchise beyond "he's a coward, lol," so it was an interesting experiment to have Shaggy grapple with the fact that his anxiety often leads to him getting the ones he loves in trouble. The fanfic is now fully available on Fanfiction.net and AO3. If you're interested in checking out any other fanfiction I've written, you can check out my author page. If you're unaware, I've also written other Scooby-Doo fanfics that tie into previous Scooby media. My other stories include a spin-off exploring Daphne's TV show from Zombie Island, Coast to Coast with Daphne Blake; a "coming of age" series for the Grimwood Girls from Ghoul School involving the return of Revolta; a story of how the Hex Girls rose to fame; an alternate ending to the 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo that's more in line with the original series than Curse of the 13th Ghost; and a series about Velma becoming a teacher at her sister Madelyn's school, Whirlen Merlin's Academy of Magic from Abracadabra Doo. (I've also written a one-off Sabrina the Teenage Witch episode, for anyone that happens to be a fan of that franchise) If you're looking for more fanfiction on top of that, I highly recommend checking out the Scooby Fanfiction page on this site, which includes a collection of my personal favorite Scooby-Doo fanfiction that I've read from other authors.
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It seems the sudden leaks of cancelled projects are continuing as today, full storyboard animatic issues showing entire scenes and a song animatic for Mystery Pups were leaked online. The images leaked on 4chan by another anonymous person working at WB, also posting a message "This didn't deserve to be cancelled!" right as they leaked the materials. Someone in the comments of this thread also gave some sad insight that morale is at an all-time low at WB, and that mental health has not been the best for those who are writing and creating projects for WB.
The leaker posted storyboard animatics from episodes 1, 7 and 13, as well as a song from episode 7. The leaked images reveal the puppies' names as Daisy, Zelda, Mac, Gemma, Piper, Duke and Kristi. A character named Dr. Dancy, who appears to be the head camp counselor, are also revealed in the storyboards. The storyboards also reveal that the mysteries were not monster-focused, and were more kiddish mysteries. One storyboard shows that the conclusion to one of the "mysteries" is that a mysterious voice was actually one of the puppies, Duke, singing through a walkie talkie that he forgot he turned on. The song mentions that the camp has something to do with Moose, which may confirm the rumor circulating around the Internet that they were reviving Camp Little Moose from Camp Scare. There are a lot of incredible Scooby-Doo villains out there, but there are also a lot of terrible villains. If you enjoy the classic person-in-a-mask format, I suppose you could fill the list from purely Scrappy shorts, but I tried to limit the amount of ones I pulled from the Scrappy shorts. While I don't particularly enjoy villains like Nazrat of the Jungle or the Strongman, I feel there were some costumes in other episodes that were far worse. We're going to switch it around this time and do the worst list first, and I will post the best list soon. 10. Rankor There are a lot of options that I debated putting here, and I hate to put such a cool-looking villain here. However, Rankor (from "Coast-to-Ghost") looks certainly do not match his behavior. He is one of the dumbest villains in the history of the franchise IMO. He inexplicably reports to some random monster club that couldn't have been too high-level given Weerd and Bogel are trying to get into it. Even worse, he goes into the Demon Chest by his own free will, and actually thanks the gang as they capture him by exclaiming "Thanks, you guys are real pals!" Given this is supposedly one of the 13 most horrible ghosts in the world, the bar for that title can't be too high lol. 9. Skeleton I do have a soft spot for this one because it's so bad that it's kinda funny, but the Skeleton from "The Spooky Fog" is one of the most low-effort Scooby-Doo villains you'll find lol. Not only is it obvious that it's just a guy wearing a cheap suit with bones painted on it, the skeleton's movements are not scary or menacing in any way. In his first appearance in the gif above, it looks like he's just taking his evening stroll through the cemetery lol. 8. Ghost of Juan Carlos I feel bad having this on here, because I do really like the episode, but I have always found the Ghost of Juan Carlos from "Don't Go Near the Fortress of Fear" to be really bad. He looks like just a normal guy in a general's outfit. In fact, I'd go as far as to argue there's nothing really ghostly about him at all. 7. Carnival Owner This will be the first of five villains from the Scrappy shorts. A consistent problem you'll notice that I have with the Scrappy shorts is that I feel Shaggy, Scooby and Scrappy sometimes act like jerks who do something really rude to somebody else, then take no responsibility. I don't like how the carnival owner was made to be the villain, when the guys were the ones that screwed up and ate all the profits, then ran rather than apologize or pay for what they ate. 6. Chef I don't find the chef from "Scooby Gumbo" to be well-written in the slightest. He's not even really a villain, technically, he's just a guy with strict rules about animals that the guys antagonize. 5. Carl and Tony Besides the fact that "Ransom of Scooby Chief" leads us into the Scrappy short era, which I didn't care for, I just feel like they're not great villains in general. Rather than menacing or forceful like I feel like would have been good with a kidnapper plot, they just come off kind of whiney and annoying to me. 4. Doctor I think we can all agree that the doctor from "Scrappy's Birthday" was just a flat-out bad villain lol. The idea of a doctor becoming so enraged that he chases visitors around the hospital is completely ridiculous. 3. Museum Guard The reason the Museum Guard from "Scooby Dooby Guru" is here is due to the fact that his whole character is just one bad stereotype after another. I've gone into detail in my least favorite episodes/films list about how awful some of the stereotypes this character is written with are, notably the fact that he jumps on a random elephant and chases the gang around town, as well as the awful Indian voice impression that the voice actor does. 2. McGurk Brothers Unless the McGurk Brothers from "Hoedown Showdown" are intended as a meta-reference to how stereotypes are bad, these are hands-down some of the worst Scooby-Doo villains I've ever seen. Basically their entire personalities are just bad stereotypes of hillbillies. The fact that their feud with Shaggy's family is that one of them wants to date Shaggy's cousin, but she's not interested because he doesn't take baths, is quite possibly the worst villain motive of the entire franchise lol. 1. Sheet Ghost
For me, the Sheet Ghost from "Haunted House Hang-Up" is hands down the worst Scooby-Doo villain we've ever had. The fact that the sheet he's wearing is so short that you can clearly see his human legs and arms is ridiculous and funny. It's clear he put very little effort into his costume lol. During The New Scooby-Doo Mysteries theme song, during the second scene where all the monsters from "A Halloween Hassle at Dracula's Castle" do the Thriller, for a split second, Medusa appears next to the werewolf before the camera shifts the other direction. This likely means that they were originally planning to include a female monster in an early draft of the episode. This is confirmed by an animation cel from the intro including Medusa's design, which was recently sold on eBay, bought by a frequent commenter on the blog, ScoobyDooUK, who inspired this fun fact idea.
I've tallied up the votes from Week 1 of our setting polls for Where Are You, and here are our final results! Our winner, "A Night of Fright Is No Delight," moves on to the final Winner's Circle poll!
A Night of Fright Is No Delight - 13 Foul Play in Funland - 8 What the Hex Going On? - 7 Spooky Space Kook - 6 Haunted House Hang-Up - 6 Mystery Mask Mix-Up - 5 Which Witch Is Which? - 4 What a Night for a Knight - 3 A Gaggle of Galloping Ghosts - 3 Don't Fool with a Phantom - 3 Hassle in the Castle - 2 Decoy for a Dognapper - 2 The Backstage Rage - 2 Go Away Ghost Ship - 2 Scooby-Doo and a Mummy, Too! - 1 That's Snow Ghost - 1 Jeepers, It's the Creeper! - 1 A Tiki Scare Is No Fair - 1 Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Werewolf - 1 0 votes: A Clue for Scooby-Doo, Mine Your Own Business, Never Ape an Ape Man, Bedlam in the Big Top, Nowhere to Hyde, and Scooby's Night with a Frozen Fright Yes, you read the title correctly. In a shocking turn of events, Scooby-Doo and Krypto Too! was suddenly leaked in full online today. I'm imagining what may have happened is that Mystery Pups getting its distribution cancelled after the show was deep in development was the final straw for somebody at WB, and they leaked the film. Either way, this is very surprising news and a first in the 54 years of the franchise.
To be entirely honest, I wasn't particularly sure whether I should post this review or not since I am unsure if there'd be any issue with discussing an unreleased movie. However, I've heard some other folks in the fandom have created videos and even posted clips from the leak online, so I assume it's okay to simply talk about the film even if it hasn't been released. Just to be safe though, I want to provide a disclaimer that all information from this post comes from my good friend, Johnny. I would never, ever watch an unreleased film and when my friend Johnny told me that he had, I gave him a hefty scolding about the dangers of watching non-official content (but only after he told me a detailed summary of the entire film) lol. (Seriously though, if anyone who worked on the film happens to be reading this and has an issue with me talking about a film that was not released, please feel free to let me know and I'll be happy to take this article down immediately if it poses any issue) Scooby-Doo and Krypto Too! was a great film, and I would argue that this is how a crossover should be done. In most crossovers, the guest star is coming into Scooby's universe, so it was neat that this film felt like the gang was going into Superman's universe. The film follows the gang trying to rescue the Justice League, after the appearance of a golden ghost. The Legion of Doom is also here, meaning there are quite a few villains of the film. Most of them don't show up a lot, but notably Scooby thinks Solomon Grundy is The Creeper, and Fred has a crush on Harley Quinn. I found it interesting that Fraphne was more heavily implied here than in any other movie other than Stage Fright. It's still kind of an unspoken thing between them, but Fred has a lot of jealousy over Daphne's former love interest, Jimmy Jones, and Daphne seems to acknowledge that Fred is jealous. I am not really a big DC fan personally, so I do not know a lot about that universe other than I've seen the recent films, and plan to see Shazam when it comes out. Despite that, I thought the film was still appealing even to someone who does not have a lot of familiarity with DC. The scenes with the gang in the Daily Planet were nice, and it was interesting to see the gang's interactions with some of the heroes and villains. Krypto was the star of the film for me. Despite not talking, he was such a cute character and his friendship with Scooby was adorable. The film framed the gang as knowing all the other heroes and villains, yet they did not know Krypto which I was surprised by. There's a brief aside from Daphne where she says "we know Batman," which seems to be a reference either to the current line of comics, or their previous times meeting Batman in the episodes and films. I particularly thought Krypto shined during the scene with a "Kitchen of Superfriends," which is a holographic room that manifests whatever you say. It was cool to see him save the day and come to the rescue, even when Shaggy and Scooby were unable to. Lex Luthor and Rex Luthor (his dog lol) were perhaps the most notable and interesting characters here. It's referenced that Lex was former president of the United States, which I know is canon from the DC universe. There's sort of an odd joke made where Lex brags about how much power he has as president, and Velma says "but you didn't win the popular vote!", which oddly felt like a reference to the recent political landscape haha. There's a gag where Lex Luthor keeps getting lost, and to be entirely honest, that was the only part of the movie that wasn't great. The joke wasn't really even that funny the first time, so I don't know why they needed to keep going back to it. Compared to Velma's humor though, literally anything would be an improvement, so it didn't bother me that much. Another improvement over past movies is that I didn't feel hit over the head with references. I don't know what it was like for those who are familiar with DC, but I found the few that they included to be cute, like the "Challenge of the Superfries" restaurant and the smoke spelling "happy birthday Second Robin!" when Fred activated Batman's belt. Speaking of which, Batman is nowhere to be found in this film, and even the Justice League is not in any part of the film until the last five minutes. Only Superman and Wonder Woman speak, and the rest have non-speaking roles. It becomes kind of funny at the end, as during the final moment of the movie, Scooby says his catchphrase and Krypto barks, while The Flash just randomly stands there smiling, not saying anything lol. I have a few other random comments that I wrote down, the first of those being that the Scooby Snax box design from Cyber Chase is used in this film, I believe for the first time in 20+ years, which was a really interesting touch. Fred's catchphrase "Hold the phone" is seemingly gone (thankfully, I never liked that tbh), as there's a joke mid-way through the film where all the gang says their catchphrases and Fred just says "run!" I liked the chase song quite a bit. One oddly funny bit in the film that was among my favorites is when Scooby asks "Shaggy, are we strays?" after Velma says Krypto is probably a stray, and Shaggy gets the most serious look in his eyes and flatly says "yep" lol. I won't go too much into this bit as not to ruin anything about the ending, but the twist at the end was fun. I admit I kinda saw part of it coming, but there were still parts that were surprising, and I didn't expect the gold ghost to be who it was. It was really fascinating how the gang gives the explanation of the ghost being "swamp gas" to Lex; it almost felt like it was mocking Return to Zombie Island for Velma giving that explanation, as "swamp gas" seems so oddly specific, and they weren't even in a swamp. Overall, I really liked how this movie felt like a shared universe between the Justice League and Scooby-Doo, and neither one overshadowed the other. In fact, I feel like the Justice League being absent for all but the last five minutes, and giving focus to the side characters like Lois Lane and Lex Luthor, allowed the mystery to develop in a more natural way where it did not feel like the guest star was out of place or dominating the episode, like it sometimes did in Guess Who. The film felt quite cinematic and I have to say I really enjoyed this. I'd probably rank it at #26 in my movie rankings, above Chill Out but below Pirates Ahoy. It's such a shame this will likely never be released, and it's even more of a bummer to think about the fact that the only thing coming up right now seems to be Velma season 2. It's very weird to think that a finished film like this is just going to float out there in the abyss, never seeing the light of day, but today has probably been one of the most action-packed days in the franchise between Mystery Pups losing its distribution rights and an unreleased Scooby-Doo movie getting leaked for the first time ever on the same day. It will be a weird road forward, and I wish I would have better appreciated the plethora of Scooby media we got in 2021 given we ended up going in a direction with barely any Scooby content last year, and it's increasingly looking like the same this year. However, I'm hopeful we can get back to a spot where we are getting at least one DTV a year, and have some Scooby content on the horizon. Some very sad news today from Roger Eschbacher, one of the writers for Scooby-Doo and the Mystery Pups. Roger posted on his Twitter account that he received word from a colleague on the show, and HBO Max has told them they are no longer interested in distributing the show. This means that unless they are able to get the show picked up by another network or streaming service, the show is cancelled. Roger ended his tweet on a hopeful note, saying he remains hopeful that the show will be picked up by another distributor.
For their 100th anniversary, Warner Brothers is releasing a special DVD set featuring 10 Scooby-Doo films. This will be the biggest multi-feature Scooby-Doo film set to date. The set will release on April 11, 2023, one week after their 100th anniversary on April 4. The set features the two James Gunn live action films, as well as all of the 2018-2021 films (with the exception of Daphne & Velma). It will be priced at $39.96, and the set will have a total of four discs. The set is now available for pre-order on Amazon.
Here is the movie listing: Scooby-Doo Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed Scooby-Doo & Batman: The Brave and the Bold Scooby-Doo and the Gourmet Ghost Scooby-Doo and the Curse of the 13th Ghost Scooby-Doo! Return to Zombie Island SCOOB! Happy Halloween, Scooby-Doo! Scooby-Doo! The Sword and the Scoob Scooby-Doo and Courage the Cowardly Dog: Straight Outta Nowhere |
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