5 Things I'd Like to See Happen for Scooby's 50th Anniversary in 2019

We've already had a lot of exciting announcements for what's to come for Scooby's 50th anniversary next year. Sometime next year, there will be a brand new series, Scooby-Doo and Guess Who?, as well as a Zombie Island revival film, and another DTV film which will conclude The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo.

In connection with this, the following are five things I would like to see happen next year for Scooby's 50th.

1. Scooby-Doo and Guess Who?
As mentioned above, this new series will be airing sometime in 2019. The series will essentially be a revival of The New Scooby-Doo Movies, and will feature the gang solving a mystery with a new guest star in every episode. While the series has obviously been confirmed to be happening, I hope that the series actually takes us in a somewhat new direction instead of just regurgitating what we've already seen in the recent crossovers like the WWE and KISS films. While I don't hate those films, I feel like the plots are a bit shallow and focus overly much on the guest stars, at the expense of focusing on Fred, Velma and Daphne.

I did, however, really enjoy this most recent Gourmet Ghost film with the Celebrity Chefs. In this particular film, I thought they did a nice job balancing the guest stars and working them into the plot so they weren't obtrusive. Additionally, I love how they worked the history aspect into the mystery. If they could do this series like the Gourmet Ghost, I think I would be at least moderately happy with it.

2. Scooby-Doo and the Curse of the 13th Ghost
After over 33 years, Curse of the 13th Ghost will finally give us a conclusion to The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo. This film appears to have pulled out all the stops, and will feature both Flim Flam and Vincent Van Ghoul from the original series. It is unknown if the film will feature Scrappy. I hope, however, if he does appear, that he's not made into some huge joke. I don't mind Scrappy in the least, and I think we've pretty much tired out the "Scrappy is evil!" punchline by now. It would be nice if Scrappy was in the film to mirror the original series, but I'd honestly prefer if he were left out if he's going to be the butt of every joke again, like he has been in almost every cameo appearance since 1988's Reluctant Werewolf.

I also hope that the film lives up to the original show. I enjoyed the silly-yet-dark tone of 13 Ghosts, and I would be a bit frustrated if they tried to conclude the series in a tone that was totally off from what the rest of 13 Ghosts was like. The biggest concern with sequels for me has always been that a lot of them don't tend to live up to the original, so hopefully the writers will take this into consideration and try to create a final product that is at least somewhat in the tone of the series fans originally fell in love with.

3. More Substantial DVD Releases
Back in the mid-2000s, WB was practically cranking out the new Scooby-Doo releases, and releasing full season and series sets regularly. Lately, it's been the norm to see barely any new episodes released on DVD at all in a year. We still get some new releases, but at this point, it's hypocritical to even call them "new" because they're all simply re-releases that occasionally will include a single unreleased Scrappy short.

I was incredibly happy back in 2015 when Scooby and Scrappy-Doo: The Complete Season 1 was released on DVD. For the 50th anniversary, I'd love to see another set of this style released. Maybe The Scooby-Doo Show Season 2 could finally make a full-length appearance on DVD, or The New Scooby-Doo Mysteries could get a full season set.

While I'd love to say "they should release a complete series set of every episode of the franchise!", I also don't want to be unreasonable. It would be awesome if they did this, but it's pretty unlikely IMO and there are some copyright issues with The New Scooby-Doo Movies that would probably prevent a true full franchise set.

I really miss the days where they would release multiple full season/series sets in a year, and I'd personally be very satisfied if we could just simply get one more of those for the 50th anniversary with one of the unreleased series, instead of these little "an episode here and there" releases that we've been getting these past few years.

 4. A Full Series Marathon
In the past few years, full series marathons have become increasingly popular on television; for example how FXX aired an "Every Simpsons Ever" marathon back in 2014 that featured every episode of The Simpsons shown in order over a period of 10 days. I would love to see something similar done with Scooby, where maybe Cartoon Network or Boomerang could air every single episode and movie of Scooby in chronological order on the week of Scooby's 50th. Who knows, maybe they could even make a new special like "The Scooby-Doo Project" or the Behind the Scenes interviews to air during the marathon!

5. Scooby-Doo! Return to Zombie Island
​I am so, so pumped for this film! It's amazing that they're making a sequel to one of the most loved Scooby films of all time after so many years. My one concern for this, like with Curse of the 13th Ghost, is that it will be totally off-tone and be nothing like the original film. Zombie Island was all kinds of amazing, which hold this film to a pretty high standard. I hope the writers will consider how high the stakes are here, and how many fans are counting on a legitimately good sequel to one of their favorite Scooby films. The dark tone of Scoobynatural, however, gives me a bit of hope for this film. If they can create a final product which is similar to the tone of  Scoobynatural, I think this will turn out to be a really good film!

What are your thoughts on what you'd like to see happen in 2019? Do you agree with my list, or do you think something else should be added? Let me know in the comments!