Besides the Laff-a-Lympics parody and the Scooby-Doo cameo I posted about last week, Jellystone! season 3 had a number of other Scooby references. 

• In the episode "Disco Fever," Cindy Bear shows Jinx a picture of the Ghost Clown from "Bedlam in the Big Top," in attempt to scare the disco dance craze out of him.
• In "Girl, You My Friend," Cindy, Jabberjaw and Squiddly watch a TV show called Girl, You My Friend about the power of female friendship. The show co-stars Charlie the Robot from "Foul Play in Funland," along with Elektra, Flirtacia, and Zelda the Ostrich. One scene shows Charlie the Robot telling his female friends that his transistors are overwhelmed with emotions (due to receiving a higher than expected bill at lunch). This causes Charlie to short circuit, prompting Elektra to comfort him with female friendship power. After Charlie feels better, he announces that he is going on vacation to Palm Springs with his newfound self-confidence. (This cameo was so zany, but it's easily my favorite Scooby cameo of the series for how ridiculous it is lol)
• In the season finale, "Epic Rager," it's revealed that Scooby-Dum was previously the mayor of Jellystone, but his term abruptly ended when he was impeached for an unspecified reason.

Here are the results for last week:

​What is your favorite demon episode?
A Frightened Hound Meets Demons Underground - 19
Curse of the Speed Demon - 10
Curse of the 13th Ghost - 6
Aloha Scooby-Doo - 5
Come Undone - 5
Farmed and Dangerous - 4
Scooby-Doo (2002) - 4
Shiver and Shake, That Demon's a Snake - 3
Nightfright - 3
There's a Demon Shark in the Foggy Dark - 2
Scoo-Be or Not Scoo-Be? - 2
The Curse of Kaniaku - 2
Reflections in a Ghoulish Eye - 1
Ship of Ghouls - 1
It's a Wonderful Scoob - 1
Coast to Ghost - 1
Horror Scope Scoob - 1
​Snow Place Like Home - 1
Safari So Goodi! - 1
Nightmare in Red - 1
World of Witchcraft - 1

0 votes: To All the Ghouls I've Loved Before, Scoobra Kadoobra, Me and My Shadow Demon, That's Monstertainment, A Spooky Little Ghoul Like You, When You Witch Upon a Star, Scooby in Kwackyland, The Ghouliest Show on Earth, The Devouring

After a two-year wait, the HBO Max series Jellystone! finally released their third season, which featured a number of fun surprises for Hanna-Barbera fans. The new season featured crossover episodes with The Jetsons and Goober and the Ghost Chasers, but perhaps most interesting for Scooby fans is that one episode is a re-imagining of the Laff-a-Lympics, titled "LAFF Games". The episode features the town of Jellystone facing off against the town of New Bedrock in the yearly LAFF Games, which Mayor Huckleberry is determined to win due to the town being humiliated at every year. The participants from Jellystone are the Yogi Yahooeys, whereas the New Bedrock participants are the Really Rottens. Snagglepuss and Mildew Wolf return as the commentators. The Scooby Doobies don't make an appearance in this episode, but I still thought this would be newsworthy to share for those who were fans of Laff-a-Lympics.

I watched the episode this morning and thought it was an excellent re-imagining that captured the tone and whimsy of the original series, while also staying true to the absurdist humor of Jellystone! What I loved most about the episode is that the crossover didn't feel forced at all; it felt very natural and like an enjoyable throwback to the show. I love the humor of this series, and this episode didn't disappoint (the scene where Yakky is dealing with her guilty conscience had me laughing pretty hard). If you enjoyed the Laff-a-Lympics and liked the more absurd humor style of Be Cool, Scooby-Doo!, I would highly recommend checking out this episode.

There is also a brief Scooby-Doo cameo in the episode "Frankenhooky," which is the Goober and the Ghost Chasers crossover, although I don't know if I'd say that one is worth checking out if you're not already a fan of the series. The episode got increasingly weird and while I enjoyed it as a fan of the series, it definitely felt like a fever dream and not anything notable enough to check out.

In "Wednesday Is Missing," all of the actors from The Addams Family show reprised their roles except for two. Wednesday and Pugley's original actors, Lisa Loring and Ken Weatherwax, did not return to voice their characters from the original series, and were replaced by Cindy Henderson and Jodi Foster, respectively.

This poll was a bit harder to put together, as it isn't always necessary cut-and-dry which villains are demons since they aren't stated to be so, so I made some inferences. If I missed anything you think should count, feel free to leave a comment! Here are the results for last week:

What is your favorite episode taking place in a toy store or factory?
The No-Faced Zombie Chase Case - 23
The Dynamic Scooby-Doo Affair - 11
​Toy Scary Boo - 11
Haunted Holidays - 9
Night of the Living Toys - 4
Wrath of the Krampus - 4
Block Long Hong Kong Terror - 3
One Minute Mysteries! - 2
Return of Commander Cool - 0

GamesRadar+ has posted the solicitation for Batman & Scooby-Doo Mysteries #5, which will be our only Scooby comic for May. Batman fans will be excited to see that the cover art uses the style of Batman: The Animated Series!

THE BATMAN & SCOOBY-DOO MYSTERIES #5
Written by MATTHEW CODY
Art and cover by PUSTE
$2.99 US | 32 pages
ON SALE 5/7/24
Dr. Kirk Langstrom believes the cure for his monstrous alter ego lies in studying the infamous Dr. Jekyll. When Batman accompanies him to Jekyll’s abandoned lab, they’re attacked by the ghost of Mr. Hyde himself! The Mystery Inc. gang has a history with this so-called spook, so Batman calls for their help. But, like, no one told them they might be facing Man-Bat, too!

In "A Good Medium Is Rare," Phyllis Diller had five ex-husbands. In real-life, at the time of this episode's airing, she had only divorced one man and was currently married to another. 

Phyllis married her first husband, Sherwood, in 1939. She was married to him for 26 years, and divorced him in 1965. Later that year, she married actor Warde Donovan, who she was still with when "A Good Medium Is Rare" aired. In 1975, she divorced Warde due to his problems with drinking, and was single for the next 10 years. In 1985, she married Robert Hastings, who she remained with until his death in 1996. Phyllis did not remarry again after her third husband's passing.

​Our winning option last week won by a huge margin, getting over 3 times the amount of votes of any other option!

What is your favorite viking episode?
Curse of the Viking Lake - 41
Norse Case Scenario - 11
Scooby the Barbarian - 8
The Phantom of the Country Music Hall - 8

As I posted about a few weeks ago, some old concept art and storyboards from SCOOB! have recently surfaced thanks to the Behind the Scoobs Instagram account. In that post, I did a brief write-up in the linked post about how the film drastically changed from what it was originally supposed to be. I was enjoying following their SCOOB! concept art while they were posting, and I was inspired to do a deeper dive on how the original film would have differed from what we ended up getting. From what I can find, there isn't one comprehensive article that tells the story of the original concept for SCOOB!, so I thought it would be fun to compile that story myself, and share it with you all through interviews, concept art and news articles. Just so it's clear, all of the concept art and other materials were found and shared previously with the fandom around the time SCOOB! came out, so I am not linking to any new information that hasn't been seen before.

Disclaimer: All of the concept art I'm linking to is all publicly available on the web and can be viewed by anyone. All concept art is owned by the individual artists and Warner Brothers-Discovery, and will be credited to the respective artists in each instance they are referenced throughout the post. To avoid any potential copyright or crediting issues, I will be linking to the places where the concept art is posted on the Internet rather than including the images directly in this post. I do not take credit for any of the concept art linked to.

In addition, there is no definitive source to tell us what the movie would have been about. This is just me piecing things together based on my own interpretation of the interviews, concept art, and news articles that are out there, and I make no claims as to whether my interpretations are correct or not.

If any of the artists or anyone at Warner-Brothers Discovery has any issues with me sharing links to this publicly available concept art, please don't hesitate to reach out and I will be happy to remove the links from this post. 

For those who don't know, SCOOB! was originally announced as far back as August 2013 via Variety. Charles Roven and Richard Suckle, who produced the first two live action movies, were set to produce the film. Matt Lieberman was the first person hired to write the script. Another announcement was later made in June 2014, sharing Randall Green had joined the writing team, and also that it would "reboot" the franchise.

Early concepts featured a much more experimental tone, involving the Mystery Inc. gang joining forces with former villains to stop a larger threat. In a storyboard posted on Nassos Vakalis's art portfolio website (the third one in the second row), The Creeper joined forces with Simone from Zombie Island to stop some demonic creatures. This concept was later scrapped.

On the movie's release day in 2020, Matt Lieberman shared in an interview with SyFyWire that SCOOB! originally was titled S.C.O.O.B., standing for Special Covert Organization of Otherworldly Beings. Despite the acronym being written out of the movie, the title was kept. A different interview with Matt Lieberman confirmed 80% of the basic plot of the film stayed the same in the final version; it was just the atmosphere and scenes that changed.

In August 2015, it was announced that Tony Cervone would direct the film, and his wife Allison Abbate would help produce it alongside Roven and Suckle. It was also announced that Dan Povenmire would executive produce the film. In April 2016, Entertainment Weekly reported that the film could lead to a Hanna-Barbera Cinematic Universe, providing the official tagline of "our first shot at unlocking the whole Hanna-Barbera Universe."

In September 2016, Dax Shepard was announced as a writer and director for the film by Variety, and the release date was announced as September 21, 2018. In May 2017, Variety reported an update that the release date would be pushed back to May 15, 2020. According to a Variety article from 2017, S.C.O.O.B. was originally supposed to be Hanna-Barbera's version of the Avengers/Justice League, with a group of heroes teaming up to stop Dick Dastardly and Muttley. 

A piece of concept art from 2015 by character designer Paul Sullivan on his website, shows one of the concepts that was considered for this "Justice League" of Hanna-Barbera characters. As can be seen from this art, the original concept included more than just Blue Falcon, Dynomutt, Dee Dee and Captain Caveman. Jabberjaw, Penelope Pitstop, Atom Ant, and Grape Ape were also originally a part of the film, but were written out in the final version. An art portfolio page by Alex Konstad shows some much darker, more sinister concept art for the film was at one point considered. This page also shows that Captain Caveman appears to have originally had a much bigger role in the film than just the brief scene that he got. According to Konstad's Instagram, he pitched The Great Gazoo from The Flintstones as the villain, similar to how Scrappy was made the villain of the first live action film.

In the original version of the film, there was a mystery with a zombie named Dr. Bandersnatch planned as a villain. Artist Bill Robinson posted designs on his Instagram for the villain, which appear to have maybe been inspired by Dr. Coffin from "The Harum Scarum Sanitarium." Robinson's Instagram caption mentions the character was from a "cut scene," meaning it could have also just been an opening scene, rather than part of the main plot. Sheriff Stone would have also made an appearance in the film, according to another Instagram post by Bill Robinson.

The film originally appears to have gone much deeper into Greek lore, as can be seen in a few other storyboard animatics on artist Nassos Valakis's website. The Greek lore looks like it would have been more heavily embedded into the whole film with a darker tone. Alex Konstad's site features captions on some of the concept art like "The Gates of Hell" and "It Follows," which may further hint to the darker tone this film originally had. A design on John Nevarez's website even shows Dick Dastardly meeting what appears to be the Grim Reaper.

In September 2018, it was announced by Variety that Dax Shepard was no longer involved with the project. Tony Cervone remained as the sole director, and Kelly Freamon-Craig replaced Shepard as a co-writer. It was also announced that Chris Colombus would produce the film, and that Derek Elliott and Jack Donaldson had written a previous draft of the script. This appears to have been the turning point for the film, as much of the cast and story as we know them today starting getting announced in March 2019.

So, why were all these changes made? I was curious about this too, so I did some research to see if I could find any official statements from the crew who worked on the film about the shift of direction from the original version. In an interview with Michael J. Lee of RadioFree, Tony Cervone shared that a struggle the film faced is that telling the story through the lens of the broader Hanna-Barbera universe caused a sort of identity crisis for the film, because there were too many characters to be properly developed.

"Scooby and Shaggy really just wanted to be Scooby and Shaggy, you know?" Cervone shares. "We spent a lot of time thinking about, "Should we create one overall look that can fill this whole universe?" Like, how are we going to create one look that accommodates Fred Jones and Dick Dastardly? They're so radically different. And we just did it the Hanna-Barbera way, and the Hanna-Barbera way mixed stuff up all the time. I knew Iwao Takamoto, and I knew a lot of the Hanna-Barbera people, and in a way, I was just kind of listening to them in my head, and they were all like, "Play to the characters' strengths, listen to the characters. And I think that's kind of what led us, and where we eventually wound up."

Producer Pam Coats adds on to Cervone's sentiment in another interview with CinemaBlend: "At the core you want to end this movie really emotionally attached to Scooby and Shaggy, Dastardly and Muttley, and Dynomutt and Blue Falcon, and we couldn't do that with those characters there."

Tony Cervone, who took part in this same interview, added "I think when we first started this was much more like Hanna-Barbera Avengers, and then somehow along the way the more time we spent with Scooby and Shaggy, we were just like, 'This is all we care about.' Scooby and Shaggy had their own gravity that took up space."

In an interview with ComingSoon.net, Tony Cervone explained that Marvel's Spider Man: Into the Spider-Verse was an inspiration for the creative team.

"Just like “Into the Spider-Verse”, the “Spider-Man” movie Sony made, was such a great representation of New York, we wanted to do that for L.A. We wanted this movie to feel like, “I could drive down that street. I know where that is.” And we knew we would go to some very fantastical places, so we wanted our Southern California to feel idealized but still kind of real." Cervone shared.

In a sense, the Avengers/Into the Spider-Verse metaphor is perhaps the best way to sum up the difference between the other version of the film, and the final version we saw. The original concept was focused on the broader Hanna-Barbera universe and was larger-than-life, similar to what Avengers is within the Marvel Universe, whereas the final version is a much more grounded picture that focused on a specific group of characters' universe, like Spider-Verse is in relation to the rest of the Marvel Universe.

I had a lot of fun researching for this article, and even though I already enjoyed SCOOB!, doing this research gave me a greater appreciation for what we ended up getting. I think Cervone and everyone involved did a great job creating a very grounded, character-focused story that was still able to properly service the Hanna-Barbera universe.

"Gates of Gloom" from Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated features Daphne, Fred and Scooby saying famous action movie quotes at pivotal points in the episode. Scooby saying "They drew first blood, not me" is a reference to the film First Blood with Sylvester Stallone. Fred and Daphne's exchange of "What have I done?" "What you had to do. What you always do, turn traps into a fighting chance to live" is a parody of a famous quote from Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.

This wasn't the first time the series parodied famous films, though. Although there are some parodies that were obvious, two of the notable full-episode examples of parodies that you may not be aware of include that "The Midnight Zone" was a parody of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, which featured a very similar plot of robots taking over a city, and a holographic head turning out to be a corpse in a chair. "Nightfright" from Scooby-Doo Mystery Incorporated also parodies the movie Fright Night, which is a famous horror movie that came out in 1985, one month before The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo began airing.