According to Tyler Turett on Instagram, the series Velma is in production now! It's not clear if the picture above is the animation for the series, but I'm leaning towards assuming it is not. Hopefully this means we'll get more info about the series soon!

The lead character designer, Adam Fay, also posted on Instagram confirming that production began for the show on June 1. Adam confirmed that the image on his post wasn't the official animation of the show, so I would presume the other one is not the official animation either.

Update: ​There's also this post on LinkedIn stating that WB is hiring for a storyboard artist on Velma, meaning they must be in a very early production stage!

Several Scooby-Doo DTVs were originally given different names than they ended up being released with. Goblin King was originally titled Scooby-Doo and the Magic Castle; Samurai Sword was initially called Scooby-Doo! Sword of the Samurai; Abracadabra Doo startedout with the name Scooby-Doo and Whirlen Merlin's School of Magic; and lastly, Music of the Vampire originally had several names dating back to as far as 2009, including Scooby-Doo and the Circus of Vampires and Scooby-Doo! Lights! Camera! Vampire. The particularly interesting thing about that last title is that to date, Amazon lists this incorrect description for the film: "When Daphne becomes the star of a vampire film, the production is thrown into chaos by a real vampire, forcing the Scooby-Doo team to investigate who's behind this monstrous mayhem." The "Lights! Camera! Vampire!" title leads me to believe that this was an early draft of the Music of the Vampire film that was later scrapped and turned into a musical.

Here are screenshots from various resumes and LinkedIn profiles showing this information:

Hi all, I'm back from New York now and am able to make posts again! As I guessed, because the big news always happens whenever I'm gone, we got possibly the biggest news we could have gotten last Tuesday: the long-awaited Scooby-Doo and Courage trailer! The film will be called Straight Outta Nowhere: Scooby-Doo and Courage the Cowardly Dog and will release September 14, 2021, just in time for Scooby's anniversary. Here's the official press release that I was sent by WB Marketing:

STRAIGHT OUTTA NOWHERE:
SCOOBY-DOO MEETS COURAGE THE COWARDLY DOG
AN ALL-NEW ORIGINAL ANIMATED FILM
AVAILABLE ON DIGITAL AND DVD
SEPTEMBER 14, 2021
FROM WARNER BROS. HOME ENTERTAINMENT

Twitter Pitch: Teamwork makes the dreamwork as top dogs Scooby-Doo & Courage the Cowardly Dog join forces to uncover what makes the town of Nowhere so weird in STRAIGHT OUTTA NOWHERE: SCOOBY-DOO MEETS COURAGE THE COWARDLY DOG. The all-new animated film from @WBHomeEnt is coming to Digital & DVD 9/14
BURBANK, CA (June 22, 2021) – Comedy is unleashed when two of animation’s most lovable canines team up in Straight Outta Nowhere: Scooby-Doo Meets Courage the Cowardly Dog a brand-new, full-length animated family film set for release on Digital and DVD on September 14, 2021 by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment.  Produced by Warner Bros. Animation, Straight Outta Nowhere: Scooby-Doo Meets Courage the Cowardly Dog finds our favorite teen sleuths in the town of Nowhere, where they meet Courage the Cowardly Dog and investigate what makes Nowhere one of the weirdest places on Earth. The release includes three bonus classic Scooby-Doo! episodes. Straight Outta Nowhere: Scooby-Doo Meets Courage the Cowardly Dog retails for $14.99 SRP ($19.99 SRP Canada) for the DVD.

An original animated feature so exciting it’s scratching at the door! Comedy is unleashed when Scooby-Doo, your favorite mystery-solving mutt, teams up for the first time with Courage the Cowardly Dog. The canine colleagues sniff out a strange object in the middle of Nowhere, Kansas, the backwoods hometown of Courage and his owners, Eustace and Muriel Bagge. Soon, the mysterious discovery puts them on the trail of a giant cicada monster and her wacky winged warriors. Fred, Velma, Daphne and Shaggy know that this job is too big for a flyswatter. They’ll need the help of the doggy duo to piece together the puzzle. Can Scooby and Courage overcome their jitters and defeat the insect army before the whole world bugs out? Try not to get scared. We double-dog dare you!
Straight Outta Nowhere: Scooby-Doo Meets Courage the Cowardly Dog features the familiar voice talents of Frank Welker as Scooby-Doo/Fred Jones, Grey Griffin as Daphne Blake, Matthew Lillard as Shaggy Rogers and Kate Micucci as Velma Dinkley. The film also features Jeff Bergman as Eustice Bagge, Marty Grabstein as Courage the Cowardly Dog and Thea White as Muriel Bagge. Straight Outta Nowhere: Scooby-Doo  Meets Courage the Cowardly Dog was executive produced by Sam Register. The film was produced and directed by Cecilia Aranovich and was written by Mike Ryan.

Bonus Episodes:

• Scooby Doo, Where Are You! "Decoy for a Dognapper"
• The Scooby Doo/Dynomutt Hour, "The Gruesome Game of the Gator Ghoul"
• The Scooby-Doo/Dynomutt Hour, "Chiller Diller Movie Thriller"

Digital
Straight Outta Nowhere: Scooby-Doo Meets Courage the Cowardly Dog will be available to own on Digital on September 14, 2021. Digital purchase allows consumers to instantly stream and download to watch anywhere and anytime on their favorite devices. Digital movies and TV shows are available from various digital retailers including Amazon Video, iTunes, Google Play, Vudu and others. 

The Basics
Street Date:
September 14, 2021

SRP (United States):
$14.99 (SD)

SRP (Canada)
$19.99 (SD)

Running Time:
72 min. approx. (feature)

For today's question, I only included all the soundtracks that were officially released, not every single Scooby DTV to ever have a song. Also, speaking of soundtracks, given people's recent worry about Velma possibly having inappropriate raunchy content, why does no one ever talk about the fact that the SCOOB! soundtrack actually has a song on it where Jack Harlow raps about drunk driving the Mystery Machine? Like how did that even make the final cut for a soundtrack on a kids' film? lol

Here are the results from last week's poll:
What is your favorite Scooby-Doo/Dynomutt crossover?
Scooby-Doo! Mask of the Blue Falcon - 25
SCOOB! - 21
Everybody Hyde! - 21
Scooby-Doo, Dog Wonder - 18
Heart of Evil - 6
What Now, Lowbrow? - 1
The Wizard of Ooze - 1

Hello from New York! I'm visiting New York this week, so this is actually just a pre-scheduled post, and it's past me talking to you (how's the future, btw? Is it nice? haha). Similarly to what I did when I traveled to Italy a few years ago, I thought it might be fun to write a New York themed fun fact while I'm here, especially since the gang has traveled to New York so many times over the years.

"The Ransom of Scooby Chief" from The Scooby and Scrappy-Doo Show (which is about the gang being in New York) is the only episode in the entire franchise that Velma appears, but does not speak at all. This was very likely because the lines were recorded in between "When You Wish Upon a Star Creature" and "The Ghoul, The Bat and the Ugly," when Velma's voice actress Pat Stevens suddenly quit her role of voicing Velma due to a health issue. 

In Scooby-Doo & Guess Who? ​, two episodes were written as direct sequels to the original episodes in The New Scooby-Doo Movies. Previously, in the eyes of many fans, WB's track record at creating sequels had been very poor. Scooby-Doo! Return to Zombie Island and Scooby-Doo and the Curse of the 13th Ghost created numerous continuity errors, and made all the supernatural elements of each series fake, despite that they were real in both of the original shows. Moreover, Velma even went as far as to argue everything that happened in the original films was fake, which many fans found to be unnecessary.

This caused me to be very skeptical about the Sandy Duncan and Cher episodes when we first heard about them, because I was worried that it was just going to be another repeat of the mistakes of Return to Zombie Island and Curse of the 13th Ghost. However, I was very pleasantly surprised. I felt both films were perfect sequels to their respective original episodes, and it honestly made me wish that the two 2019 sequel films were written in a similar way.

So, what was it about these two episodes that nailed the "sequel" aspect so well? I would argue that its the following two components:

1. Staying true to the source material: Both the Sandy Duncan and Cher episodes directly referenced the source material all throughout the episode, without creating any unnecessary continuity errors. While Curse of the 13th Ghost and Return to Zombie Island took aspects from The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo and Zombie Island, respectively, both films picked and chose what they wanted to follow and discounted the rest. While the basic premise of both films was sort of used, a lot of creative liberties were taken, such as Curse of the 13th Ghost saying that Daphne, Shaggy and Scooby's adventure was "over a summer." Scrappy was also completely ignored, and even made into a joke ("What's a Scrappy?"). For a good sequel, I would argue that you cannot simply pick and choose what you want, while pretending the rest didn't happen. "The Dreaded Remake of Jekyll and Hyde!" used the gang's previous adventures with Sandy in "Sandy Duncan's Jekyll and Hydes" as a foundation for the episode, as did "Cher, Scooby and the Sargasso Sea!" to an extent. Nothing was discounted, ignored, or altered for the episode; rather, they drew upon all the elements of the episodes to make the sequels stay true to the original. I suppose you could argue Sonny not being mentioned in the Cher episode is an omission on the writers' part; however, I think it would have been kind of sad for them to have to acknowledge Sonny's tragic passing (for those who don't know, he died in a horrific skiing accident at the age of 62, in 1998), so I understand why they didn't. The difference between not acknowledging Sonny in "Cher, Scooby and the Sargasso Sea!" and not acknowledging Scrappy in Curse of the 13th Ghost is that Sonny actually had a good reason not to be mentioned, whereas Scrappy's lack of acknowledgement was clearly meant as a punitive joke, which there was no good reason to make.

2. Sticking to the tone Perhaps my biggest problem with Curse of the 13th Ghost and Return to Zombie Island was the drastic difference in tone. The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo had a dark, creepy atmosphere to it, even if it did get a little silly sometimes, and Zombie Island is beloved throughout the Scooby fandom due to its dark and mature tone. It seems the writers acknowledged none of that for the sequels, however, and just made both sequels like it was just another DTV from the current era. To make a truly good sequel, I would argue that the tone of the original needs to be taken into account, which it didn't feel like they did at all for the two 2019 sequels. It would be like a writer coming along and saying "you know how amazing people think Star Wars is? Well, screw the tone of the original, let's make it a soap opera!" In the case of Return to Zombie Island, Moonscar Island looked completely different from what the original was. With Curse of the 13th Ghost, Vincent's home was randomly declared to just be a "Air Boo and Boo" that he happened to be staying at. To use the Star Wars metaphor again, that would be like saying the Millennium Falcon was just some random spaceship they rented from a guy or something. Vincent's castle was a pretty core part of The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo and appeared in a lot of episodes, so for them to just ignore it completelIt feels like the writers wanted to advertise the films with the flair of a sequel, without actually putting much work to make sure that the elements of the original were there. Especially with Return to Zombie Island, pretty much nothing is kept the same with the exception of there being zombies and cat creatures on the island, though there's not much lore as to why they're there. With the two Guess Who sequels, it felt like they really dove deep into the original episodes to ensure that the tone and the setting was the same. The Sandy Duncan sequel felt very true to what the writers of the original episode would have done if they would have made a sequel themselves, which is how I would argue a Scooby-Doo sequel should be made. The episode took place on the original set the gang was on, incorporated the element of there being numerous monsters on the set, and even framed the film they were making as being a "remake" of the original. I also really enjoyed how they made the sequel's Mr. Hyde be a combination between the one from the original episode and another classic Hyde from the Scooby-Doo universe (the one from "Nowhere to Hyde"). The Cher sequel did the same. It took place on a boat, included shark men as the villains, and took care in trying to match the tone of "The Secret of Shark Island." This is why I feel the Guess Who sequel episodes were miles better than the two sequel films of 2019. Both of them attempted to match the tone of the original episode, and incorporated various elements that were used by the original episode's writers throughout the episode, rather than just having a vague resemblance of the source material like the two sequel films did.

I know many Scooby fans are a bit skeptical about sequels to anything now after Curse of the 13th Ghost and Return to Zombie Island, I would honestly be open to more sequels if they were done as well as "The Dreaded Remake of Jekyll and Hyde!" and "Cher, Scooby and the Sargasso Sea!". I thought both of those were incredibly well-written and felt super true to the original episodes. I hope if more sequels are made someday, either a movie or as part of a series, that the writers take inspiration from the what the Guess Who writers did with the Sandy Duncan and Cher episodes.

According to Tony Cervone and ComicBookMovie.com, a follow-up to SCOOB! is coming out soon! Here is a quote from Tony's interview with CBM: "Actually, we are kicking the tyres on a follow-up to Scoob! It hasn’t been announced yet, but it’s something we’re all excited about. The whole creative team that made the first movie is still around and back and working on something new. It was neat to create this Hanna-Barbera Cinematic Universe, and it’s exciting to return to it."

I'm really excited for this follow-up! Notice that he did say "follow-up," not "sequel" as the CBM article says, so I think it's very possible we could get a SCOOB! television series instead of a second film.

I'm incredibly excited for September's comic solicitations, because for the first time in almost 30 years, A Pup Named Scooby-Doo is going to get a full-length comic for the sixth issue of Batman & Scooby-Doo Mysteries. It will also be released just in time for Scooby's anniversary (well, I suppose it's a day late, but you get my point lol).

​Here's the full solicitation from GamesRadar:

THE BATMAN & SCOOBY-DOO MYSTERIES #6
Writer: SHOLLY FISCH
Artist: SCOTT JERALDS
Cover: SCOTT JERALDS
$2.99 US | 32 PGS | 6 of 12
ON SALE 9/14/21

The untold eerie mystery that brought about the first historic meeting between...a young Batman and a pup named Scooby-Doo!

We've had quite a number of Dynomutt and Scooby-Doo crossovers in the past few years, reviving the series from an almost 40 year lull without any content. Most recently, Dynomutt and Blue Falcon teamed up with the gang in the Scooby-Doo and Guess Who? episode, "Scooby-Doo, Dog Wonder!" As a fan of the original Dynomutt, Dog Wonder series, when I first heard we were getting the episode way back in 2019, I was pretty excited. My excitement grew even more when we got the description for the episode, which mentioned Radley Crown and his art collection. Radley Crown is Blue Falcon's true identity, but was only used sparingly in the beginnings of the first few episodes of Dynomutt, Dog Wonder before they stopped referencing it at all. This is why I was so thrilled they were using that in this episode, as it wasn't a major trope in the series and made me believe that they would be trying to stay extra true to the original series, which is something that neither of the other two crossovers did.

It turns out, I wasn't disappointed. I thought Dynomutt's quirky antics throughout the episode, as well as the mystery being centered around Radley Crown's art collection, made for a very entertaining plot that felt pretty close to what a classic Dynomutt, Dog Wonder episode was like. The only thing I didn't like from the episode was Blue Falcon, who was given a new voice actor, David Kaye. I didn't feel like Kaye did a good job at all, and he was very unconvincing at voicing Blue Falcon. Many of his lines, such as "let's go fight some crime!" and "click it or ticket!" felt super cringey and like it was written by a writer who had never seen what Blue Falcon was like in the original show. Granted, Blue Falcon was kidnapped for most of the episode, so it didn't bother me all that much. I won't go too much into it, as I've already written a detailed review about that episode (which you can read here). However, in this article, I want to rank the other six Scooby-Doo and Dynomutt crossovers, wrapping it all up by using the most recent Guess Who episode as a point of analysis.

I actually totally forgot about this crossover until I started writing the paragraph below it haha. I would rank "Heart of Evil" from Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated next. I thought they did a good job with the crossover, but Blue Falcon being so intense was a bit of a letdown for me. I know they were going for a Batman-type character, but for me, it just didn't work to have Blue Falcon act like he was about to stab someone any minute. He's very much the gentlemanly, polite crusader of justice and isn't super violent like they portrayed him in this episode. I did enjoy the backstory for how Dynomutt was a real dog who was injured and had to be made into a robot. For me, I think the episode would have ranked a little higher had I ever seen Jonny Quest, because a lot of that show was in this crossover too, even including the villain. Having no knowledge of Jonny Quest made it a little less fun, just because I didn't understand all the references with Dr. Zin, so he felt like a bit of lackluster villain to me. It is genuinely hard to rank these crossovers though, because all of them are good in their own way. They did a great job working Blue Falcon and Dynomutt into the overarching plot of this show, but not knowing Jonny Quest and Blue Falcon being so over-the-top edgy places this one at 5/6.

I know people didn't like Dynomutt and Blue Falcon reversing personalities in SCOOB!, but I actually enjoyed Blue Falcon's son's silliness and Dynomutt being the serious one. It's definitely not true to anything in the original show, but it worked. I really enjoyed what a prominent role they had with helping Shaggy and Scooby with the overarching plot of stopping Dick Dastardly. Blue Falcon's intro song being DJ Khaled was...a little cringey....but amusingly so. I can absolutely understand why fans of the original show would hate this, because it did deviate pretty far from what the original Dynomutt series was going for. I think the fact that they said it was Blue Falcon's son Brian, rather than the actual Blue Falcon, is what made it work for me. If they would have had the actual Blue Falcon dancing to DJ Khaled with his typical personality, it wouldn't have worked. The fact that they made it a different character made me enjoy it more, and Dynomutt reacting to Brian's more goofy personality by becoming serious was a fun change-up. 

Now we get down to the three crossovers that were actually a part of the original Dynomutt, Dog Wonder series! It's pretty incredible that Scooby had a major role in three episodes of the show, given there were only twenty in all. As a side note, I'm still hoping we get a DVD release of season 2 someday, though those episodes are for some reason super rare and there were only four of them, so I imagine it's a similar situation as with The Scooby-Doo Show season 2. I imagine there's also not much of a market for Dynomutt DVDs given he hasn't had his own show in over 40 years. I really liked all three of them, but the first to go has to be "The Wizard of Ooze." I found a lot of the Dynomutt villains to be super cool, but Swamp Rat and Mudmouth have to be my least favorite. They're basically just hillbillies in a swamp, one of which who looks like a rat. I did enjoy the atmosphere of both the swamp and the town/mall, and the gang accidentally bumping into Dynomutt and Blue Falcon (and recognizing them!) while looking for a ghost was fun, but I really never cared for these villains. As a kid, I always wished Scooby would have appeared in the Iron Face episode (that's right, Dynomutt had a villain named Iron Face too!), because that one felt far more mystery-focused than Dynomutt and the gang chasing after some hillbillies, which is what we got in this episode. I did really enjoy the character interactions and setting in this episode, and would rank it 3/6.

Next is "What Now, Lowbrow?", which features a caveman and his two henchmen attempting to steal a super computer from a university to become super smart. I always found Lowbrow to be a very fascinating villain, because he's the only one of the series (other than I guess Swamp Rat and Mudmouth) who's just a normal person. The difference between Lowbrow and the other two for me, though, was that we got to see Lowbrow's evolution of becoming a super villain through his quest to become smart and steal the super computer. I feel like we rarely see get to see the backstory behind the evolution of villains in these types of cartoons, so that aspect of the episode has always been unique to me. Lowbrow's super strength due to being a caveman also made him one of the more dangerous Dynomutt villains, which I found to be pretty cool. In terms of the gang, it kinda felt like they didn't really need to be here...of the three Dynomutt crossovers, this is the one they're in the least and are kinda just sent on random errands, rather than contributing to the overall plot. That's the only thing that brings this one down below the top spot, but this was still a really fantastic crossover and it was fun to see the gang help out, even if it was just a little.

Taking the #1 spot is the classic Scooby-Doo and Dynomutt crossover that I feel everyone remembers, "Everybody Hyde!" It's also the very first episode of Dynomutt, Dog Wonder, which is worth noting because it's kind of unique that the first two episodes of the show were both crossovers with Scooby-Doo ("What Now, Lowbrow?" was the second episode). It's almost as if the show needed a little lift from Scooby to truly take off and grow into its own thing, which I've always found to be pretty special. It reminds me a little of how Goober and the Ghost Chasers included The Partridge Family as guest stars in six of their first seven episodes, the only one not including them being because Wilt Chamberlain was guest starring. If I may give a brief aside, Goober and the Ghost Chasers has always been a bit of an oddity to me as a series, due to their incredibly heavy use of The Partridge Family as guest stars, even though it was not advertised or intended to be a guest star focused show. Eight of the sixteen episodes included The Partridge Family as guest stars, and there were two other episodes that included other guest stars, basketball player Wilt Chamberlain, and Michael Gray. Only six episodes of the series had the Goober and the Ghost Chasers by themselves, and episode 10 was the first one not to feature a guest star. I almost feel like the writers didn't trust that Goober would have enough of an appeal without guest stars, which I mention because of the two Scooby crossovers kicking off the Dynomutt series.

Anyway, with "Everybody Hyde!", we get to see another fun evolution of a villain, though this time it's Willie the Weasel, who has transformed into Mr. Hyde (and has also transformed his dog into a monster). Soon after, while Dynomutt and Blue Falcon are on the trail of Mr. Hyde, the gang appears and think Mr. Hyde is a ghost, which I always thought was kind of a fun little throwback to the ghost of Hyde from Where Are You. What really made this episode so enjoyable to me was how much of a role the gang had in it compared to the two others. The gang finds clues that help the two superheroes, attempt to help them stop Mr. Hyde, and even set one of their famous traps that ultimately ends up capturing the villain. This episode was a perfect catalyst for kicking off the Dynomutt series by including some of the classic Scooby formula, to help the audience warm up to these new superheroes. Because of that, this is my favorite Dynomutt crossover and will always have a special place in my heart.

Tying it back to the Guess Who episode, the original Dynomutt crossovers were a bit more "supervillain-y" than "Scooby-Doo, Dog Wonder!" was, but at the same time, I thought it was fun that there was finally a crossover between the two shows that felt like more of a mystery. We got three crossovers that were a little more Dynomutt-focused, and now we got a finally crossover between the two that was more Scooby-focused. It almost brought things a little full circle for me and reminded me of watching Dynomutt as a kid, so despite the flaws with Blue Falcon's characterization, the most recent Guess Who crossover with Dynomutt and Blue Falcon was a blast from the past and really captured the tone and feel of the original series.