Happy Halloween! You've been voting for your favorite villains from The New Scooby-Doo Movies all week. Now, it's time to match up all the winners and narrow it down to one! The final round will last 48 hours, and the results will be revealed this Sunday when we resume the normal poll schedule.

​It appears the silent majority has it for yesterday's poll! Despite nobody who commented voting for him, the Ghostly Strongman wins the poll with 12 votes. 

What is your favorite villain in "The Haunted Carnival"?
Ghostly Strongman - 12
Camera Ghost - 6
Roller Coaster Ghost - 5
Ghost Racer - 4
Ghost Arm - 4

This is our last poll before the final round tomorrow on Halloween! Unlike some of the others, I really had no guess as to what would win this round. However, I'm happy to see that it ended up being what I feel is a very underrated sea monster design! 

What is your favorite villain from "The Exterminator"?
Sea Monster - 11
Ghoul - 6
Other Exterminator - 4
​Cat Creature - 3
Creepy Man - 3
Bird Trophy Head - 3
Werewolf - 2
Invisible Couple - 2
Frankenstein's Monster - 2
Ghost Picture - 0
Invisible Elevator Operator - 0

Based on our winner for yesterday's poll, looks like we have two pairs of very similar villains in the final round! The Window Phantom advances to the final round be alongside its lookalike, the Lady Ghost, as well as the two Mr. Hydes.

What is your favorite villain from "The Mystery of Haunted Island"?
Window Phantom - 15
Knight - 11
Invisible Ghosts (Three Hooded Ghosts) - 7
Living Statues - 4
Bedsheet Phantom - 2
Glowing Ghost - 1

Mr. Hyde advances to the final round for a second time in another landslide win! Here are the results for yesterday's poll:

What is your favorite villain from "The Dreaded Remake of Jekyll and Hyde!"?
Mr. Hyde - 26
Giant Manta Ray - 4
Mummy - 3
Dinosaur - 2

Every year on the Monday of Halloween week, my tradition has been to post a Ghoul School-related fun fact in celebration of the holiday. This marks the tenth year of doing so, and we've got a really fun one this year!

John Debney is a famous film composer who has composed scores for dozens of all-time classic films. His resumé includes blockbuster films such as The Princess Diaries, Elf, Passion of the Christ, and The Greatest Showman. On that note, it may be surprising to know that one of John's first ever jobs was writing and composing "Scrappy's Rap" in Scooby-Doo and the Ghoul School.

For me, learning this was on the same level as discovering the band known for "Whip It" sang the Get a Clue theme song. It is iconic to think that the man who wrote "Scrappy's Rap" is also responsible for composing the scores for Passion of the Christ and The Greatest Showman lol.

We're going to take a little break from The New Scooby-Doo Movies today now that we've gone through the two season 1 episodes with that trope. Before we start season 2 tomorrow, we're pivoting over to the one Guess Who episode that harkens back to the trope for today's poll!

​Looks like the Lady Ghost finally gets her flowers with yesterday's poll. She advances to the final round on Halloween. Here are yesterday's results:

What is your favorite villain from "The Spooky Fog"?
Lady Ghost - 8
Skeleton - 6
Three Eyed Spook - 4
Brontosaurus - 4
The Headless Horsemen of Sleepy Hollow - 4
Skeleton Stage Coach Driver - 2
Giant - 1
Red-Eyed Vulture - 1

I've done a couple of posts like this before when there are a couple tiny news bits that are announced. We have two very different pieces of Scooby news today with minimal info, so I thought I'd do the same again!

It's been announced on Instagram that there's going to be a brand new Scooby-Doo cereal! Scooby-Doo Cinnamon Crisp will be hitting stores in the US and Canada soon. The date is still yet to be announced. Credit to @Markie_Devo for the graphic, and thanks to Scoobyfan4ever for sharing this with me!

Just in time for Halloween, the Mahoning Drive-In Theater in Pennsylvania has announced they're hosting a special Scooby-Doo event! Their annual Trunk or Treat event this year is "Scooby-Doo: Spook a Roo!" The event will feature a drive-in screening of the first two live-action films, Scooby-Doo and Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed. The event will also feature a photo ops, scavenger hunt, on-screen costume contest, a themed raffle, live DJ set, and a Halloween egg run. Gates open at 5pm EST, and the first movie will start at 7:30. Tickets are $12 per adult, and $5 for kids. Tickets can be purchased on their website. Extended passes can also be purchased for $22. Thanks Juan for the info! The movie poster was designed by Andrew Kern.

For those that don't know, there were actually a few more villains that were designed for this episode! Cartoonist Alex Toth designed the "Bearded Old Ghost," "The Phantom Figure," and a bat, but they weren't used in the final version of the episode. You can see their designs in this old fun fact from May 2018.

We've got a couple polls to reveal the results for today! We'll start with yesterday's poll on "Sandy Duncan's Jekyll and Hydes" first. As expected, Mr. Hyde wins in a landslide, and advances to our final round on Halloween! Here are the results:

What is your favorite villain from "Sandy Duncan's Jekyll and Hydes"?
Mr. Hyde - 18
Ghost - 4
Dragon - 2
Wolfman - 1
Tan Shirt Pirate - 1
Bear - 1
Chief - 1
Freaky Sheikh - 1

Circling back to last Sunday's poll, we had a ton of variety in which film people are most hoping to see get a Blu-Ray released next. It was a really close race between Where's My Mummy? and Abracadabra Doo throughout the week, but Abracadabra Doo pulled ahead to score the win at the very last minute! Here are the full results for that poll:

Which Scooby movie should be released next on Blu-Ray?
Abracadabra Doo - 13
Where's My Mummy? - 12
Pirates Ahoy - 7
Goblin King - 7
Trick or Treat - 6
Shaggy's Showdown - 4
Straight Outta Nowhere - 4
Mystery Map - 3
Brave and the Bold - 3
Gourmet Ghost - 3
Curse of the 13th Ghost - 3
Happy Halloween - 3
Chill Out - 2
Krypto Too - 2
Arabian Nights - 1
Moon Monster Madness - 1
Sword and the Scoob - 0

Surprise! With Halloween coming up this week, we're starting the weekly poll a day early because we're doing daily polls! Every day this week, we'll be doing a poll based on one of my favorite tropes from The New Scooby-Doo Movies. There are a number of episodes in this series that have a ton of villains popping up throughout the episode. While they're not talked about much due to their brief appearance, some of them have some really cool designs imo! There are a few of them that I would have loved to see get their own episodes. In this week's polls, you'll be voting on your favorite villain from each of The New Scooby-Doo Movies episodes that have a large group of villains (defined as more than four for the sake of this poll series). Even though it only has four, the Sandy Duncan Guess Who episode is also included here, since it seemed to try to mirror that same trope. So that it's easier, for each poll, I'll include pictures of each villain with their names. On Halloween, we'll do a Winners round featuring all of the options that won their respective polls throughout the week. Voting for each round will last ~24 hours and will close each morning around 9:00am CST. I've always felt some of the monsters were underrated and had really cool designs, so this seems like a great way to spotlight them!

So that people still have a full week to vote, the results for the Blu-Ray poll from Sunday will still be revealed tomorrow morning as usual. Anyone who hasn't voted yet will still have another day to do so!

Over the five decades and counting of the Scooby-Doo franchise, so many monsters have been used as villains. However, somehow, there's a handful of monsters from famous myths and legends that haven't been utilized in the franchise yet. Becker, who's a frequent commenter here, suggested dedicating an article to ideas for monsters that hadn't been used. I thought this was a really fun idea, and came up with ten different villain ideas that I'd love to see used in Scooby episodes and films. I'll also include images and potential settings that could be used alongside the monsters. Note that a few of these may have been utilized in books and comics, but since I'm less familiar with those, I'm just going off of what hasn't been used in an episode or movie as my criteria for inclusion.

Nymph
A nymph is considered a Greek deity that personifies nature. There are two different types in lore, forest nymphs and water nymphs. In lore, they are said to have magical powers and shapeshifting abilities. I think it could be a really cool episode to have the gang out camping, and running into a forest nymph. Perhaps someone could dress up as one to hide an illegal logging scheme, lol. Similarly, we've had one fairy in the franchise, Princess Fairy Willow, but there's never been one that's used as a villain. Another great villain idea could be an evil fairy!

Hydra
We've had Medusa shown or mentioned in a few different episodes. In "It's All Greek to Scooby" from What's New Scooby-Doo?, Daphne dressed up as Medusa. We also had the Mask of Medusa in The New Scooby-Doo Mysteries episode "The Stoney Glare Stare," and she was originally supposed to be featured in "A Halloween Hassle at Dracula's Castle" before being cut for an unknown reason. That being said, I'd like to see a similar multi-headed villain used in the franchise - that being a hydra! Although people turning to stone forever might be a tad intense for Scooby, it could be approached like it was in "Scooby-Doo and a Mummy, Too" or "Scooby's Chinese Fortune Kooky Caper," where the culprits made shockingly convincing stone statues of their victims, when in reality they'd actually just been kidnapped. I think there could be a lot of settings that would work for a hydra, but a museum feels like an especially good one!

Ogre
This one was featured in a book, but I'd love to see an ogre featured in a Scooby-Doo episode! According to legend, ogres are typically said to live in caves or swamps. I feel like most swamp settings have included swamp monsters or witches, so it could be really fun to switch it up and have a swamp ogre!

Chimera
With all of the hybrid-animal villains we've gotten over the years (Jaguaro, Manticore, Griffin, etc.), a chimera would be a really cool villain! Chimeras have the head of a lion, goat, and snake all attached to one body. The body is made up of a snake tail, goat legs, and lion claws. Chimeras are from Greek legend, and are known for breathing fire. I couldn't find a lot of info on where chimeras live, but I think an underground system of caves (like in "Hairy Scare of the Devil Bear" from The Scooby and Scrappy-Doo Show) could be a super spooky setting for one!

Pegasus
This is another creature from Greek mythology, which is essentially a horse with wings. Like unicorns, the pegasus are usually known for being benevolent. However, perhaps there could be a ghost pegasus haunting a horse stable or a racetrack. I think this could make for a really unique Scooby episode!

Basilisk
This is a large serpent that's perhaps best known as being the villain of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Looking directly into the creature's eyes causes immediate death. While that's a bit intense for Scooby lol, I feel like they could alter the legend to be more Medusa-like, where it just turns people to stone to be more kid-friendly. An underground tunnel could be a great setting, but I think an even cooler way to approach the setting would be taking inspiration from Harry Potter. An episode could revolve around the gang investigating a castle, with a secret passage where the basilisk lurks.

Il Gatto Mammone
I've only been to one other country outside the United States - and that country is Italy! I've been there twice and have loved both of my trips. One of my favorite legends I learned about there is Il Gatto Mammone, which is essentially just a gigantic demon cat. The creature is known for attacking its victims without leaving so much as a trace, not even the bones! We've had a few cat creatures in Scooby, but all of them have been werewolf-like. Having it eat people would obviously be too intense for Scooby, but perhaps it could haunt a vineyard and eat all of the crops.

Popobawa
We've had villains from South American, European, Asian and Australian legends, but there are very few from Africa. Popobawas are evil spirits from Africa that can shapeshift into different forms. The legend mentions that the creatures can masquerade as humans by day, and turn into an evil bat-winged demon at night. The myth specifically explains that popobawas can pretend to be humans by possessing them, but I think it could be adapted to make it less scary and just have them pretend to take on a human form. The creature is said to reside on a few different islands and coastal areas, which makes me feel like an island would be a great setting for this monster!

Bunyip
The bunyip is a swamp creature from Australian legend, which to me, almost looks like a boogeyman of sorts. We've not had a boogeyman in the Scooby-Doo franchise (although the Swamp Creature from Reluctant Werewolf kind of looks like an unofficial one to me). That said, I feel like this could make a really cool Scooby-Doo villain! The design is super creepy and nightmarish, but I think the spookiness could be brought down just a little bit to make it appropriate for a Scooby episode. It's crazy to think we've never had a boogeyman in 50 years of the franchise!

Piranha-Goat
This last one is perhaps cheating, but there's one previously-used monster that deserves to be used in more than 30 seconds of a Scooby episode! With all the monster-hybrids in this list, I think having a full episode showing the mystery of the Piranha-Goat would be amazing lol. Perhaps it could involve a mystery on a farm by a lake to appropriately cater to both of the animals haha.

That concludes my list of villain suggestions! As the franchise continues to produce new series and films, I hope they continue mixing it up with unique villains. There are a lot of cool legends from different cultures out there, and I had a lot of fun exploring some of them as research for this post. If you have your own villain suggestions that you'd like to see in a Scooby episode or movie, I'd love to see others' picks in the comments!