To honor the memory of Alex Trebek who tragically passed away on Sunday at 80, Tracy Mark Lee (a character designer of Guess Who) posted the title card for his Guess Who episode. The episode will be titled "Total Jeopardy!" 

Season set DVDs are back! The complete first season of Guess Who will be released January 19, 2021, according to Wal-Mart, including all 26 episodes. You can pre-order the DVD here!

I don't really know what order to put this episode in, since it aired as the season 2 premiere in the UK, so I'm just going to say it's episode 40 for now and can always change it later if we find out it's a different order.

I really enjoyed this episode. Jason Sudeikis was a good guest star and the plot was pretty unique. The Snakeman Monster looked like a recolored version of the Snake Demon from "Shiver and Shake, That Demon's a Snake!" (The Scooby and Scrappy-Doo Show).

It seemed like there were references galore in this episode! I was shocked Chen's Coffee from SDMI was referenced on that coffee cup, and did anyone else notice that the jungle sounds in the opening few seconds were archived audio from the noises when the gang gets on the island "Hassle in the Castle"?

I was a little surprised they mentioned Fred and Daphne possibly liking each other in this. I believe this is the first time Guess Who has done that. 

Not the most amazing episode, but it was an enjoyable one. This ranks at #23/40 for me.

Star-Studded Scoreboard:
1. I Put a Hex on You!
2. The Last Inmate!
3. The Dreaded Remake of Jekyll & Hyde!
4. The Sword, The Fox and the Scooby-Doo!
5. One Minute Mysteries!
6. Dance Matron of Mayhem!
7. The Horrible Haunted Hospital of Dr. Phineas Phrag!
8. Elementary, My Dear Shaggy!
9. Too Many Dummies!
10. When Urkel-Bots Go Bad!
11. The Feast of Dr. Frankenfooder!
12. The Internet on Haunted House Hill!
13. What a Night, for a Dark Knight!
14. Attack of the Weird Al-osaurus!
15. The Cursed Cabinet of Professor Madds Markson!
16. A Run Cycle Through Time!
17. The Nightmare Ghost of Psychic U!
18. A Fashion Nightmare!
​19. The Wedding Witch of Wainsly Hall!
20. The 7th Inning Scare!
21. The Crown Jewel of Boxing!
22. Scooby On Ice!
23. Lost Soles of Jungle River!
24. Caveman on the Half Pipe!
25. A Moveable Mystery!
26. Revenge of the Swamp Monster!
27. The Scooby of a Thousand Faces!
28. Now You Sia, Now You Don't!
29. The High School Wolfman's Musical Lament!
30. The New York Underground!
31. The Phantom, the Talking Dog, and the Hot Hot Hot Sauce!
32. Hollywood Knights!
33. Fear of the Fire Beast!
34. The Hot Dog Dog!
35. Quit Clowning!
36. Peebles' Pet Shop of Terrible Terrors!
37. Space Station Scooby
38. Ollie Ollie In-come Free!
39. The Fastest Food Fiend!
40. A Mystery Solving Gang Divided

Some more extremely bad news today in celebrity deaths: Ken Spears, who co-created Scooby-Doo with Joe Ruby (who died earlier this year as well), has passed away. He was 82 and died of dementia, according to Variety. RIP Ken Spears!

So a few weeks ago, Samuel Kirkwood who is a regular commenter on this blog challenged me to count the number of times the robot says "destroy" in "The Crown Jewel of Boxing!" from Guess Who. For this week's fun fact, I accepted this challenge and watched the episode again, marking down every single time the robot said "destroy." In total, the robot says "destroy" 66 different times in the episode.

Since it's been confirmed that Alex Trebek, host of Jeopardy, will guest star in the second half of Guess Who season 2, I thought I should mention that he tragically passed away today at 80 due to pancreatic cancer. RIP Alex Trebek!

For the 50th weekly poll, I'm asking possibly the toughest question of all for those of you who thought both were terrible...

Here's what the final results for last week's poll look like after counting up all the votes:
What is your favorite film from the current era of DTVs?
​Camp Scare - 28
Shaggy's Showdown - 11
Abracadabra Doo - 10
FrankenCreepy - 8
Stage Fright - 7
Mask of the Blue Falcon - 4
Big Top - 3
Moon Monster Madness - 2
Legend of the Phantosaur - 2
Music of the Vampire - 2

Though the villain is commonly referred to as Katazuma, "The Fiesta Ghost is an Aztec Ghost" VHS tape from 1989 calls the villain "Cotazuma." While this could be shrugged off as just a typo, the subtitles for the episode on both the The Scooby-Doo/Dynomutt Hour DVD and the 13 Spooky Tales Around the World DVD refer to him as this too. On the Boomerang streaming service, however, the subtitles call him "Catezuma."

In addition, from "Sandy Duncan's Jekyll and Hyde," the DVD subtitles list Zalia Z. Fairchild (the common spelling I've seen) as "Xavier Z. Fairchild."

Thanks so much to my friend Deandre (aka Scoobyfan4ever) for coming up with this week's fun fact!

I have some incredibly exciting news to Cher with you all haha. An Italian voice actor, Anna Cugini, has confirmed that she voiced Kristen Schaal and Cher in the Italian version of Guess Who, meaning Cher will return as one of the guest stars in the final 13 episodes of Guess Who. Nothing's really known about the episode besides this yet, but I'm curious if Sonny will get a mention at all, or if this will be another remake of the classic New Scooby-Doo Movies episode like the Sandy Duncan episode was.

With this news, we're now only missing 4 of the 13 guest stars from Guess Who - as we already know Jason Sudeikis, KISS, Dynomutt and Blue Falcon, Sean Astin, Jessica Biel, Lucy Liu, Alex Trebek and the voice actors themselves will be guest stars in the second 13.

Thanks so much to Luigi Mele Krause for sharing this with me in order to make this an exclusive for the site. It truly means a lot!

Here's a screenshot of Luigi's post that the voice actress commented on:

Amazingly, Guess Who has nearly come to a close and we're just waiting for the final 13 episodes (or 12 if you're lucky enough to have seen the Jason Sudeikis episode in the UK) at this point. Besides the obvious of wanting to see cool guest stars and spooky mysteries, I wanted to dive deeper and write this month's short editorial article on a few specific things I'd like to see in the final few Guess Who episodes.

One thing that has been somewhat inconsistent, but getting better, in the Guess Who episodes is the over-focus on the guest star. Sometimes, it feels like the writers focus so much on making the episode about the guest star that the actual mystery is neglected, and one's enjoyment of the episode is almost entirely dependent on their like or dislike of the guest star. Personally, this is why I did not enjoy the Ricky Gervais episode, among some others where the guest star was overbearingly present in the episode. They've been doing better with it in the second half of season 1 and season 2, but certain episodes were still "meh" to me because of not enough mystery development. 

Looking at the other side of it, I think the guest star should at least have a decent amount of presence in the episode, so they can contribute something. The Joey Chestnut episode felt like he was a side character because he was written so blandly, for example. I hope in the second half of season 2, that there is a consistent better balance of guest star presence, so they at least have a role to play but not so much of a role that it takes away time from the mystery or other members of the gang.

Overall though, I think the episodes are really improving from where we were at the beginning of season 1. We got some great episodes in the first half of season 2, especially Kristen Schaal and Morgan Freeman in which I felt the guest stars fit in perfectly with the plots of the episode. Which brings me to my last point: the guest star should actually seem interested in their role. In some episodes, the line delivery of guest stars seems very bland and forced, with episodes like Kacey Musgraves, Bill Nye & Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Jim Gaffigan being the ones coming to mind. It makes the episode less fun IMO if the guest star is just going through the motions or just there for the sake of claiming they have a guest star on the show.

I can't wait for the second half of season 2, and I'm hoping we get it soon!