In 2020, the stage play Scooby-Doo and the Lost City of Gold sadly had all its shows cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. While we're still sadly dealing with the pandemic now, there's some good news about the play as we look ahead to 2022. After two years, the tour is finally happening and most of the original shows that would have been in 2020 have been rescheduled. Unfortunately, due to the large gap between the originally planned 2020 dates, the cities that the tour is stopping in have changed a bit, due to some of the original venues being unavailable. Some of the states were also removed from the tour, likely due to inability to reschedule the original venues. However, looking at the positive side, I think it's wonderful that the tour is finally getting to happen as it should have two years ago, even if it looks a bit different now.

Here is the current performance schedule, according to the tour website. Tickets are now available at each individual venue's website.
January 25, 7:00pm - Roanoke, VA - Berglund Performing Arts Theatre
January 27, 7:30pm - Niceville, FL - Mattie Kelly Arts Center
January 29, 6:00pm - Fort Lauderdale, FL - Au-Rene Theater at the Broward Center
January 30, 2:00pm - Lakeland, FL - Youkey Theatre
February 11, 6:30pm - Evansville, IN - Victory Theatre
February 12, 7:30pm - Wabash, IN - Honeywell Center
February 15, 7:30pm - New Brunswick, NJ - State Theatre New Jersey
February 16, 7:00pm - Syracuse, NY - The Oncenter Crouse Hinds Theater
February 18, 6:00pm - Lancaster, PA - American Music Theatre
February 19, 7:00pm - Rochester, NY - Kodak Center
February 20, 2:00pm - Wilkes-Barre, PA - F.M. Kirby Center
March 22, 7:00pm - Marion, IL - Marion Cultural and Civic Center
March 24, 7:30pm - Akron, OH - E.J. Thomas Hall at the University of Akron
March 25, 7:30pm - Saginaw, MI -Temple Theatre
March 26, 7:00pm - Van Wert, OH - Niswonger Performing Arts Center
March 27, 3:00pm - Waukegan, IL - Genesee Theatre
April 24, 3:00pm - Laval, QC - Place Bell

On Sunday, December 26, it was announced that Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated character designer Derrick James Wyatt sadly passed away at 49. Besides Mystery Incorporated, he was best known for working on Ben 10, Teen Titans and Transformers: Animated. A cause and date of death have not been identified yet. RIP Derrick, you will be greatly missed!

A different vehicle model was used for the Mystery Machine in each of the live-action films.

In Scooby-Doo, a 1972 Bedford CF was utilized as the Mystery Machine. In Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed, a 1985 Chevrolet Chevy Van was used. A 1994 Chevrolet G-30 Chevy Van was used in Scooby-Doo! The Mystery Begins. A 1983 Ford Econoline was used in Scooby-Doo! Curse of the Lake Monster. 

A huge thank you to Prime 1986 for coming up with this fun fact!

For a number of years, I've been making year in review posts for my favorite 10 things to happen in the Scooby franchise each year. This year, I thought it might be fun for people to vote on their favorite thing from the year. Just to keep it manageable, I only included TV series, films and specials in the poll, as it would be impossible to list every single piece of merch or little thing that happened this year. I'm looking forward to seeing the results!

Here are the results from last week's poll...or this week rather, since I'm calculating these results on Wednesday. That being said, if any world-changing event happened since then, I didn't know about it when I calculated these results lol.
​
What is your favorite villain from a Scooby-Doo Christmas themed episode?
Headless Snowman - 30
Sinister Snowman - 14
Ghost of Christmas Never - 12
Krampus - 6
Pterodactyl - 6
Ghost of Jacob Marley - 2
Ghost of Christmas Past - 1
Ghost of Christmas Present - 1
Ghost of Christmas Future - 1

Seems like Tony Cervone may have just confirmed what the SCOOB! reboot is, which we've heard little tidbits about throughout the year. On Instagram, Tony confirmed that  "Scoob!: Holiday Haunt" is now in production and will be released sometime late next year. The holiday film will premiere exclusively on HBO Max in the United States, along with a number of other WB films in 2022. 

ComicBook.com also provides a cast list and description of the film. All of the original voice actors for the gang as kids in the original SCOOB! will be featured again as main cast in this film.
Warner Bros. Pictures / Warner Animation Group
Directors: Michael Kurinsky, Bill Haller
Writers: Paul Dini, Tony Cervone Producers: Tony Cervone, Mitchell Ferm
Cast: Frank Welker, Iain Armitage, Ariana Greenblatt, McKenna Grace, Pierce Gagnon, Mark Hamill, Cristo Fernandez, Michael McKean, Andre Braugher, Ming-Na Wen Animated Holiday Mystery Adventure. 

To celebrate Scooby Doo's first Christmas, 10-year-old Shaggy and the gang take him to a holiday-themed resort owned by Fred's favorite Uncle Ned. When the park is beset by a ghostly haunting, the kids must solve a 40-year-old mystery to save the resort and show Scooby the true meaning of Christmas.

Thank you to Scoobyfan4ever for letting me know about Tony's post!

"Lost Soles of Jungle River!" from Scooby-Doo and Guess Who? aired in the UK on July 25, 2020, which is an entire year, two months and one week before the episode aired in the United States on October 1, 2021. This episode currently holds the record for the longest gap there has ever been between the international air date and the US air date.

Happy holidays to you all! If you're celebrating, I hope you and your loved ones are able to do something fun! Although next week's poll will still be posted on Sunday, unfortunately, I will need to close this week's poll on Wednesday night so that I have enough time to count the votes before I leave to visit family for the holidays. I will still be able to make posts on the site during this time (i.e. the weekly poll and fun fact); it's just overly difficult and time consuming to count up all the votes from my phone.

Here are the results for last week's poll:
​What is your favorite season 1 finale?
All Fear the Freak - 27
The Loch Ness Mess - 10
That's Snow Ghost - 10
The People vs. Fred Jones - 9
Space Station Scooby - 7
The Nutcracker Scoob - 4
The Spirits of '76 - 3
Lights...Camera...Monster - 2
Wedding Bell Boos - 1
The Unnatural - 1
Quebec & Baghdad - 1
The Ransom of Scooby Chief - 1
0 votes: Surprised Spies, Bride and Gloom, Horror Scope Scoob and Operation Dog and Hippy Boy

From Guess Who wrapping up, two DTVs, some comics, and even a reunion special, a lot has happened for Scooby-Doo in 2021! As I do every year, I wanted to create a post to look back at the year and rank my favorite things that have happened Scooby-wise in the past 365 days. I generally don't include the announcements for things that will happen in the future, although there is one exception to that rule here with #10, since the Ultra Instinct Shaggy petition finally happening was kind of the thing, rather than the game itself which isn't completely Scooby-related.

10. Ultra Instinct Shaggy Added as Character in MultiVersus
While I myself am not a big fan of these particular types of games, this is such a cool thing that they did given how many fans signed the petition to add Ultra Instinct Shaggy as a character to Mortal Kombat. Even as someone who doesn't plan to buy the game when it's released, this felt like a very full-circle moment. The petition went up a few years ago when the Ultra Instinct Shaggy memes starting blowing up, so it's so cool of the creators of this game to answer the petition, particularly given the connection with the Mortal Kombat creator. I'm very happy all those who signed the petition finally get to have this happen.

9. Simple Plan Releases What's New, Scooby-Doo? Studio Version
This was something I never would have expected to happen. Given the theme song was recorded 19 years ago, it was very cool of Simple Plan to release the studio version after all these years, especially given it is probably a relatively obscure song in their discography for them.

8. Funko Pops
Funko has really been cranking out the Scooby-Doo Pops this year! Between the villain sodas for the Space Kook and the Werewolf, the Hex Girls Pops that sold out in nine minutes, and all the other Scooby ones they've put out, the love they've shown Scooby with creating all those Pops is incredible. Hopefully they continue releasing Scooby-Doo Pops!

7. Scooby-Doo, Where Are You (#108-113)
Looking at my past few year end posts, the Where Are You comics have been pretty low. Generally speaking, while I like the comics, I'm not quite as into them as I am the Scooby-Doo TV shows and films. The past few years in particular, the Where Are You comics have really struggled with their overuse of stock art. It's in fact gotten so bad that pretty much entire issues are just recycled stock art. In honesty, I haven't been buying the Where Are You comics at all anymore since this stock art issue started, because I'm just not interested in them. Other than for posting the DC solicitations each month, and looking up info about each comic when they come out to add to the site, I don't really engage with the Where Are You comics at all.

All that being said, I was very happy to hear that one recent comic, #111, used new art for the first time in years. It switched back to the stock art in #112, so I'm not sure if it was a one-time thing. I had pretty much lost faith that those comics would be anything other than stock art, so I'm eager to see if they start transitioning back to making new art. That's the only reason why it didn't get ranked low again.

6. Batman and Scooby-Doo Mysteries
A brand new monthly comic series, Batman and Scooby-Doo Mysteries, began being published on March 27 digitally and April 13 in print. So far, 9 comics have been published. There will be 12 comics overall in the series. The last three will be published next year, and the series will conclude in March. When they first announced this series, I was admittedly a little skeptical that this was just going to be Scooby-Doo! Team Up part 2. Not that I hate Scooby-Doo! Team Up or anything, but my philosophy is that each series should bring something new to the table or explore a new concept/element, not just rehash something that's already been done. I've been pleasantly surprised with this series, and it's been nice to see they've done some fun things like the A Pup Named Scooby-Doo​ reboot in issue 6. 

5. Scoobtober
This might be a bit of a surprise to see so high in the list, but I was very impressed with how they handled Scoobtober this year. It felt like they really put a lot of effort into planning a lot of different things out, from concluding the Guess Who series with the last 11 episodes, airing Scooby movies on Cartoon Network, and adding 28 movies to HBO Max. Not that they've done a horrible job in the past, but I feel like in past years, they've just added a couple movies to Boomerang and called it good. Posting 28 new films and concluding a series, in addition to the extra touch of airing stuff on Cartoon Network, felt very special. I really hope they continue doing stuff like this in future years, because you could really tell how much they cared and thought out something fun to do.

As a side note, I do think the transition to HBO Max is interesting. I can't remember if I've talked about it in a post like this or just said it in responding to people's comments, but I feel like it may be the latter. I think in the coming year, they will probably shut down the Boomerang streaming service and app and move all the Scooby content on there to HBO Max. They've pretty much abandoned it and aren't posting any new content anymore. It also seems very odd they're just leaving Guess Who incomplete on the Boomerang app, as the last 11 episodes never made it on there.

4. Scooby-Doo! The Sword and the Scoob
​This was a really good film. The concept of time traveling was a fun idea, and the villain was super cool. It was fun how they dove into Shaggy's ancestry with this one and built off of "Scared a Lot in Camelot" by having his ancestors be from Camelot. I also thought Velma was an improvement in this one. They did a decent job with her in Happy Halloween, but this felt like almost a full redemption of her character. I really disliked them making her an insufferable skeptic in the 2019 sequel films, and I'm happy they're leaving that character development behind. I know some people didn't enjoy them taking Daphne's quirky personality from Be Cool for this film, but I thought it was cute and enjoyed it to an extent. I'll admit, when I first watched it, I felt the quirkiness felt a little forced in this movie as compared to Be Cool and Happy Halloween. The "reality is a simulation" remarks felt a little much, but as the movie has had a little time to sit, I don't quite mind it as much as I did initially. I still don't like it quite as much as I did in Be Cool or Happy Halloween, however. The references to previous Scooby material were fun, and Thundarr was an interesting addition. You can read my full review of the film here.

3. Scooby-Doo, Where Are You Now?
I know the reunion special was very hit or miss for most people. While it wasn't perfect, I enjoyed it for what it was. The irreverent humor was hilarious to me, particularly the "Please, Snagglepuss is very litigious!" and Scooby being a nudist comments. I usually hate live action and animation hybrids, but I didn't really mind it in this. It felt like it worked with the quirky style, as did the goofy Snow Ghost. The guest stars all fit quite well and no one felt forced. I still think it's odd Iain Armitage didn't appear, particularly since we never got an explanation as to why. The flashbacks were all fun, but I didn't care for the splicing of new audio over old scenes. It would be very strange not to have the rights to their own content, so I'm not really sure what happened. The other aspects of the special I didn't like were the bodily humor jokes during the trap. It was completely unnecessary to include that Scooby peed in his costume, and given this seems more intended for adult audiences, it's very weird of them to include childish bodily humor like that. The main thing I didn't like, however, was the Scrappy bashing. There was no reason to bash him so harshly in this, and it felt out of place. It's very clear from an interview with the writer of this special that the inclusion of this was fully based on his own hatred of Scrappy, which is unfortunate. Many of the comments he has made demonstrates a very one-dimensional view of the franchise on his part, which doesn't take into account that many fans don't blindly hate Scrappy. Good writing takes all perspectives into account, and doesn't make the assumption that simply because that every single fan feels a certain way just because the writer has a strong opinion on something. I did enjoy the special as a whole and I'm not saying the writing of the entire thing was bad, but I feel that not a lot of thought was put into writing that Scrappy scene beyond blind hatred. Overall, I thought this was an enjoyable special and a cute little celebration of the franchise, even if there were some aspects that could have been a bit better. You can read my full review of the special here.

2. Scooby-Doo and Guess Who: The Final 11 Episodes
The final 11 episodes of Guess Who finally aired this year, though the rollout was quite interesting as has been the case for the past several Scooby series. Note that I am not including "Lost Soles of Jungle River!" in this, because it aired in the UK in 2020 and the recording was available for fans to watch if they wanted to. "Dark Diner of Route 66!" aired on February 25, 2021. At first, many of us thought it would lead to us getting the remaining Guess Who episodes on a weekly basis, but that didn't happen. I still feel that them posting the Axl Rose episode was a publicity stunt of sorts, in the sense that WB considered it as an episode that could get them a lot of press coverage because Axl Rose was such a famous musician. The reason I feel this way is that if you look it up, there are tons of articles on the episode and interviews with Axl about the episode, whereas we didn't get that with any other episode in this series. Anyway, new episodes began airing in Canada on March 7, which allowed some of us to see them via recordings. Those lasted for five episodes through April 4, and then they stopped for a little while in Canada. The episodes continued to air in Australia, but no recordings were available. The episodes lasted until May 9, when the last five episodes aired in Canada. Because WB's rollout of episodes with these last few series has been so weird, the remaining 11 episodes did not air in the US until October 1, 2021, exactly a one-year hiatus since the first half of season 2 aired on October 1, 2020. You can view my full review of the series here.

That explanation aside, I really enjoyed the last few episodes. I thought some of them were the best the series had to offer, "A Haunt of a Thousand Voices!", "The Legend of the Gold Microphone!", "Cher, Scooby and the Sargasso Sea!" and "The Movieland Monsters!" particularly standing out. Specifically "A Haunt of a Thousand Voices!" was such a fun meta episode and you could tell the voice actors were super into their roles. It was also fun they got Cher back. Even though I still would have preferred "A Haunt of a Thousand Voices!" as the last episode, I think the Carol Burnett one was a pretty good choice as well, since it was an ode to classic films and this series featured guest stars from popular films and TV.

1. Straight Outta Nowhere: Scooby-Doo and Courage the Cowardly Dog
​I really enjoyed this film and it was my favorite thing of the year. They really did an amazing job combining both franchises where it didn't feel like one was overshadowing the other. Even as someone who hadn't grown up with Courage, I felt they did an excellent job introducing us to it without overdoing the background info. The dark tone of the film was incredible and something I'd love to see in future films. All the little Easter eggs to both franchises throughout the film were so fun! Most of all, I think I loved the message this movie had about courage. Not only because it was a pun on Courage's name lol, but because they are such prominent parts of both Scooby and Courage's characters. It's a very important message for people of all ages IMO. Without fear, there is no courage, and to get courage, you need to be brave and overcome your fears. I was very happy with this crossover and thought they did an excellent job with it. You can read my full review for the film here.

I hope everyone has a happy new year!