It appears Velma will be premiering a bit sooner than we thought...in three weeks! WB-Discovery put out an official press release with all of their January TV shows on their website, and listed Velma as premiering on HBO Max on Thursday, January 12, 2023.
TVLine has confirmed that two new episodes will be posted every week. Given the previous confirmation that the first season will be ten episodes, that means the first season will conclude on February 9, 2023. In addition, an edited teaser has been released in Australia, and Fox 8 will be airing the show beginning January 15. However, the series will be able to be streamed on demand the same day as in the US. I imagine that the series will be treated similarly in other countries. TVPassport has also confirmed all of the titles for the episodes in season 1 for us: 1. Velma 2. The Candy (Wo)man 3. Velma Kai 4. Velma Makes a List 5. Marching Band Sleepover 6. The Sins of the Fathers and Some of the Mothers 7. Fog Fest 8. A Velma in the Woods 9. Family (Wo)man 10. The Brains of the Operation
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It's been an unexpectedly light year for Scooby after we got tons of content last year. I joked with someone in the comments that the Year-in-Review post for this year would be blank; but thankfully it didn't end up being that light thanks to Trick or Treat, Scooby-Doo. It will be very slim pickings for this year's list, given there was hardly anything released. For those of you who are new to the blog this year, I always write up a post at the end of each year ranking my favorite things that happened in the franchise each year. I don't include any announcements of content happening in the future (i.e. the Velma teaser would not count, since the series itself won't be released until 2023), and I also don't typically include any non-official content or trivial stuff (i.e. Tracy Mark Lee sharing the designs for the Dolly Parton and Mel Brooks Guess Who episodes). Since it was a light year, I made one exception this year which I'll explain when I get to it. We also had a bit of sad news this year, that being Scoob! Holiday Haunt was cancelled by Warner Brothers' new CEO David Zaslav it was supposed to be released around this time. I'm glad this doesn't seem to be affecting any other Scooby content, since we have confirmation that Mystery Pups and Velma are going ahead with production. I'm not really sure on Krypto, though, since there's been speculation that it was cancelled. I don't really have a lot to say about the first few things up until we get to #4, but I'll quickly go through them just to include everything that's happened this year. 10. Wendy's Scooby-Doo Pop Up Mysteries Although I won't be getting them myself, I think it was a cool idea for Wendy's to release pop-up mystery playsets based on classic Where Are You episodes! 9. MG Collectibles Figures Don't have much to say about this, but it's neat we got figures for Captain Cutler, the Space Kook and the Tar Monster (even if they were nearly $400 lol)! 8. Scooby-Doo and Glamlite Makeup If there was one thing I wasn't expecting in 2022, it was getting an announcement for a Scooby-Doo makeup line lol. I think it's neat they made this, though! I'm a little confused why they didn't have the names correspond with the package designs, though (for example, the "Creeps and Crawls" eyeshadow has a picture of the witch on it rather than the green ghosts). 7. Matthew Lillard Rents Out 2002 Live-Action Mystery Machine on Air BnB The title says it all, but this was another thing I would have never expected to happen. I thought it was so nice of Matthew to do this! 6. Scooby-Doo, Where Are You and Batman & Scooby-Doo Mysteries Comics I guess this is kind of a placeholder, since I haven't read any of them, but six more Where Are You comics were released this year. I'm really happy to hear that some of the comics finally included original art. One of the big reasons I lost interest is because they just used stock art for all of the comics, and the stories weren't all that well-written in my opinion. It's great that they are using original art again. I enjoyed the few Batman and Scooby-Doo Mysteries comics I checked out. I haven't read them all yet, but it's neat they rebooted the series after the original run ended in March. Overall, six of these comics were released this year. 5. Multiversus We've arrived at the last thing that I'm mostly indifferent to lol. While I didn't personally play it, I thought it was really cool they included Scooby in this universe and essentially granted the wishes of all those fans who were wanting to see Ultra Instinct Shaggy in the Mortal Kombat games. Even though it wasn't technically in the Mortal Kombat universe, the fact that it had a connection with the creator of those games was very cool and I'm happy it happened for the thousands of fans who wanted it. 4. Scooby-Doo and Guess Who? The Complete Season Two I'm super happy that we got this season on DVD. Given Be Cool Scooby-Doo season 2 was never released, I was worried Guess Who would suffer the same fate. I would love to have all the Scooby episodes, specials and films on DVD someday, so I'm happy they didn't choose to skip season 2 here like they did with Be Cool. 3. Daphne & Velma Book 3 While I didn't like this quite as much as the other two, I was really happy they finally released the third book in the trilogy after waiting over two years. The book was a very fitting end to the trilogy. It was really cool that the author, Morgan Baden, drew upon previous Scooby-Doo episodes and movies to create her own continuity for this trilogy. She also did a great job building suspense and horror all throughout the book. The villain was excellent, and the culprit was very unexpected. The only things I didn't like were the Fred/Velma romantic stuff, as well as the fact the book ended on a cliffhanger for seemingly no reason. Overall though, I thought Morgan did a great job writing these books and making the plots/characterizations very compelling. This trilogy makes an awesome addition to the Scooby franchise, and I wish these books got more attention than they did because they're great. 2. Mystery Incorporated I don't typically include fan content, but I have to admit, I was super impressed by this and didn't want to exclude it. In a year that was extremely light for Scooby-Doo content, this was really nice to get what was basically a piece of Scooby-Doo fanfiction with cinematic quality. I thought the acting was excellent and the plot was super engaging. The common complaint people seem to have about fanfiction is that it doesn't stay true to the characters, but I felt the writing for each of the characters was very compelling here. Like with Daphne & Velma, it was neat how they took bits of pieces of canon from previous Scooby content here and creatively interpreted it to create elements of the gang's characterization. I thought all of the actors and actresses did a great job. The one minor issue I had is that Fred's actor looked like he was much older than high-school age (I'd guess at least 25, possibly 30), as well as that one guy at the party I mentioned in my review that looked like he was 40 lol (I'll add him to the list of characters I stan for, along with Sassy Fred and the Arm-Crossing Gators from Trick or Treat, Scooby-Doo! haha). That's a pretty common thing in media to have cast people who are much older than the characters they play though, so I don't fault this series for it. The monsters in the series were great and seemed like something straight out of a horror film. I also loved how this series struck a bit of a darker tone. In addition, I thought they did a great job using references. I've complained in posts on here before that I don't like how they sometimes just reference the same things over and over for no reason, so it was very refreshing to see references worked well into the plot. It seems like they've run into a bit of a delay with episode 2 because they didn't quite meet their goal, but I'm really hopeful that episode 2 gets funded, because I can't wait to see what happens next! 1. Trick or Treat, Scooby-Doo!
I was beginning to get worried that it was going to be the first year with no new Scooby DTVs since 1997, so I was really excited when we got the trailer for Trick or Treat, Scooby-Doo! I know this film created a lot of drama within the fandom because of Velma's sexuality, but I absolutely loved the film. Although Scooby-Doo has not done well with retcons in recent years (looking at you, Curse of the 13th Ghost and Return to Zombie Island), I thought they did it well here. The fact that Coco creating all the costumes the gang has ever encountered seemed to be in a separate universe worked quite well. I know that some people thought Velma being romantically interested in a woman was cringey, but I thought it was very well done. It wasn't in-your-face; it felt natural and didn't completely overtake the movie. Honestly, the whole media reaction was the only thing that bothered me. There was one article in particular from a news source that I just thought was awful, in which they say "a Scooby-Doo writer confirmed Velma is a lesbian, so you can't even deny it!" In general, a lot of media sources used "the Scooby-Doo writers" as their source, which I thought didn't make sense, because there is no one entity of "the Scooby-Doo writers." Different people write each series and movies, so one writer is not an authority over the entire franchise. However, my main issue with the media coverage of this is that Velma being interested in one woman does not mean she's uninterested in people of other genders (Velma could be bisexual, for example). I think the movie did a great job representing Velma being interested in women, but I didn't like how the media slapped the "lesbian" label on Velma, since it's not specified what sexuality she is. That's more of a problem with society in general though and is nothing specific to this movie, so I digress. The mystery was also quite good, and I really enjoyed the villains. I also liked how the animation allowed for characters' expressions to be more emphasized. I thought that was a really interesting touch. I loved how zany this film was. The fact that the film divulged into random chaos in the last twenty minutes was amazing, because I love that kind of humor lol. I would love if they used this humor style again in the franchise. My only real complaint about the film is that Daphne's character element felt rushed. It could have been a good character arc, but they only mentioned it once at the beginning and then it was never brought up again until a brief moment before the end of the movie. Overall, it was an amazing movie though and I really enjoyed it. I hope everyone enjoyed reading this list! In terms of things I'd like to see next year, I'm not going to make a whole post, but all the stuff with WB cutting back on streaming projects made me think big-picture about what I want for next year. I think it would be great if we could get Scooby-Doo and Krypto Too!, but given that was never officially announced, I don't think we'll get an official announcement if it's cancelled either. It would be great if we could go back to getting the two DTVs per year we're accustomed to. However, to be entirely honest, I wouldn't mind switching to getting DTVs once a year if they were all great quality, rather than just pumping out crossover after crossover like they were for quite a few years. It was a breath of fresh air to have a movie that wasn't a crossover this year. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the crossovers, but it gets to be a bit much when we have both a series (Guess Who) and all the movies being crossovers at the same time. I'm hopeful that the WB-Discovery merge doesn't affect anything beyond Scoob! Holiday Haunt, but I also wouldn't mind if they dropped down to one DTV per year if the quality was even better than what they were doing with two DTVs. The other thing I'm a bit worried about going forward is the backlash involving Velma. Even now before the show is released, I know there is going to be a ton more backlash over the show, probably even more than we saw with Trick or Treat, which is unfortunate. My hope is that the backlash isn't too bad, and that people remember that this is just one Scooby show separate from the rest of the franchise. No matter how bad it is, isn't going to "ruin" Scooby-Doo. All of the previous shows are still available for everyone's viewing, and it's safe to say it's not going to affect anything else in the franchise and suddenly turn the franchise into Family Guy or anything like that. This next year is going to be very interesting for the Scooby franchise, both because of Velma and the fact that since it happened pretty late in the year, this will be the first full year that we'll be seeing the affects of WB and Discovery's merge. It will be fascinating to see what happens, but I'm keeping my hopes up for a great year! Laurel and Hardy were already both deceased before "The Ghost of Bigfoot" from The New Scooby-Doo Movies aired. These were the only two celebrity guest stars in the franchise that had passed away prior to their episode being written and produced. (The Ghost of Abraham Lincoln was a historical figure instead of a celebrity, so I'm not including him here).
It's perhaps worth noting that a few guest stars also passed away shortly after their episodes aired. Both Larry and Moe of the Three Stooges both passed away in 1975, three years after their episode aired. Cass Elliot passed away in 1974, two years after her episode aired. Alex Trebek died after the production process on "Total Jeopardy!" had already finished, but before the episode aired. "A Night of Fright Is No Delight" blew all the other options out of the water last week with 51 votes. "Scoobynatural" came in second with 17 votes, and "Where There's a Will, There's a Wraith" came in third with 8 votes.
We've only got one comic announcement this month, and here it is, courtesy of GamesRadar+.
THE BATMAN & SCOOBY-DOO MYSTERIES #6 Written by IVAN COHEN Art and cover by ERICH OWEN $2.99 US | 32 pages ON SALE 3/14/23 Batman calls upon his friends in Mystery Inc. for help—and he's shocked that this time, they refuse! It's no secret that they've become quite the crime-fighting team, and powerful foes are starting to team up against them. What fate does the fortune teller see, and will they solve the riddle in time to save the day? I wanted to share a bit of news for those following my fanfics, and if you don't follow them, there'll be another post you can look forward later today about Batman & Scooby-Doo Mysteries #6 haha. My fanfic Whirlen Merlin's Academy of Magic has reached its conclusion, and I just published the final chapter today. It's technically just an epilogue, but hopefully no one who's been following it was disappointed by this just being 700 words after the previous chapter was over 15,000 words lol.
The fanfic revolves around Velma being invited to teach a Magical Literature course at her sister Madelyn's school. However, this new adventure quickly turns into a mystery when the ghost of Whirlen's ancestor (none other than the legendary wizard Merlin himself) begins haunting the school. Shaggy and Scooby make occasional appearances, Fred makes one appearance in the epilogue, and there's a whole chapter including Daphne that's essentially a crossover with my previous fanfic, Coast to Coast with Daphne Blake. In a lot of ways, the story is quite like Harry Potter. The fanfic is appropriate for all audiences. The story is pretty comedy-oriented and has an absurdist humor style similar to that of Trick or Treat, Scooby-Doo! and Be Cool, Scooby-Doo! If it helps you get a sense of the humor style, one of my favorite jokes in the fanfic is Merlin playing classic rock from the 1980s while he's forcing people to do his bidding lol ("We Built This City" by Starship is the song that's specifically mentioned). I'm really proud of this fanfic and it was a lot of fun doing a more experimental story than I've done in the past. Chapter 10 is quite possibly my favorite, as it's essentially political satire that's generic enough to appeal to anyone regardless of their political opinion. I had a lot of fun writing that chapter. As a random aside, another memorable thing about this fanfic is that the publish date for a chapter that had a recurring joke about Coolio oddly aligned with the week he died exactly. I'd written the chapter back in June, so it was a really strange coincidence that he passed away two days before the chapter was scheduled to come out. If you're interested in reading this fanfic, all sixteen chapters are now available to read on Fanfiction.net and AO3. I've already begun writing another fanfic, and without ruining the surprise, it's probably the most excited I've been about an idea since Hexed. I can't wait to share more about the project I've currently been working on next year! For the 100th anniversary of Warner Brothers, a new line of Funko Pops are being released according to HotStuff4Geeks.com. The set includes Looney Tunes characters dressed up as members of the SCooby gang. The new figures include the Tasmanian Devil as Scooby, Daffy Duck as Shaggy, Tweety as Velma, Bugs Bunny as Fred, Lola as Daphne, and Bugs Bunny inside the Mystery Machine. The figures are all now available for pre-order on Funko's official website.
Earlier this month, Wendy's finally unveiled the Scooby-Doo toys they'd talked about releasing back in October. The toys are six pop-up mystery playsets including "What a Night for a Knight," "A Clue for Scooby-Doo," "Foul Play in Funland," "Spooky Space Kook," "A Night of Fright Is No Delight" and "Jeepers, It's the Creeper." Many of the sets are already being sold on eBay. Wendy's plans to give away one of the toys in every happy meal through February 2023 according to AllFastFoodToys.com.
It's that time of year once again where I love to snuggle up with a good winter Scooby-Doo episode as the weather's getting a bit colder. Since we did the Christmas specials last week, so I won't be including those episodes again, but I will include a list at the end combining my rankings of the winter and Christmas episodes. It's worth mentioning that I did previously review these back in 2016, but a few episodes have come out since then, and I didn't specifically rank the episodes in my original post. Given there are 25 episodes here, this is going to be a very long list, so here we go! 25. Scooby's Swiss Miss You may remember this one from being on my worst of the franchise list. This is the only winter episode I outright dislike. Even if they are weird, the other ones at least have some level of charm, whereas this one doesn't really have anything going for it. Not only are the antics are very Tom and Jerry like, but the poodle's relationship with the bulldog kinda creeps me out. I won't go into the whole explanation again since I just mentioned it in the Worst Scooby Content post, but the poodle saying "at least he can't run away!" to the bulldog as she's attempting to marry him while he's in crutches leaves me feeling very uncomfortable. I'm sure the writers thought it was funny, but ultimately it comes off as emotionally abusive and for that reason, I don't enjoy this episode. 24. Snow Job Too Small I love inheritance plotlines and this one works well, but this one has soured on me a bit since my last review of it. The Abominable Snowman has a super cool design, but his voice/roar...is not so cool haha. It sounds as if he's in some sort of pain lol. I felt while the episode had an excellent plot, there wasn't enough time to execute it. It's a bit rushed and I think it would have been a lot better had there been time to develop some of the elements of the mystery. The kid that they are helping with the inheritance, Wilbur, is also very annoying with how entitled he is. 23. Alaskan King Coward This is about the same level as the last short with me, since it's just them running away from some sort of prehistoric-looking ice monster for the whole episode. However, nostalgia elevates this one a little bit for me, because I have fond memories of watching it as a kid on my Nutcracker Scoob VHS tape. Actually, fun fact, this is the first Scrappy short I ever watched. 22. South Pole Vault I like this episode for how bizarre it is. The villain is an insane sea lion out for revenge, and some of the antics with the sea lions are truly hilarious. Dr. Carlin with his constant repetition of "millions and billions" is interesting to say the least haha. I really love the reveal as well, where the culprit says "let me out of here!" in a goofy voice while still wearing the sea lion costume. Despite that it's not winter-themed, I also will sometimes watch "Night of the Living Toys" with this one, since it deals with an elf and toys, so it feels somewhat related to Christmas. 21. Scooby-Doo and the Sky Town Cool School! This was a pretty average episode. Billy Dee's "Cool School" was a cute idea, but the villain was just alright. I felt the pterodactyl was much better done in "Scary Christmas" and "Hang in There, Scooby-Doo." The culprit was also extremely easy to figure out. 20. Caveman on the Half Pipe! I would say this episode is pretty middle of the road for Guess Who and I like the Where Are You episode that this reimagines ("Scooby's Night with a Frozen Fright"). I like the episode well enough and Chloe was a good guest star, but I like the caveman in Where Are You a bit better. This episode was pretty average for Guess Who, and I didn't find it particularly memorable in any way. 19. Rocky Mountain Yiiiii! I enjoy this episode, although I would say "The Ghost of Bigfoot" does this concept a bit better. I thought the Ghost of Jeremiah Pratt was a decent villain, and I liked the setting of the ski lodge. This is one of the more middling winter episodes for me, but it's good for what it is and I still find myself watching it every year. 18. Scooby on Ice! I liked Tara quite a bit as a guest star. It was interesting that Simone appeared again for the fifth time, but I was surprised that this was her last appearance. I was a bit surprised that they chose to redesign two Where Are You villains for the two Guess Who winter episodes in a row. The old woman's Snow Devil legend seemed like a reimagining of Fu Lan Chi's legend, and I thought they did it well. I was surprised that they referenced Flim-Flam and the 13th ghosts in this episode. My only real complaint about this episode is that the trap scene went on for too long. It started near the 14 minute mark of the episode and went on for nearly five minutes before concluding. 17. Doom Service I really enjoyed this episode, although it doesn't particularly stick out as a winter episode to me. The Ghost of Ebenezer Overview was an interesting villain, in the sense that he just looked like a regular human. The setting of the hotel gave the episode a very creepy vibe. I enjoy how weird and quirky this episode is, especially with the lady walking her invisible dog. 16. More Fondue for Scooby-Doo This is an enjoyable Get a Clue episode. I enjoyed the plot of Shaggy and Scooby having to stop Phibes from attacking a global warming conference, while they have to flee from trained assassins. Misty's attack dog, Carla, is adorable lol. I don't really have a lot to say about this episode since it's pretty simplistic, but it's a lot of fun for what it is and I enjoy watching it every year. 15. The Nightmare Ghost of Psychic U! This is my favorite of the Guess Who Winter episodes. Whoopi is such a great guest star and seems really into her role. The creepy atmosphere of the gang being in an isolated mansion surrounded by a snowstorm really creates a spooky vibe here. The Nightmare Ghost is also one of my favorite villains of the series. He reminds me a lot of Slenderman, and even with that aside, his super long legs and arms still make him look terrifying. There were a lot of cute moments in this episode, and overall I find it to be very heartwarming. 14. A Scary Night with a Snow Beast Fright Of the ones I consider to be classic Scooby-Doo winter episodes, I would say this is my least favorite one. The plot is a bit less exciting than a lot of other Scooby-Doo Show episodes, although the scene in the caves and the dark atmosphere of the village is good. The Snow Beast's design is quite interesting and creative. 13. Be Cold, Scooby-Doo! I really enjoyed this episode. While I can't say I liked it quite as much as the Headless Snowman, Mr. Roundy was still a very cool villain. The repeated slapstick humor of the gang falling on the ice got a little old after a while, but otherwise, I thought the humor here was good as usual. Being a Boy Meets World fan, it was cool to see Will Friedle voice two characters, Dr. Mason and Eric. I thought it was really fun they named his character at the beginning Eric, given Eric is the name of the character he plays on Boy Meets World. 12. Chill Out, Scooby-Doo! Like I mentioned in my recent movie rankings, I've got a soft spot for this film. It was fun seeing Shaggy and Scooby have an adventure on their own here. Of Abominable Snowmen we've gotten, this is by far my favorite. The reference of Shaggy doing his "DJ voice" always makes me smile as well, given this was one of the final times Casey would voice Shaggy. 11. Naughty or Ice Some might not consider this episode to be winter-themed, but I count this as a winter episode since it takes place in an Ice Hotel. On the other hand, I do not count "Scooby's Night with a Frozen Fright" as a winter episode, since the lakes are shown to be open lol. In my original review, I said I didn't really like Daphne's quirk of the week, but it's definitely grown on me, as has the whole episode. I really like this caveman, just as much as I like the caveman in "Scooby's Night with a Frozen Fright." The scene where Shaggy and Scooby teach him how to speak English and he excitedly exclaims "My name is Ice Man!" is so cute haha. It makes me genuinely feel a little bad for him when it's revealed to all be a trick lol. 10. Uncle Scooby and Antarctica This episode has continued to grown on me over the years. The fish fiend is such a cool looking villain, and the idea of the gang being trapped in Antarctica is so cool. This is perhaps a hot take, but I would argue this is one of the darkest episodes of What's New, Scooby-Doo? Scooby helping out Little Pete the penguin was so cute, and I think Little Pete is one of my favorite animals that has followed Scooby around (since there's been a lot of them, between the frog from "Mamba Wamba and the Voodoo Hoodoo," the chick from "Jeepers, It's the Creeper," etc. lol). The idea of Dr. Zola freezing himself so he could see the future was also an interesting plot point. 9. Watt a Shocking Ghost! My favorite part of this episode was the 10,000 Volt Ghost himself, of course! He's arguably one of the coolest and most creative Scooby villains out there, and definitely deserves all the love he gets. I also really enjoy the darker atmosphere of this episode. This is another episode that has really grown on me in recent years. 8. Snow Place Like Home This episode is just good, silly fun and feels like a great representation of what A Pup Named Scooby-Doo is as a series. The gang staying at a haunted lodge was a fun plot, and I wish they would have spent a little more time in the lodge rather than half of the episode in the mines, but this episode is still a lot of fun for what it is. I also love the Ice Demon as a villain. 7. That's Snow Ghost I'm sure many of you are thinking that this is super low, and I agree lol. I wish I could have put this higher, because it's such a classic, but I like the other five a little bit better. It's interesting how so many of these winter episodes revolve around ski lodges, but I guess it's the most logical winter destination for teenagers haha. The Snow Ghost remains a classic among classics in terms of villains, and for very good reason. I would also argue that this is the first episode that sees the gang in life-threatening danger, as Velma nearly is sawed in half by the Snow Ghost when he ties her to a piece of wood that is heading towards a gigantic saw. 6. Doo Not Disturb This is an amazing episode! I love how this episode still had the trademark Be Cool humor, yet was able to create such a creepy, dark atmosphere. The Ghost of Mother is one of my favorite villains of the franchise for what a creepy idea it is. The setting of the gang being trapped in haunted hotel during a snowstorm only made it creepier. This episode is easily interchangeable with "Some Fred Time" as my favorite from Be Cool, Scooby-Doo depending on the day. 5. Night Terrors This is likely not one most people consider a winter episode, but there's snow here and I really like this episode, so I always make a point to watch this every year around Christmas. I've never seen The Shining, which this parodies, but I absolutely love this episode. I'll admit it took a little while to grow on me, as I found the episode extremely weird upon first watch, but after watching it a few times, I warmed up to it and I feel like the fantastical elements of the plot make it even better. The wolf (credited as "Fiend" in the end sequence) is such a creepy-looking villain, and I love the banshee's design as well. The whole idea of the gang being trapped in a creepy library with supernatural creatures is an immaculate Scooby plot. It makes me wish we had more episodes in creepy libraries lol. 4. Diamonds Are a Ghoul's Best Friend This remains one of my favorite winter episodes, mainly because I love the twist of Fred having the idea to set a trap immediately rather than waste time looking for clues. It's such an ingenious idea, because it actually kinda makes sense to just capture the person right away, rather than looking for clues and allowing them time to cause more trouble lol. Besides that, this is one of my favorite sports episodes, because it has an amazing villain and I feel the setting of the hockey arena is really well utilized. 3. There's No Creature Like Snow Creature This is an extremely hot take, but this sticks out to me more as a winter episode than "That's Snow Ghost" does. Despite being the season premiere, this episode perfectly captures the essence of What's New, Scooby-Doo? imo and starts the series off with an amazing plot and villain. It was a neat plot twist to have Fred unable to solve the mystery, which requires the others to step up and take initiative without their leader. Moreover, the Snow Creature is an amazing villain and arguably has the coolest design of any winter villains. 2. Simple Plan and the Invisible Madman I already loved this episode, but in recent years, this has grown on me even more and has become my favorite episode of the show. Simple Plan flawlessly fits into the gang and I really like how the plot is centered around them exploring this creepy, nearly-abandoned town. It's amazing to think that an Invisible Man had never been a villain before in Scooby, with the exception of the brief appearance of one in "A Halloween Hassle at Dracula's Castle," although he only appears for a few brief scenes that are less than 30 seconds. A truly flawless episode is that is a must-add to any winter episode list. 1. The Ghost of Bigfoot
Although "Simple Plan and the Invisible Madman" is flawless, I've got to go with a stone cold classic here from my favorite series, The New Scooby-Doo Movies. Ever since I was a kid, the first half of this episode with the gang running around in the middle of the night to escape Bigfoot is one of the most memorable scenes of this entire series for me. It's just such a fun, creepy plot to have the gang trying to escape a monster in an abandoned hotel in the middle of the night. Laurel and Hardy make great guest stars as well, and the fact that half of Fred's dialogue in this episode is reminding the gang to go skiing is really amusing to me lol. The only thing I dislike about this episode is Fred telling the girls that it's "too dangerous" for them to solve the mystery and abandoning them in the snow outside the mill. As promised, here's my combined list of the Christmas and winter episodes. You'll probably notice I like a lot of the Christmas episodes better than the winter episodes. 30. Scooby's Swiss Miss 29. Snow Job Too Small 28. Alaskan King Coward 27. South Pole Vault 26. Scooby-Doo and the Sky Town Cool School! 25. Caveman on the Half-Pipe! 24. Rocky Mountain Yiiiii! 23. Scooby on Ice! 22. Doom Service 21. Scooby-Doo! Haunted Holidays 20. More Fondue for Scooby-Doo 19. The Nightmare Ghost of Psychic U! 18. A Scary Night with a Snow Beast Fright 17. Be Cold, Scooby-Doo! 16. Chill Out, Scooby-Doo! 15. Scary Christmas 14. Naughty or Ice 13. Uncle Scooby and Antarctica 12. Watt a Shocking Ghost 11. Snow Place Like Home 10. That's Snow Ghost 9. Scroogey Doo 8. Doo Not Disturb 7. Night Terrors 6. Diamonds Are a Ghoul's Best Friend 5. A Scooby-Doo Christmas 4. There's No Creature Like Snow Creature 3. Simple Plan and the Invisible Madman 2. The Ghost of Bigfoot 1. The Nutcracker Scoob I hope you enjoyed this list, and if you want to share your personal rankings, I'd love to see them! While exploring an idea for another potential article, someone sent me a link that shared a bunch of examples of real-life Scooby-Doo hoaxes where people dressed up as fake monsters. I thought this was such a cool concept that I'd never explored before, so I wanted to highlight some of the most interesting examples. Obviously this isn't an exhaustive list of every instance in the world where someone has tried to pull off a Scooby-Doo like hoax, but I pulled out the most interesting ones that I found and wanted to share them with you all.
As far back as the 1200s, a castle near modern Luxembourg was abandoned due to legends of it being haunted by sinister sounds and eerie lights. King Louis IX hired some Carthusian monks to rid the place of ghosts, but the monks reported back that the "hauntings" were nothing but a group of criminals trying to scare people away from their hideout. In 1926, an ape-man was sighted on an old farm in North Stonington, Connecticut. Two young girls had recently inherited the farm from their father who tragically passed away. The neighbors theorized that someone was trying to scare the young girls into selling their father's farm, and planned a stakeout to catch the ape-man. It was then discovered that the girls themselves were the ones who created the ape man legend. They created a homemade ape man suit, because they were being pestered by solicitors. The girls wanted to scare the solicitors into thinking the place was unsellable due to being haunted. In a similar case, Ray Wallace was the boss of a logging crew who was the first person to ever sight Bigfoot's footprints in 1958. After Ray died, the Wallace family divulged that Ray actually faked the whole thing in hopes of scaring away hooligans who were pranking his work vehicle. Ivan T. Sanderson, a private investigator, uncovered some evidence that the Jersey Devil of 1909 was actually just real estate developers who dressed up to incentivize people to sell their properties by tricking them. During the Vietnam War, the US used an exercise called Operation Wandering Soul to scare away their enemies. The US Military used tape recordings of eerie moaning and creepy voices to weaken their enemy's morale. The tactic saw varied success. Sometimes the enemy would be frightened away, but other times, the enemy would quickly realize it was a recording and attack anyway. A British ghost hunter was called by a hotel owner to investigate a haunting. The ghost hunter found no signs of anything, but the hotel owner begged him to just "make up a haunting" because he felt the image of owning a haunted hotel would drive up business. |
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