Over the years, I've done a lot of different articles ranking my favorites and least favorites, whether they be for the franchise in general or for a particular theme. I realized the other day that I've never done an article sharing my favorite and least favorite episode of each series. While my favorites occasionally change over time, I always enjoy reading others favorites and least favorites, so I thought it might be fun to share mine. I'm going to organize this post by series, and I'll be going in chronological order. Given I'll be reviewing over 30 different episodes, I'll keep my reviews of each of my favorites and least favorites to around a paragraph so this post isn't miles long lol.

Favorite: "A Night of Fright Is No Delight"
This episode has stood out to me since I first watched it as a little kid. I absolutely love the plot of the gang having to spend the night in a haunted house! The mystery being based on the classic novel And Then There Were None feels like such a perfect fit with the franchise's formula, and the execution is absolutely flawless. The setting is incredible too, so much so that it's one of the first episodes that comes to mind when I think of a Scooby-Doo haunted house episode. And while the ghosts' designs are a bit basic, they are still very cool-looking and have rightfully earned the classic status that they've achieved. This is such an all-time classic episode!

Least Favorite: "Decoy for a Dognapper"
Scooby-Doo Where Are You? is such an excellently written series that I don't dislike any episode here. If I had to pick a least favorite though, "Decoy for a Dognapper" would definitely be it. Between the somewhat questionable portrayal of Geronimo, and the mystery feeling a bit thinner, this one feels below average compared to the rest of the series. I also found the mystery to be easy to figure out, as the Witch Doctor sounds very much like Buck Masters making the culprit feel obvious.

Favorite: The Loch Ness Mess
Anyone who isn't new to the site will likely know how much I love this episode, and that it's my favorite episode of the entire franchise. The New England setting is breathtakingly gorgeous, and the whole vibe of the area around Uncle Nat's house has an incredible atmosphere. I particularly like Uncle Nat's house, which feels like a quintessential example of a Scooby-Doo haunted house to me. The episode has a number of iconic scenes, like the ghost with the lantern in the woods at the beginning, the ghost coming up the stairs, and Shaggy, Scooby, Meadowlark and Curly running in the basement. The double mystery is also incredibly well executed. The Globetrotters are my favorite guest stars of the franchise, because they fit so naturally with the gang that they feel like they could almost be unofficially a part of it, especially Meadowlark and Curly. This is such an iconic episode and it's hard to imagine anything ever dethroning it as my all-time favorite of the franchise.

Least Favorite: Mystery in Persia
The New Scooby-Doo Movies is my favorite series, and I like every episode other than this one. While the plot of Scooby investigating a haunted palace had potential, the execution of this episode is pretty poor. The episode feels disorganized and like it ambles from one scene to the next without much reason. It honestly seems more like an episode of Jeannie that they tried to shoehorn Scooby into, because the vibe does not really feel anything like the rest of the series. Babu's shtick of constantly messing up also grates rather quickly.

Favorite: Vampire Bats and Scaredy Cats
This is easily one of the darkest episodes in franchise history. The premise of the gang being at a hotel on a desolate island feels incredibly creepy. The hotel has a very dark, foreboding atmosphere, and the vampire is easily the most terrifying of the franchise imo. The scene where he calls Lisa from the dark room, as well as Lisa's transformation, both stand out as being the creepiest scenes in this entire series. The mystery and dark tone are absolutely incredible here, and that says a lot considering how many amazing episodes there are in this series.

Least Favorite: Jeepers, It's the Jaguaro!
In a otherwise excellent series, this episode is easily the standout for the worst episode of the series. The plot and mystery feel pretty thin here, and a lot of the episode divulges into random antics that only serve as filler. Overall, the mystery feels like it lacks focus, and like it meanders quite a bit. The Jaguaro's design is decently cool, but his roar sounds pretty goofy and not at all scary. Perhaps this episode's biggest offense though is the terrible portrayal of the indigenous tribe, which is arguably probably the worst representation of the entire franchise.

Favorite: South America and Translyvania
There's really not too much to say about Laff-a-Lympics, as all the episodes are the same basic premise with little variation. I thought the Transylvania setting in this episode was cool though, and had a fun vibe that's reminiscent of the franchise.

Least Favorite: Africa and San Francisco
This episode is my least favorite because the judges are oddly punitive and mean. In the first event, the judges deduct points from all of the teams for being unable to complete the event for different reason, and seem to take delight in doing it despite this being out of character. It's particularly noticeable because in a couple of the cases, the other teams failed because the Rottens cheated and sabotaged them, yet the team that got sabotaged were punished. It isn't a big deal, but this one stands out as being a bit more mean-spirited for no real reason, and thus is my least favorite in a series that otherwise has the exact same quality throughout.

Favorite: The Ghoul, The Bat and the Ugly
The standout attribute of this episode is the setting. Having a horror movie awards show in a haunted mansion makes for a really neat atmosphere. Arguably, this is the darkest episode of the season. I really liked the Shadow Creature and his design, and I enjoyed the added stakes of all the horror movie actors popping up in costume throughout the mansion.

Least Favorite: The Ransom of Scooby Chief
I think most fans would put this as their least favorite, and for good reason. Serving as a "backdoor pilot" for the Scrappy shorts, this episode only features Shaggy, Scooby and Scrappy in a prominent role, and there is no mystery. Instead, the plot involves Shaggy and Scooby being kidnapped. While that could have been an interesting plot, the kidnappers are bumbling and unenjoyable as villains, and Scrappy's friends that help him save Shaggy and Scooby are a bit annoying as characters as well. This episode is a steep dropoff in quality from the rest of the series.

Favorite: A Fit Night Out for Bats
Frequent readers of the blog will know that I'm not the biggest fan of the Scrappy shorts. There are a few examples of them being done well though, and this is a prime example of that. Despite the short seven-minute runtime, "A Fit Night Out for Bats" manages to give us an interesting adventure that stays true to the roots of the franchise. The plot deals with the guys getting flat tires and having to go inside a vampire's mansion for help. Most of my issues with this series come from the writing being chaotic, and often divulging into random mess-around antics rather than having any coherent plot structure. This episode manages to be quite fun, and captures the franchise's spooky tone while managing to tell a fun, cohesive story.

Least Favorite: Scooby Dooby Guru
I don't feel it's too harsh to say this episode is the worst in the franchise's history. In this episode, Shaggy, Scooby and Scrappy visit the Taj Mahal. While there, they immediately remark that the museum exhibit simply showing another culture is "too gruesome to be real," then proceed to antagonize and insult a guard. If that isn't bad enough, they then break a priceless religious statue, and run away without apologizing or offering to pay for the damages. The episode then divulges into a number of offensive stereotypes of Indian people, including the guard jumping on an elephant to chase them down the street, and the guard speaking in an accent that sounds like an extremely poor impression of how somebody from India would sound. To be blunt, this episode is just plain racist, and there's nothing redeemable about this.

Favorite: Snow Job Too Small
Despite the short runtime, this is one of the few episodes of this series to take full advantage of its runtime. The premise involves Shaggy and the dogs driving a kid named Wilbur to receive an inheritance at his uncle's mansion. However, little do they know, the Abominable Snowman seems to be following them, and trying to do anything he can to prevent them from getting to the house in time to receive the inheritance. While Wilbur's bratty personality is pretty over-the-top, I think the episode manages to be pretty fun for what it is. For once, the settings have a level of atmosphere to them, and the plot is very cohesive.

Least Favorite: Bride and Gloom
There are only two episodes in the franchise I'd rank below an episode Velma, and this is one of them. This episode has aged like milk, and is uncomfortable to watch due to the horrible gender stereotypes. The episode's plot involves a man named Horrible Homer demanding the town give him a wife, or he will destroy Tumbleweed. Instead of trying to incarcerate this man immediately, Yabba, Dusty and Scrappy choose to do exactly what he wants for some reason. They proceed to round up all of the women in the center of town to appease Homer. This is messed up on so many levels, especially considering they are well-aware that Homer is a creepy man with poor intentions.

After their plan thankfully fails, they decide to have Yabba-Doo dress up as a woman to trick Homer. Once Yabba agrees to be his wife, Homer merely sits down in his recliner and barks at "Yabba Sue" to do the laundry, cooking and cleaning. It soon becomes apparent that Homer believes wife means "housekeeper with kissing privileges," because he basically just tells Yabba to do all the chores he hates, then asks for a kiss in weirdly bashful way. I get that it was a different time, but the entire plot is comprised of sexist jokes that feel straight out of the 1950s. This episode feels trashy even by 1982 standards.

Favorite: Wedding Bell Boos
Like "The Loch Ness Mess," this is another episode that has absolutely gorgeous New England scenery. Besides the setting being beautiful the vibe of the episode overall feels very warm and joyous. It is fun to get to meet so many different members of Shaggy and Scooby's family. It adds a layer of stakes that the villain is Shaggy's ancestor. The fact that this episode takes place on such a special day for Shaggy's sister makes this a very interesting and engaging mystery, and is just a really fun watch overall. I have a lot of nostalgia over this episode, due to watching the VHS release all the time when I was younger.

Least Favorite: The Mark of Scooby
In an otherwise decent series, this one sticks out like a sore thumb imo. The plot of the episode involves Scooby falling asleep and dreaming he's Zorro. He is tasked with saving a town from a greedy tyrant. This episode feels like a return to the writing style of the Scrappy shorts, where the focus is more on antics instead of a mystery. I guess the 11 minute runtime leads to a slightly more interesting episode than some of those shorts, but it's still not great.

Favorite: A Halloween Hassle at Dracula's Castle
​This is my all-time favorite Halloween episode, and is also my favorite episode in the Scrappy era. The atmosphere in this episode is incredible, and I feel the episode strikes the perfect balance between feeling spooky and relatively lighthearted. This episode has so many of my favorite tropes combined into one episode, including the Universal Monsters, castles, and working surprising twists and turns into the mystery. The multiple twists throughout the mystery are amazing, and greatly enhance this episode. The atmosphere of the castle is also incredible, and never fails to put me in the Halloween mood. Like "Wedding Bell Boos," I also have a lot of nostalgia from watching the VHS release of this one as a kid.

Least Favorite: EIEIO
I was fully prepared to say "The 'Dooby Dooby Doo' Ado" was my least favorite from this series, but after rewatching this episode, it's safe to say this is my least favorite. I generally like the quirky tone of The New Scooby-Doo Mysteries, but the quirky aspects of this episode feel a bit forced. The constant callback to the song "Old McDonald Had a Farm" is a bit much, especially when each of the farmhands are singing the song when the gang comes up to them throughout the episode. All the suspects in this episode feel more like two-dimensional cariacatures than actual characters, which I didn't really care for. Generally, I feel like this series does a good job of incorporating a quirky tone in a fun way, but this one felt over-the-top to me in a way that the rest of the series wasn't. I thought the Monster Mouse was a unique villain, though, and the mystery was interesting.

Favorite: The Ghouliest Show on Earth
For years, my favorite episode of this series was "That's Monstertainment!", but this one has recently become my favorite. The haunted carnival setting is really well-done here, and has a very foreboding vibe all throughout the episode. Professor Phantasmo is a great villain, and his transformation at the end is particularly frightening. What made this one pull ahead as my favorite was the incredible twist towards the middle of the episode, where they discover the truth behind the circus. The revelation is executed in a way that is chilling, and keeps you on the edge of your seat until the end of the episode.

Least Favorite: Coast to Ghost
This episode is an example of a decent premise executed poorly. The episode is set up really well, with the demon Rankor turning Vincent Van Ghoul into stone. The gang has 24 hours to save him with a fabled mask, or he will remain stone forever. The premise had a lot of potential, but the episode goes nowhere. The plot feels rather wasted due to a number of irrelevant subplots that distract from the episode. It divulges into a weird episode where Weerd and Bogel trick the gang into trusting them, and for some reason, the gang acts like they've never seen them before. Rankor is also oddly subserviant to the demon organization SAPS, despite that he is supposedly one of the 13 most powerful demons in the world. Even worse, the episode ends with what is perhaps one of the dumbest endings in the franchise, where he willingly goes back in the chest and even thanks the gang for "protecting" him from sunlight. It feels like a huge cop-out ending for an episode that had the potential to be really cool, but ends up just being a mess.

Favorite: The Babysitter from Beyond
This is a really fun episode that's always been my favorite from A Pup Named Scooby-Doo. The three different villains in this episode make the stakes feel very high, and the episode does a good job with juggling all of them. The babysitter's house has a very creepy atmosphere to it, especially when Boogedy Bones appears in the basement. The gang trying to navigate being trapped in a spooky house with these three villains feels very high-stakes. Despite this episode feeling a bit darker than the average episode of the series, the episode is able to balance this and the series' trademark humor extremely well. I also really like Boogedy Bones' design! It's very close between his and the ghost of Buster Mcmuttmauler for my favorite villain of this series.

Least Favorite: Catcher on the Sly
Speaking of Buster Mcmuttmauler, the episode where he is not a ghost is one that I don't think would be considered an unpopular pick for worst episode of the series. It's just a three-minute episode that's comprised of various antics that ensue when Scooby tries to escape a dogcatcher. The episode feels reminiscent of the Scrappy shorts, and given that's one of my least favorite eras of the franchise, this was an easy pick for least favorite.

Favorite: The Vampire Strikes Back
This is an iconic episode, mainly due to the atmosphere. Castle Fortescu has such a creepy, foreboding vibe that feels perfect for the Transylvania setting. Yet, I also appreciate how this episode approached the Transylvania setting that felt a bit darker and grittier than what we've seen in past episodes. I love the vampire's design with the pupilless eyes, which also looks very different than the more traditional vampire designs we had gotten in the past. The twist at the end of the mystery is also really well-done and interesting. My favorite recurring characters, The Hex Girls, are also in this episode, and how can you go wrong with them?

Least Favorite: Homeward Hound
This is the only instance of my favorite and least favorite episode of a series being chronologically back to back. While this episode isn't terrible, in a series that has such amazing quality, this one feels a bit lackluster. The episode's split focus between the dog show and Scooby being kidnapped dilutes the mystery a bit, and makes it feel undercooked. The kidnappers also feel like generic crooks that don't have much villainous charisma to them. I feel the episode would be much better if the kidnapping plot was removed, and the focus was more on the cat creature.

Favorite: Mystery of the Missing Mystery Solvers
Even though I'm one of the few fans that enjoys the vibe of Get a Clue, the one episode of the series that returns to the classic formula of the franchise is my favorite. Despite Get a Clue's vastly different and zany tone, it does a very good job of creating a down-to-Earth plot that feels more or less like a normal episode of Scooby-Doo. The mystery of "Halloween Guy" is very interesting, and I like the atmosphere of the haunted house with all the different monsters quite a bit. This episode did a great job creating an episode that mirrors the vibe of the franchise's usual formula, while also staying true to the different aesthetic of this series.

Least Favorite: Don't Get a Big Head
Despite the zany and outlandish humor, I feel like Get a Clue does a pretty good job with its comedy style. However, this episode is one where I feel the humor didn't work at all. The plot involves Dr. Phibes taking a nanotech formula to make him smarter, leading him to come up with an evil plan to make the entire world stupid. The episode's humor feels very childish and like it talks down to potential adult viewers in a way that other episodes don't. A good example of this is at one point, Phibes becomes a victim of his own plan, and immediately runs up to a polar bear and speaks to it affectionately. Phibes' stupification felt like it was overdone here in a way that was corny, and a lot of the episode's comedy is based on cringe humor like that. This episode just doesn't work for me at all.

Favorite: Theater of Doom
Even though this one does get a lot of acclaim, I don't see this episode frequently picked as a favorite. I think it deserves way more credit than it gets though, as it's a really fun and unique episode structure that works so well imo. The whole episode being written around the gang trying to put on a play is a super fun concept. Despite the small setting, the episode manages to feel so atmospheric, particularly in the basement. I also love the mummy's design. The twist at the end where the real mummy appears, and harkens back to a tidbit from the beginning of the series that the viewer thought was irrelevant, is genuinely chilling. 

Least Favorite: Stand and Deliver
In an otherwise amazing series, this is the one episode that I feel is a bit weird. The episode revolves around a handsome man going around town stealing women, and beating up their partners. The use of gender stereotypes in this episode are a bit odd, to say the least. It is very strange writing that all of these women seem to lose any inhibitions or self-control they have when they see a handsome man, despite that he's just tried to harm their partner. It isn't anywhere near as bad as "Bride and Gloom," but the writing choices are questionable enough that this is an easy choice for last place.

Favorite: Some Fred Time
​My favorite tends to go back and forth between this and "Doo Not Disturb," but I like both episodes for very different reasons. Currently, my favorite is "Some Fred Time," which is arguably one of the funniest Scooby-Doo episodes of all time. Fred becoming obsessed with trapping everybody and needing a vacation makes for a really fun novelty episode. The zaniness of this episode makes it absolutely hilarious, particularly the "Vampire Mummy Ghost Werewolf from Outer Space" and the bit with Fred getting held down by police as he tries to trap a random bicyclist. I'll admit the villain doesn't make a huge impression on me, but the comedy is so top-notch here that it fully makes up for it.

Least Favorite: Pizza O'Possum's
This is one of two 11 minute episodes in this series. The arcade setting is pretty cool, and I like the Five Nights at Freddy's inspired villain. Unfortunately, the short runtime works to the detriment of this one, as the plot and mystery don't feel they have enough time to develop. The comedy feels noticeably a bit less funny than the rest of the series, which is likely in part due this being the only episode in which the series creator, Jon Colton Barry, did not have any role in making. However, my biggest issue with this episode is that the gang feels rather out of character at points. The worst example of this is Daphne taunting Velma with the video game controller, after Velma admits that she suffered from video game addiction. Considering Daphne is known for being super empathetic in this series, it's very against what her character would normally do and seems unnecessarily mean-spirited. This episode had a decent premise, but the short runtime and odd writing decisions caused it to be executed poorly. 

Favorite: I Put a Hex on You!
I mentioned earlier that The Hex Girls are my favorite recurring characters, and if you'll forgive the pun, I thought their Guess Who episode was wicked! While I've loved all the Hex Girls' appearances, many of them have had the girls somewhat in the background, or only appearing for brief parts of the episode. That said, I enjoyed that this episode so prominently featured the girls arguably for the first time since Witch's Ghost. The plot of the Hex Girls being cursed and becoming stereotypically girly is surprisingly fun. The girls' house is also quite a neat setting. Ester Moonkiller is an awesome villain, and I think her design is amongst the best of this series.

Least Favorite: A Mystery Solving Gang Divided
This episode is a bit of an interesting choice for a least favorite, because the mystery, villain, and setting are all pretty decent here. Nothing amazing, but it's pretty on par with the rest of the series. What puts this one firmly in last place for me is the constant bickering with The Funky Phantom Gang. The arguing takes up so much of the episode that it becomes grating to watch over the course of the episode. I think the rivalry between the gangs could have been done in an interesting way, but the execution in this episode is just annoying and unenjoyable imo.

Favorite: Private Velmjamin
That's right, we're doing Velma too! Surprisingly, it actually wasn't all that difficult to pick a favorite. While this episode still has the same issues as the rest of the series, I thought this was the only episode of the series that fully took advantage of its premise. For those that haven't seen it, the episode features Velma visiting an army base to find a piece of the mystery. Because this is Velma, it's all one big troll-fest, which the viewer quickly realizes when Velma is immediately offered a nuclear weapon upon arrival. Despite this, the humor feels like it's executed in a way that's semi-fun here. I laughed pretty hard at the scene where Velma is cornered by an angry general, and just as you're expecting him to start shouting, he speaks sweetly and simply asks her if she had fun today. Stuff like Fred having The Flintstones theme song as his ringtone also gave me a pretty good laugh. Although the episode isn't great and features all the normal flaws of this series, I felt this one did a good job creating a decently fun premise, and making the troll humor so bad that it was funny. I still don't find this great, but for once, this episode didn't get overly bogged down in edgy stuff and character regression. And considering we're talking about Velma, that is a huge win lol.

Least Favorite: Velma Kai
This one, on the other hand, is up there only behind "Scooby Dooby Guru" and "Bride and Gloom" as my third least favorite episode of the franchise. This episode spotlighted everything that I hate about this series, particularly the terrible characterizations and the edgy humor. The characters are all genuinely horrible people in this episode. This is particularly on display with scenes like Velma reading Daphne's diary to the whole school, and the part where Velma and Daphne beat each other up (while the audience is forced to listen to an irritating song where the only lyrics are "I'm a badass mofo" over and over again). Worse yet, the episode is just a constant string of shock humor. We get gross lines about how Fred's mom watches him pee, and how Shaggy's parents just told him he was an accident. While there are some episodes of Velma I can tolerate, this one was god-awful to sit through.

Favorite: The Scooby-Doo Project
While I really liked all of the early 2010s specials (except one, which we'll get to in a minute), this one stands out to me as the best Scooby special we've ever gotten. The satirical tone of this special is tongue-in-cheek in a very fun way. I felt this special overall handled the meta approach excellently. The humor is really great here, and it is very unique to see the animation mixed with the live-action settings.

Least Favorite: Ghastly Goals
Unlike the rest of the 2010s specials, this one felt really rushed to me. Not only is the plot underdeveloped, but the animation is also shockingly bad by 2014 standards. Many of the crowd scenes were just blurs of color, and the backgrounds during closeups were also noticeably poor quality. The concept of a mythical beast ruining the World Cup sounds promising in theory, but the mystery feels like it goes nowhere, and there were a lot of corners cut on the animation.

Favorite: Ghoul School
This one should be no surprise to anyone who knows me lol. I really love what a creative concept this film is. The whole vibe of the movie feels warm and atmospheric, and I like the slow burn of the guys slowly warming up to the girl ghouls and growing to view them as friends. Revolta and the Grim Creeper are also excellent villains. Not to mention that the girl ghouls are so cute! This film is very different from any other film in the franchise, but I appreciate how unique it is.

Least Favorite: Return to Zombie Island
I was really excited to get a sequel to such an iconic Scooby film, but this was such a disappointment. I could go through all of the inconsistencies I didn't like, but I think I've articulated my thoughts on this film pretty well on here over the years. Ultimately, my issue with this film is that I feel the studio mandate of no real monsters set this one up to fail from the beginning. I think the writer did the best they could with what they had, but Jim Krieg approaching these two sequels as "disowning the original" (which is even alluded to in the director being named Alan Smithee, as it is an industry psuedonym for when somebody wants to disown a film) leaves a bad taste in my mouth, and I unfortunately can't get past it knowing how this film was approached. Curse of the 13th Ghost at least had elements that tried to stay true to the original, but I don't feel that this one did, hence why it's my least favorite.

Thank you for reading through such a long post! If you'd like to share your favorites and least favorites from each series, I'd love to see others' opinions in the comments!

Since I became a fan of Scooby as a kid, watching the Scooby-Doo holiday specials around each holiday has been a tradition for me. I've done rankings of each of the individual holidays, but I've never ranked all of the holiday specials together in one post. I thought it might be fun to rank all of different holiday episodes in one post. For this post, I'm only ranking episodes where most of the episode takes place on the holiday. This means seasonal media like Witch's Ghost (which takes place during autumn) and the winter episodes won't be included in these rankings. Similarly, episodes/films with brief scenes on a holiday (i.e. Ghoul School) won't be ranked either. Without further ado, here we go!

20. This Halloween Needs to Be More Special!
It should be no surprise that this is coming in last. As I mentioned in my full review, the episode of the series feels like it really dropped the ball. A plot about a zombie apocalypse on Halloween sounds epic and like something you'd see in a finale, but instead, they spend the episode trying to equally service a million different plot threads. The plot revolves around the gang needing to complete an incantation by facing their fears. What could have been an interesting plot turns into a mess, as the gang has goofy fears like FOMO and missing a party. It's just a continuation of the show's poor writing and overfocus on raunchy humor ruining the suspenseful atmosphere. A zombie uprising in the cemetery could have been an amazing plot, but instead, it's turned into a nonsensical social commentary about how the zombies can be stopped through being in control of your sexuality, and that everybody finds different things sexy in life. The potential dark tone is completely lost, especially when the "showdown" includes montages of people making out, and guest star Saweetie twerking in the cemetery. It certainly fits with the show's trollish tone, but the writers don't do anything interesting with any aspect of the story here. This one is dead last, and it's not even close.

19. Ghastly Goals
Aside from Velma and some of the Scrappy shorts, this is one of the worst episodes of the franchise imo. The plot feels extremely thin here, and the animation quality is really terrible. I think the villain is really cool, though! I also thought it was unique to have an episode take place during Carnivale, which hadn't been done previously in the franchise. Otherwise, this is a pretty bad quality episode that feels rushed from start to finish. (Even the title card above looks really bad imo)

18. Spooky Scarecrow
After starting off with two of the worst episodes of the franchise, the rest of the list is surprisingly strong. That said, this is the one episode here I don't have as much nostalgia over compared to the rest. It feels like a pretty average episode to me and there's nothing that makes it stand out. I really like Cornfield Clem's design, especially with how he can extend his arms. The mystery is neat, but nothing super notable. This is one I don't necessarily return to every year, but it's one I like quite a bit!

17. El Bandito
This is a pretty solid episode of Be Cool, Scooby-Doo!. My favorite part about the episode is the villain's cool skeleton design, but the setting manages to be pretty cool in how dark it feels as well. Fred wanting to be known as "The Fred" is also hilarious. This is nowhere near the most memorable episode of the season, but in a list filled with amazing episodes, this is still pretty decent even if it's ranked a bit lower.

16. Ghost Who's Coming to Dinner?
Although this one's near the bottom, I still find it to be a great episode and it's one of my favorites of A Pup Named Scooby-Doo. Despite Halloween not being too much of a focus here, the episode still feels very Halloweenish throughout. The gang having to save a real ghost's house from a fake ghost is such a unique twist on the formula. Even with this episode including a real ghost, it fits perfectly with the vibe of this series. I also really like Boobeard's design and the atmosphere of the house! The part where Fred lists 89 suspects, including his third grade English teacher, before getting to the culprit always cracks me up lol.

15. Haunted Holidays
This seems like a bit of a hot take, but this one has never stood out to me as much as it seems to for others. It's a very good episode, but it's not super memorable to me. I really like the villain's design, and thought his ability to shapeshift was neat. I also love the warm atmosphere of certain sections of the toy factory. Even though it doesn't stand out as much as some of the other specials, I still really appreciate this one and there's nothing I wish was different about it.

14. Trick or Treat, Scooby-Doo!
This is one I didn't have in my original Halloween episode rankings due to it not being out yet. What stands out to me most about this one is the quirky tone. While it doesn't match Be Cool's vibe exactly, this one feels like it manages to carve out its own lane for itself. There are a lot of really fun, goofy moments throughout, like the theme song being revamped to reflect the gang doing normal tasks, and Fred laughing nervously and throwing money down a wishing well at the end. The villains being doppelgangers of the gang was also quite unique. Notably, this movie is the first to feature Velma having a crush on a woman. I feel they executed this quite well, and it was interesting to see that plot thread as we got to know Coco as a side character. Another aspect of this movie I love is that they didn't just re-use the same Where Are You villains for the 49th time! It was great to see some different villains getting referenced, especially given there were some pretty obscure ones here!

13. Happy Halloween, Scooby-Doo!
This is one that's waned on me just a tad recently, but it's still very good. After the first two movies of that trilogy, this felt like a breath of fresh air. Similarly, after so many crossovers, I felt Bill Nye and Elvira's inclusion in this film felt quite natural. The Scarecrow was also a very good villain, and I liked the slightly darker tone this had from the living pumpkins feeling inescapable. The one aspect of this film I feel could have been improved is that the car chase feels a little long. It's not something I felt when I first watched the film, but rewatching it last Halloween, the car chase being basically the whole movie felt a little long. I did really like the quirky humor of this film though, and how it seemed to take inspiration from the Be Cool version of Daphne. It was also nice to get an explanation of why Velma behaved the way she did in the past two films. The explanation felt like it humanized her a bit, since her character seemed to be moving in a very one-dimensional direction. Also, four years after my review of this for the Halloween specials article, I'm still hoping we get a film featuring the ghost of the Three Stooges lol.

12. Block Long Hong Kong Terror
Although it's not one of the main holidays, this episode takes place on Chinese New Year so I thought it was worth being ranked here. This is a solid What's New episode! The backstory of the gang traveling to China to repair Shaggy's rubber duck makes this episode a lot of fun. Also, I just want to say that I stan Duck Guy haha. Shaggy witnessing a crime and being targeted makes this one feel super high-stakes. While the dragon isn't my all-time favorite of the franchise, he does have a really cool design, and I like how different it was from previous dragons we've seen.

11. The Headless Horseman of Halloween
One episode had to miss my top 10, and unfortunately, I guess it's this one. I've mentioned on here before how the plane scene feels too long to me, but tbh, this one has grown on me pretty considerably since I last ranked it in the Halloween episode article from 2021. That scene still is my least favorite bit of the episode, but I've grown to really appreciate how amazing the rest of the atmosphere is here. This episode is a really fun adaptation of the classic Sleepy Hollow story, and I love the atmosphere of Crane Manor. Scooby-Dum being here is also a big bonus for the episode haha. While I didn't appreciate this aspect as much in the past, the villain's plan is also pretty genius, and the mystery here is very complex and well-written.

10. Scary Christmas
It was a close race between this and the last episode, but what puts this one ahead is the comedy. Stuff like the "Big Sad Eyes Orphanage" is hilarious, as is Fred's fixation on the mystery having to be Christmas-themed. Similarly to Fred, I'm kinda meh on the pterodactyl as the villain, but it's not bad. Another standout attribute of this episode is how we get to know Daphne more through her quirk of the week. She seems quite insecure about her birthday being overshadowed by Christmas, and it's interesting to learn this about her character.

9. Scroogey Doo
I had long been an advocate of us getting a Scooby episode based off of A Christmas Carol, so I was super happy when this episode was released! The reason I wanted an episode parodying A Christmas Carol so much is that the story like it fits perfectly with the Scooby formula, and this episode did not disappoint. I like how the reason for the ghosts visiting Scrooge is framed as a mystery, and it's cool that the Ghost of Christmas Future tries to convince Velma into changing as well. The one aspect of this episode that brings it down for me is that it feels the gang is a bit uncharacteristically dismissive of Velma in the ghost's vision. It's a minor issue though, and head writer JCB has actually said he wrote it differently, and that part was changed without his consent. Overall, this was a really fun episode and absolutely satisfied my craving for a Scooby take on A Christmas Carol​.

8. To Switch a Witch
Despite a general feeling that The Scooby-Doo Show season 3 doesn't quite reach the levels of season 1 and 2, this is one of the few episodes that I think is every bit as good as the first two seasons. Arguably, this may the darkest Scooby Halloween episode of all, as Scooby being tied up and dunked in water until he confesses is rather dark for a Scooby-Doo episode. Besides the discomforting history surrounding this episode, the settings also feel quite dark and spooky. Despite the dark tone, the episode manages to slip in a few fun Halloween moments as well, like Shaggy and Scooby dressing up, and the scene where they're trick or treating. Milissa Wilcox is also a super cool villain and I'd go as far as to say she's one of my favorites of this series.

7. Halloween
We've arrived at the final Be Cool episode on the list! As always, this episode delivers top-notch comedy and a great villain, but what really makes this one shine is the backstory into Fred's life. The episode reveals that as a kid, Fred and his friends ran into a witch on Halloween. To Fred's horror, they were never able to solve the mystery, which has made him fear solving a mystery on Halloween for the rest of his life up to this point. This backstory makes the stakes of the episode feel really high. The witch's design is also awesome and I like how they used it in an original way, rather than copying SDMI. The episode is full of neat references too, like the Hex Girls and Mr. Hyde costumes, and the in-series reference of Shaggy dressing as a vending machine from the first episode. This is a really solid Halloween episode that's packed with fun, and it's one I always love returning to every autumn.

6. Scooby-Doo and the Goblin King
Those who read my original Halloween rankings might remember that I originally had this one above "A Scooby-Doo Halloween." This one hasn't waned on me at all, but I think I've grown to like the WNSD special slightly more. Although I know it's not the most popular film, I've always really admired it. This is a film that takes the weirdness and really runs with it to create a film that feels absolutely magical (no pun intended lol). I love the warm, whimsical Halloween atmosphere that this movie has. Even though it's a bit out there, the Goblin King plot is super interesting and unique for this franchise. The way the Halloween World is written feels so whimsical and fun, and this one never fails to put me in the Halloween mood.

5. A Scooby-Doo Christmas
Kicking off the top 5 is our first WNSD holiday special. I have a ton of nostalgia of watching this one on Cartoon Network every year when I was younger. The Headless Snowman is such a creative villain, and I like how they unconventionally try to frame the story around a Christmas-themed Sleepy Hollow. The vibe of this episode feels very warm and Christmasy, but also has some genuinely creepy moments, like the house turning cold before the snowman comes into the house. This is a top-notch special just like all of the other What's New holiday episodes.

4. A Scooby-Doo Halloween
We've got another What's New holiday special at #4. This episode taking place at Velma's family's house is really cool, and it's fun to learn more about her family. As I've mentioned many times, I also love how they wrote this episode about a real town! The town's setting is really cool and I'd say it's one of my favorites of this series. The laugh track in the episode is a little odd, but it doesn't really bother me and I understand the throwback appeal of it. The scarecrows and the ghost of Hank Banning are really cool villains, and although they're never seen together, having so many villains heightens the episode's stakes quite a bit imo. KISS works very well here as guest stars too. Definitely a must-watch for me every October!

3. A Scooby-Doo Valentine
This is my favorite of the What's New, Scooby-Doo? holiday specials. This one almost feels like a novelty episode with all of the meta humor, but it's executed so well. The mystery here is absolutely iconic, with the entire gang being suspects in a mystery involving their doppelgangers kidnapping people. The episode has some quirky touches, like Shaggy and Scooby having girlfriends, and the guys and girls each living together, but it's all done in a way that feels unique and super fun. J.C. Chasez also makes for an awesome guest star. I watch this one every February.

2. The Nutcracker Scoob
The two New Scooby-Doo Mysteries episodes make it to the top 2! This one has been my favorite Scooby Christmas special since I was kid. Like "A Scooby-Doo Christmas," I have very fond memories of Cartoon Network airing this every year on Christmas Eve. I love how this episode combines multiple Christmas stories and creates something that feels perfectly in line with the tone of this series. The Ghost of Christmas Never is a really neat villain, and I love the warm atmosphere of the children's home. The subplot with Mr. Nickleby also works really well to help move the story along, and was interwoven into the mystery well. This is easily my favorite Scooby-Doo Christmas special.

1. A Halloween Hassle at Dracula's Castle
Ultimately, this came down to choosing between my two favorite episodes of the Scrappy era, but it was very close. This episode uses so many of my favorite tropes of Scooby episodes, between using the Universal Monsters, the setting of being in a castle, and having a surprising twist. The atmosphere of this episode manages to be so strong. Even in the opening scene of the episode, the gusty autumn winds instantly put me in the Halloween mood. The castle makes for an amazing setting, and gives the episode a really neat dark undertone. I love how the episode is a reversal of the classic formula, where the monsters are the ones asking the gang for help because they're afraid. This is a perfect holiday special, and is easily my favorite episodes of the entire Scrappy-Doo era.

I hope you enjoyed reading these rankings! If you have any thoughts on my rankings or want to share your own, I'd love to see how they compare to mine in the comments!

With the recent announcement for the new live-action show, I've been thinking recently about what I'd like to see in the show. The gang has been portrayed in a number of different ways in the five live-action films we've gotten, as well as the Mystery Incorporated fan series. In preparation for the new series, I wanted to share my thoughts on all of the past live-action portrayals of each gang member, and what aspects I'd like to see from the actors and actresses that portray them in the new show. I'll provide my thoughts by going through the previous portrayals of each gang member.

Daphne's portrayals have been the best of any of the gang members, in my opinion. I loved Sarah Michelle Gellar in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and think she was a perfect choice for Daphne here.  For those who don't know, Sarah Michelle Gellar's portrayal of the titular character in Buffy was seen as transformative at the time. At the time, there weren't a ton of action series that portrayed a woman as being powerful and self-reliant. In my opinion, Buffy did an excellent job of showing us a character that was empowered, while also still being girly and liking traditionally feminine things. Arguably, Sarah carried those attributes into her portrayal of Daphne. Daphne is shown as much more spunky and confident than she ever had been in the first two live-action films.

The franchise had just begun exploring making Daphne's character less of a pretty damsel in the 1980s series, as shown by her (with Scrappy) being the ones to solve the mystery. In A Pup Named Scooby-Doo, we also saw a bossier version of Daphne, but she still fit the "pretty damsel" archetype in the sense that she'd often rely on Jenkins the butler to do tasks for her. In addition, she was also characterized as being stuck-up and would commonly act like she was too delicate to do things for herself. In my opinion, Sarah took Daphne's characterization to the next level, and showed us a more self-reliant Daphne than we'd usually seen. We'd seen a more mature version of Daphne in the Mook era films, but I don't feel they frequently showed her as confident and empowered in those films. Arguably, Sarah's portayal had an impact on how she was portrayed in What's New, Scooby-Doo? as well. Although she wasn't quite as feisty as Sarah portrayed her to be, Daphne is shown being more resourceful in that series, often with fashion-related items (i.e. using a blow-dryer to melt ice in one episode). Sarah's portrayal of Daphne is my favorite, but I also liked aspects of Daphne's other live-action portrayals.

Kate Melton played a more traditional version of Daphne, who fit the pretty girl archetype and was into fashion. Although I did like Kate's Daphne, she didn't really have a lot that made her stand out from previous portrayals. Kate played a very straightforward Daphne, but I felt she did a good job. I wouldn't mind seeing Daphne portrayed like this again in the new live-action series!

Sarah Jeffrey played a quirkier version of Daphne, but I've always had a soft spot for her portrayal. Sarah's version of Daphne paints her as an eccentric daddy's girl, who is quite sheltered and socially awkward. At the beginning of the film, Daphne's dad is shown creating inventions (such as a clothing closet and pretending to be a Siri-like virtual assistant) in order to make sure her day runs smoothly. Without spoiling anything too much, at the end of the film, Daphne realizes that it is okay to be socially awkward, and takes little steps to be more empowered in herself. While I know some view this portrayal as cringey, I feel it builds nicely upon the previous portrayal of her being a damsel.

Jeffery's version of Daphne arguably makes her more three-dimensional than simply a pretty girl who is unable to help herself. Even though she is still arguably a bit sheltered at the end of the film, she chooses to embrace that a part of her may always be that way, but that she can take some steps to make herself more self-reliant. While this version of Daphne may be an acquired taste, I feel it is a very unique portrayal of Daphne that contributes an interesting take on her character to the franchise.

Although it's not official media, I'm also going to analyze the Mystery Incorporated fan series versions of the gang from 2022. I rewatched the first episode as research for this article, and Jessica is easily my favorite of the four actors and actresses in the show. Jessica does a very good job playing a more traditional Daphne, while also providing some depth to the character. In this adaptation, Daphne is a popular girl that is a lot colder than we've seen in previous portrayals. At the beginning of the episode, there is a scene where her mother implies she expects her daughter to be perfect. Throughout the episode, we're shown that this affects Daphne on a deep level, and it's why she's so cold and guarded. Despite this version of Daphne not opening up as much, Jessica still manages to give her a lot of charisma. While both of the more traditional portrayals of Daphne are good, I feel Jessica adds a complexity to Daphne's character that Kate wasn't quite able to add.

Overall, my favorite Daphne is Sarah Michelle Gellar. I feel she contributes the most unique take of the character while also quintessentially embodying Daphne's persona. I think I'd most love to see Daphne portrayed in a similar way to how Sarah portrayed her, but I'd also be open to a more traditional take like Kate and Jessica. While I do really like Kate's portrayal, one minor criticism I have is that there wasn't really anything distinctive about how she portrayed Daphne. While I thought her portrayal was good, it didn't ever scream "wow, this is Daphne!" to me. I've also enjoyed the quirkier take on Daphne that's been in recent media (particularly Be Cool and  Happy Halloween), so I'd be open to unique take on Daphne along the lines of what Sarah Jeffery did.

Here's how I'd rank the live-action portrayals of Daphne:

1. Sarah Michelle Gellar
2. Sarah Jeffery
3. Jessica Chancellor
4. Kate Melton

While Daphne's consistently had the best live-action portrayals of the entire gang, I feel Fred's have been my least favorite. I've mentioned it before, but I've never been the biggest fan of Freddie Prinze Jr's portrayal of Fred in the first two live-action films. I've joked a lot on here about enjoying "Sassy Fred" from the early series, but I feel Prinze's portrayal takes that too far. His portrayal comes off as pompous and full of himself, and I find him to be rather unlikeable in these films. While I get it's done for comedy, it isn't really fun or whimsical in the same way as Sassy Fred (or the Be Cool version of Fred) is, and it comes off like he is a narcissist. I don't feel Prinze provides a good representation of who Fred is as a character.

Besides Daphne, I feel Velma has had the best live-action portrayals of any of the gang. I thought Linda Cardellini did the best job. The brainy, slightly socially awkward personality that Linda brought to this film felt very natural. Linda encapsulated Velma's character perfectly, and made it feel very three-dimensional in a way that I don't feel Prinze was able to do for Fred. If they were ever to replace Kate Micucci as Velma, I feel Linda would be a great replacement, and would do just as good of a job as Micucci did, if not better. I would love to see Velma characterized like this in the new series.

Hayley Kiyoko did a great job with Velma. Of the four actors and actresses portraying the gang in The Mystery Begins films, she is easily my favorite. Mindy Cohn had just evolved Velma's personality to be more witty in What's New Scooby-Doo?, and I feel Hayley does a good job embodying that energy, while also giving it her own spin. While she's not on the same level as Mindy for me, I like how Hayley builds on that witty characterization, and provides a different take on Velma being socially awkward than we'd seen in the past. Hayley's portrayal of Velma is very good, and I would enjoy seeing something in this vein again.

Frequent readers of this blog will likely know that I have a soft spot for Daphne & Velma. In rewatching the film for a Daphne & Velma fanfic I wrote last year, the film waned on me a bit, and I have to say a part of that is Sarah Gilman's portrayal of Velma. I think she did a good job embodying Velma's social awkwardness, but her portrayal comes off as a little flat at points. You could argue that Gilman's portayal presented Velma as being so shy that she didn't feel comfortable being herself. However, I don't feel the film explored that character arc to its full potential if that's what they were going for. Of the three official live-action portrayals of Velma, Gilman's comes off as less unique and a bit more watered down. There isn't really any distinct attributes of Gilman's Velma that stood out to me like Cardellini or Kiyoko's. I also don't feel she has the same charisma that Sarah Jeffery had as Daphne.

While Gilman's Velma isn't my favorite, I would say it stands out to me more than Dayeanne Hutton's Velma from the Mystery Incorporated fan series. Of the four actors in this series, she is my least favorite. I by no means think her portrayal is bad, but there are no standout attributes that she brings to the character. The amount of personality she brings to the character is pretty minimal. That said, in all fairness, I feel like Velma is the character we got to know the least in the first episode. They also mention that Velma is shy and socially awkward, so it's possible that character arc would have been explored in more depth if we'd gotten future episodes. That all said, I really don't feel I can fairly judge her portrayal here from one episode, and don't want to say it is bad. Had we been able to get more episodes of the series, my thoughts would have likely evolved.

Here are my rankings of Velma's portrayals:
1. Linda Cardellini
2. Hayley Kiyoko
3. Sarah Gilman
4. Dayeanne Hutton

Lastly, the ranking Shaggy's live-action portrayals come out very easily for me. Matthew Lillard is easily first; he does a great job of portraying a more cowardly, nerdy Shaggy, and is the only actor to play him in a way that feels like it perfectly encapsulates his character. I think Lillard was a great replacement for Casey Kasem, and he's done an awesome job voicing the character this past decade and a half. Matthew did a perfect job with Shaggy and I wouldn't change a thing. I hope they go this direction in the new series.

Nick Palatas presents a different take on Shaggy. In the Mystery Begins films, Shaggy is portrayed as being a shy loner who is socially awkward. I appreciate that they tried something different with Shaggy, and it fit well with the story of him befriending Scooby and opening up more. While I don't feel it screams Shaggy as much as Matthew's portrayal, Nick's Shaggy is endearing in his own way. As long as it's not outlandish like Prinze's portrayal of Fred, I will always appreciate a fresh take over playing it safe to the point of feeling watered down and bland. Shaggy's portrayal worked very well with the story they were trying to tell with The Mystery Begins films. He did a very good job and although it wouldn't be my first choice, I wouldn't mind seeing them characterize Shaggy like this again in the new series.

Finally, we have Shaggy's live-action portrayal in the Mystery Incorporated fan series, Chris Villain. Chris does a pretty good job with Shaggy, and seems to take a lot of inspiration from Nick Palatas in his portrayal of Shaggy. It's not fully clear to me how Shaggy being a shy loner fits into the story, but again, there was only one episode, so it didn't have a chance to fully develop. His Shaggy stands out the least to me of the three, but he still does a good job.

1. Matthew Lillard
2. Nick Palatas
3. Chris Villain
​
I'm not going to rank the Scooby portrayals here, as I don't think contrasting Neil Fanning or Thor the dog (from the Mystery Incorporated fan series) against the legendary Frank Welker is a fair comparison at all lol. If I had to choose based on appearance, I'd probably go with the CGI Scooby from Mystery Begins, but I'd also be open to a real dog!

Technology has been evolving rapidly, and the last few years have seen technological advancements that have changed life for many. Since the pandemic in 2020, working from home and conducting meetings via video call has become much more commonplace, and we've also seen artificial intelligence become widely available to the public for the first time ever. 

I mentioned recently that one of my new year's resolutions for the blog was to start doing more academic-style articles again. I wanted to kick off the new year with an article on how the Scooby franchise has depicted the future in the several episodes where the gang has time-traveled and/or seen futuristic inventions. I also want to give credit where credit is due; this article was indirectly inspired by a comment by Matt mentioning that it would be fun to have some sort of essay on the wacky version of the future seen in "Scooby-Doo 2000." I thought it might be fun to expand that idea and look at how Scooby has depicted the future throughout the many decades of the franchise. For this project, I rewatched each of the episodes viewing them through the lens of how they depicted the future. 

To separate this from the technology article, I'm mainly going to keep the focus narrowed to episodes that actually depict the future, rather than ones that simply feature advanced technology. There are a couple exceptions that I made to this. There are two episodes that feature experimental technology that is said in the episodes to be "futuristic," those being "High Tech House of Horrors" and "Me, Myself and A.I." Because the technology is directly stated in the episode to be highly experimental and depicting what futuristic technology might look like, they are included here.

Our very first depiction of the future is seen in "Creepy Cruise" from The Scooby-Doo Show. The episode involves a professor conducting a demonstration of his newly-built time machine, which he claims is the first operational one in the entire world. During this demonstration, the professor loses control of the time machine, and accidentally brings a futuristic bug-like creature into the present. If we assume this episode takes place in 1977, the professor states that the creature is from 5007 years in the future, which would mean it is from the year 6984. As the mystery unravels, we learn that things are not as they seem, and to keep it vague and avoid major spoilers, it isn't a "real" depiction of the future. We don't get a glimpse into any other aspects of the future in this episode. In addition, no explanation is given as to if the bug creature is intended to be an evolved version of the human race, a new species that is undiscovered in the present day, or something entirely different.

"Scooby-Doo 2000" from The Richie Rich / Scooby-Doo Hour is perhaps the most amusing version of the future that we see, and it's the first version of the future that is depicted as real in the franchise. The episode involves Shaggy, Scooby and Scrappy-Doo getting jobs cleaning the clock tower at Big Ben in London. They soon learn that Big Ben has magical qualities, and they are sent 20 years into the future by the spinning hands. This episode shows houses and buildings all floating up on pedestals in the air. There are moving sidewalks to get in between these buildings up in the sky. People are now able to get into buildings through floating escalators, which are shown to be large tubes with a platform that can float up and down to transport people.

Most of the episode takes place in a department store that Shaggy, Scooby and Scrappy are exploring. The first thing we see is a food court, which is shown to be rows of vending machines, each of which are designed to make a specific food. We see a machine that makes BLTs, spaghetti, and submarine sandwiches. Shaggy and the dogs use the sandwich machine, which shows us that the machines make the meals through large robot hands doing the cooking. After a good meal, the guys go into the toy department, where they see life-sized toys. Oddly, these toys are said to be robots, but appear to be designed similarly to modern-day wind-up toys. One of these toys (a stuffed ape) seems to have somewhat of a mind of its own. However, it's unclear as to whether it's a programming glitch or sentience, because the ape seems very primitive, and is not able to speak or do much besides chase the guys. When they are running from the ape, Shaggy, Scooby and Scrappy hide in an "electronic bedroom." Apparently, this just means that you can press a button and have it convert into a dresser, as we don't see it do anything else. The general theme of this short seems to be that everything in the future will be robotized and in the sky.

It's pretty clear that this depiction is based on the future seen in The Jetsons. Several of the items shown (i.e. the flying buildings and floating escalators) are also seen in The Jetsons, and tasks being done by robot arms is also similar to what we see in that show. However, what's most baffling about this episode is that The Jetsons was set 100 years in the future, but this episode is only set 20 years in the future. It is quite odd that the writers believed that our society would change this much in such a short period of time.

Vincent Van Ghoul shows Scooby a grim depiction of the future in "It's a Wonderful Scoob" from The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo. In the episode, Scooby quits the gang out of fear, and Vincent uses a time scepter to show Scooby what will happen if he leaves the gang. This episode depicts the future as a dystopia where the government is run by Time Slime (one of the 13 ghosts), who has become a dictator. Civilization is in ruin and looks like a junkyard, with trash and rubble strewn everywhere. We see large machines digging for something, but it is unclear whether they are simply looking for trash, or if they are trying to retrieve something for Time Slime. A mentally unstable Shaggy is said to be the only remaining rebel against the government, but we quickly see him captured by Time Slime. This future also shows that modern music has changed quite a bit to flatter Time Slime. Instead of being cool by listening to loud rap music bragging about being rich or tough, blaring music with lyrics that celebrate and assert loyalty to Time Slime is now the hip thing to do. So I guess we all have that to look forward to! lol

"High Tech House of Horrors" is perhaps the most interesting depiction of the future in the Scooby franchise. This What's New, Scooby-Doo? ​episode has the gang exploring a futuristic house at the Omaha World Fair. Before they enter the house, there are a couple of other futuristic exhibits around it that we see. We see a car of the future, which Fred can drive by simply pressing a button, rather than shifting gears or using the gas pedal/brake. The car also does not need a road or highway to drive, and can fly in the air. We also see a robotized makeup applicator, which covers Velma's face in makeup, but deems Daphne's appearance is already perfect without makeup. Lastly, we see a "food court of the future."  We do not see how the food is made. This food court features plates of food on a moving conveyer belt, along with a moving sidewalk for people to walk on when they grab the food. I found it rather quirky that two Scooby-Doo episodes depict moving sidewalks as being a cornerstone of the future lol.

When the gang enters the house, which is created by Professor Laslo Ostwald, they see a wide variety of futuristic things. There is an automatic watermelon deseeder, gamma ray oven, a couch that gives you a robotic massage, automated doors, and automatic household appliances hardwired into the mainframe of the house. Everything turns itself on with a smart sensor, but it can also be controlled manually by a human. In addition, perhaps one of the most advanced devices in this house is the four-dimensional television, which Fred turns on to watch football. to his horror, the holograms of the players actually jump out of the screen to tackle him. Professor Ostwald is able to monitor every aspect of the house with his smart watch.

The house has a robot butler named J31 v2.3, nicknamed Jeeves. Jeeves has basic commands that are internal to him, which is shown when he takes out the trash without anybody asking him to. However, Professor Ostwald also instructs Jeeves to do things sometimes. This shows that Jeeves is not completely self-sufficient, and can be asked to do things if his human owner wants. He also confirms that the home, named SHARI, is a sentient form of artificial intelligence, and states that SHARI is "the first computer that can actually think for itself." As the professor puts it, "instead of living in our home, we will now live in harmony with our home."

The conflict of the episode comes in when the house becomes self-aware and turns evil. The house is suddenly able to move doors at will, is shown to manifest holograms of people when they aren't actually there, can send robotic bug swarms after people, can seal people in electrified prisons, and perhaps most frightening of all, lashes out against its human owners when it is displeased. The last of those things is shown when the house turns on the sprinklers after Velma attempts to short-circuit it. Thankfully, even at its most emotional, the house can't completely go rogue, as shown by Fred locking Jeeves in the bathroom and activating the sinks.

"The Man in the Mirror" from Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated​ shows another apocalyptic depiction of the future. When Fred is pulled into a strange mirror world, he is shown a dark future by an older version of his mom Judy. In this reality, the Planispheric Disc sped up time, creating an apocalyptic version of Crystal Cove. The town is is destroyed and abandoned, and vines are shown growing on buildings. The sky is an eerie shade of orange. Destroyed cars are littering the streets. Even more terrifyingly, skeletons are laying in the streets, and they all come alive at midnight. At the end of the episode, without any major spoilers, the "future" once again doesn't end up being what it seems.

"Me, Myself and A.I." from Be Cool, Scooby-Doo! has the gang visiting Mannputer Tech, which is a witty tongue-in-cheek nod to the subplot of the episode being about the debate between humans and computers. Mannputer Tech is a company that makes technology that is so experimental that it is characterized as being futuristic. This company's technology is said to be easily controlled by humans. The company is run by Mr. Mann, along with employees Mallory and Elton, and a robot mascot named Techy. Techy the robot is artificially intelligent, and is able to think for himself. A recurring joke throughout the episode is that he has a crush on one of the employees, and keeps asking her out on a date.

We see a number of silly inventions, including a super charged left arm, and a "slurp recognition" device, which is consistent with the random humor style of the series. Some of the technology shown is also depicted as being serious and world-changing, such as Techy the robot having the ability to take Shaggy and Scooby anywhere they want through virtual reality. Unlike "High Tech House of Horrors," there is a failsafe for this futuristic technology in the form of an off switch. This is much to the disdain of Daphne, who thinks using technology to stop technology is counterproductive.

After a robot named the Butler 3000 comes to life and goes on a rampage, a major technological debate comes to center stage in this episode. Velma takes a more logical approach to technology, and in her words, believes "technology is a best friend without messy tears and emotions." She relies heavily on technology, and believes it to be a vital tool for progress. Daphne displays the opposite perspective, and believes that we are too reliant on technology. She believes tasks being accomplished with the human mind is something empowering, and that technology should be embraced with a mindset that balances the wonder of computers with the power of humanity. The company's owner, Mr. Mann, shows a complete reliance on technology, at one point even exclaiming "We'd be helpless without technology!"

The end of the episode reveals that the robot was someone in a costume, who feared losing their job to technology. This reflects a common debate on technology in the real world, about robots taking over jobs and rendering aspects of our humanity obsolete. This is arguably the only episode of the franchise that presents multiple perspectives on the advancement of technology.

Daphne & Velma presents a unique perspective on futuristic technology. The film shows Daphne and Velma attending Ridge Valley High, a school known for its innovative and transformative approach to technology. There are drones, 3D printers, and even food printers present in the school, and most students have phones that can pull up detailed background information on a person by simply scanning them with your phone. The phone can also change the color and design of a t-shirt. There are also some odd technological devices in the film, including a "conflict resolution couch" that can detect human emotions, as well as a "Brainstormer Machine" that the villain uses to suck creative energy out of his victims. Perhaps the most futuristic thing in this film is the "Bloom Bracket," which is a school sanctioned competition that ranks students based on academic performance, extracurriculars, sports, and even social media activity.

Similarly to "Me, Myself and A.I.," the message about technology is left pretty ambiguous here, with only the villain's evil use of technology being disavowed. All other technology is left up to viewer interpretation of whether it is positive or negative. However, at the end of the film, a character does make mention that the Bloom Bracket was evil, because it made people base their self-worth on it. This reflects a growing concern for the future for many about young people basing too much of their self-worth off of social media. Unlike "High Tech House of Horrors" and "Me, Myself and A.I.", this episode does not present the technology as being futuristic, however, it is clearly beyond the scope of any technology that has been invented in the present day as of writing this.

The last stop on our little trip through the future is "A Run Cycle Through Time!" featuring Malcolm McDowell, from the series Scooby-Doo and Guess Who?. In the episode, Malcolm has invented a time machine, and takes the gang on a trip through the future to the year 3535. He warns that any actions done by time travelers can have an impact on the future. Shaggy and Scooby quickly disregard this advice and eat a banana. They throw the peel on the ground, which causes a robot to slip, and then knocks over several other robots into a volcano. The volcano then explodes and the area erupts in lava.

Malcolm transports the gang to Thursday, July 9, 4646. The banana incident has a major impact on the world, and creates a dystopian reality where Scooby is a cyborg dictator named the Supreme Leader. He demands that all organic life forms be taken to him, for a purpose which isn't explained in the episode. Scooby has a number of drones at his command, but is quickly stopped by Malcolm and a cyborg version of Shaggy named Shagborg, whose hand is a weapon that blasts lightning. In addition, aging is said to have stopped in the future, so all three characters look around the same age that they were in the present. Because of the banana incident, Shagborg gets in an explosive fight against Scooby, and they become bitter enemies. Eventually, they realize the error of their ways and become friends again. Balance is restored in the world again when the two restart their friendship.

There's also a monster named the Chronobeast that the gang encounters on their trip through time. The monster has the power to erase it touches from the fabric of time. At the end, the monster is revealed to be a fake, and the time travel is discovered to be a simulation.

As an aside, while it doesn't necessarily depict the future, it's worth noting that Daphne & Velma also shows us technology that has capabilities well beyond that of the present day. The film takes place in Ridge Valley High, which is run by tech millionaire Tobias Bloom. The school boasts giving its students an immersive education with high-tech gadgets present all throughout the school.

Besides Velma, the piece of the franchise that is generally most disliked in the franchise is the Scrappy shorts. Between the doubling-down on the antics and the plots often having barely any structure at all, I've never really cared for the majority of shorts in the series. There are, however, some shorts that I think are fun for what they are, whether it be because they're loveable messes or because they're so ridiculous that they fall into the "so bad it's good" category. On the other end of the spectrum, these shorts also have what I'd consider to be some of the lowest lows in the franchise. While I have shared a few of my all-time least favorites back when I did a post about my least favorite episodes in 2022, I thought it would be interesting to do a post highlighting my favorites and least favorites of what is commonly considered one of the worst points of the Scooby franchise. I'm including both series with 7-minute episodes in this post, The Richie Rich / Scooby-Doo Show and The Scooby & Scrappy-Doo Puppy Hour.

10. Scrappy's Birthday
This short is a flashback episode where Scrappy asks about his birth, prompting Shaggy to tell him about it. In the flashback, Scrappy is born and within five minutes of that, he begins running wild around the hospital and antagonizing a doctor. The doctor becomes so angry that he flies into a rage, and begins chasing Scrappy, Shaggy and Scooby. This episode makes the list because it exemplifies a number of elements of the series that I like least. There is often little to no plot to speak of beyond "the guys run into a monster or make someone mad, and they run away!" In addition, making said person mad is usually completely their own fault, through taking no responsibility when they do something insulting or break something. We will see some even worse instances of this as we go further down the list, but the plot of this one perfectly represents this. The argument could be made that these shorts are only seven minutes and thus it was hard to write a detailed plot. However, the shorts on my best list go to show how it was possible to execute these shorts in the time allotted without having them become aimless running around with no other plot.

9. Runaway Scrappy
This was one of the Yabba-Doo shorts, which featured Scrappy solving crimes with his uncle Yabba-Doo and the town deputy, Dusty. I wouldn't really say I enjoyed any of them more than the Scrappy shorts, because almost all of them are formulaic to the point of not being anything interesting. The plot involves a bad guy coming to town to get Deputy Dusty, and almost all of them are just generic crooks that begin to blend together as you watch more of the series. The two episodes I liked are "Vild Vest Vampire" and "Slippery Dan, the Escape Man," and neither of them make my best list.

The reason I dislike this one so strongly is because the writing of this episode is just poor. The plot involves Scrappy running away because he feels unwanted. It feels like it would have been pretty easy to execute a plot like this, by having Dusty and Yabba be dismissive of Scrappy, or be too busy to pay attention to him. Instead, Dusty randomly becomes an angry jerk and shouts at Scrappy to "get to bed!" to the point that we actually see Scrappy cry. (Angry Dusty is pictured above right as he's about to start shouting lol) Considering Scrappy simply asked an innocent question, Dusty suddenly blowing up out of nowhere doesn't make any sense. His character is known for being cowardly like Shaggy, so it is really out-of-character to get that angry, especially when the episode provides no reason why he suddenly became mean. It wouldn't be so much of an issue if it were just a brief moment, but given it's a pivotal plot point in this episode, having Dusty be so over-the-top here comes off as lazy writing imo.

8. Hoedown Showdown
Based on an old review of mine, I apparently used to find this one so bad it was funny. I can totally see how someone might feel that way about this episode, but in a recent rewatch, I just find this one plain bad now. Detailing the plot should be enough to explain why: Shaggy goes to visit his Southern cousin Betty Lou, who is feuding with the McGurk family. Bubba McGurk has a crush on Betty Lou, but she isn't interested because he smells. Shaggy and the dogs try to end the feud by getting Bubba to take a bath so they can set Betty up with him. This is another antics-heavy Scrappy short where the plot is just one big joke about how dumb Bubba and his brothers are, and it's unenjoyable to watch. Very few of the shorts live up to any of the other series for me, but shorts like this one feel like they are in a different galaxy of quality compared to some of the masterpieces from The Scooby-Doo Show released just a few years before this.

7. Double Trouble Date
This short's plot consists of Shaggy accidentally making two dates for the same night. Instead of cancelling the second date, he takes advantage of the fact that his second date broke her glasses, and sets her up with Scooby dressed like a guy. (He looks like such a player in the above image for some reason, lol) This short is probably the best example of issue of the characters taking no responsibility that I mentioned earlier. Shaggy comes off as manipulative for no reason. It is super out-of-character for him to act like this, and the episode doesn't really give him any motivation to do any of this. Presumably, he wouldn't have asked the other girl if he didn't want to go on a date with her, so it's very strange that he didn't just reschedule for another night. If he was worried about telling the girl he was dating around, he could have simply said something came up and see if she would be willing to move the date to another night. The writing doesn't think through any of this though, and the whole episode is Shaggy double dating with the girl he chose, along with Scooby catfishing the other girl like a creep. The character regression in this episode is just terrible, and it makes you not want to root for anybody by the end of the episode.

6. Scooby's Swiss Miss
This one has a poodle flirting with Scooby at a ski lodge. Scooby soon discovers she has a bulldog boyfriend, who is jealous and chases Scooby. The plot is very Tom and Jerry-ish, which I've never enjoyed. What brings this one so far down though is the ending being so uncomfortable. After chasing Scooby, the bulldog is injured when he runs into a tree, and must wear a full-body cast. The poodle accepts that she'll never get Scooby, but comes out in a wedding dress when she sees the bulldog in crutches, and exclaims "At least he can't run away!" It's super creepy to watch because it heavily implies the poodle is so desperate to be in a relationship that she'll do anything, even emotionally abusing her partner by forcing him to be with her. 

5. Go East, Young Pardner
This Yabba-Doo short features Dusty, Yabba and Scrappy going to New York for police training. Upon arriving, the chief immediately behaves rudely and calls their training program "babysittin' a bunch of hicks." And not only does he say this directly to their face, it's actually the first thing he says to them as they walk in the door. The whole episode is full of weird mean-spirited stereotypes about New Yorkers, including one scene where they run into a group of New Yorkers, and they are all snarling for no reason. At another point, Yabba throws a skunk into the elevator because he doesn't like that people are in his way. The whole episode is just full of weirdly angry and mean-spirited stuff like that, and it took the fun out of watching it for me.

Another smaller issue with this episode some of the writing choices are very weird. One scene features them running through a store, and they capture the villain in the "Wild West department" (as all stores have, lol). Another such ridiculous scene is that at one point, they are seen riding on top of cars and wrecking them with their horse (pictured above). Perhaps the most baffling thing though is that the training program established at the beginning seems to be completely forgotten after a minute or two into the episode. It makes the episode feel rather pointless when the writers can't even seem to remember the explanation they gave for why the characters are in New York in the first place.

4. One Million Years Before Lunch
​I really want to find this one funny-bad like I know some others do, but this one is a really rough one for me. The episode starts with Shaggy, Scooby and Scrappy building a model airplane at the Teen Center. 15 seconds into the episode, Shaggy randomly exclaims "Oops, I accidentally built a time machine!" and then they go back to the prehistoric age. I will give credit where credit is due, that part is so badly written and out of nowhere it is pretty funny. Once they arrive in the past, they hear a woman cry for help, and discover that she's been kidnapped by a caveman. The guys chase the caveman and try to save her. Oddly, there's no real disbelief or shock that they've just gone back in time; they just run off and act like this is a normal day for them lol. I guess that is a testament to how chaotic their lives have gotten in this series haha.

Along the way, they discover the woman's dinosaur, who weirdly seems to have a crush on Scooby. There is a scene where the dinosaur kisses Scooby to make him brave, which I really hope was just an outdated chivalrous thing rather than them actually being romantically interested in each other, because Scooby being in love with a dinosaur is kinda disgusting lol. There's another "so bad it's funny" bit where they all have to swing on a rope to get to the caveman's lair, and not only do the guys swing on this rope, the dinosaur also does lol (pictured above). They end up rescuing the woman, and Shaggy gives a hefty scolding to the caveman for being mean. Suddenly, the woman decides she thinks the caveman is tough for kidnapping her and that is a turn-on for her, so she decides to date him. 

Again, I can totally see why some people would view this as "so bad it's funny." For me though, this feels like a really badly out-of-character fanfic somebody would write. The characters act nothing like themselves, and the plot is completely random and nonsensical. The episode is bizarre to the point where it almost gives me whiplash to think this is in the same franchise as Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?​ lol.

3. Law and Disorder
I feel that the Yabba-Doo shorts were definitely a low point for the franchise, as illustrated that we've already covered three out of the 13 in this list, and there's actually one additional one we haven't gotten to yet. I have the same issue about the confusing writing that I mentioned with "Go East, Young Pardner," although I'd argue this one is almost worse because no element of this plot makes any sense. The episode has two criminals who want to become the town sheriff and deputy. The criminals slip stolen jewels in Dusty's pocket to make him look suspicious. Dusty finds the stolen jewels in his pocket, and five seconds later, the mayor immediately arrests him with no chance to explain, and also says that these two strangers he just met less than a minute ago now run the sheriff's department lol. There are other equally confusing bits like the guys being dumped into a desert area when they catapult out of jail, then having a mirage, and being launched back into town by a geyser that randomly explodes.

I don't think it would be unfair to say that this is some of the worst writing the franchise has ever seen. The plot is so disorganized that the writing feels like it's tripping over itself to remember what even happened a minute ago. Nothing that happens here really makes sense, and the writing decisions feel like they get increasingly baffling as the episode progresses.

2. Bride and Gloom
We've arrived at our final Yabba-Doo short on this list. This one's plot involves Horrible Homer threatening the town of Tumbleweed, saying that he demands to be given a wife or he will destroy the town. This could be shrugged off as the bad guy being sexist and mean, but the entire episode is a series of weird stereotypes about women. This plays out when Yabba dresses as a woman named "Yabba Sue" to fool Homer into believing he's found a wife. Rather than be excited that he's found someone to love, Homer immediately tells "Yabba Sue" she should get started on his dirty laundry, and then says she needs to do the dishes once his laundry's folded. Other than asking for a kiss in a weirdly bashful way at one point, it would appear that Homer got the definitions for "wife" and "housekeeper" mixed up. Everything he is wanting from Yabba Sue is related to cooking and cleaning, so that he doesn't have to bother with that.

There's another part of the episode that is rather discomforting. Instead of protecting the women of the town, Dusty, Yabba and Scrappy round them all up in the center of town in hopes of appeasing Homer. That part is messed up, especially considering it's been established that this is an awful and creepy man ("horrible" is even in his name).

The episode has aged so poorly that it's uncomfortable to watch in the modern day. I get that it was a different time back then, and I wouldn't have so much of an issue with it if the weird sexist jokes weren't the entire plot of this episode. I would consider this one and the next one worse than any Velma episode, because there is just nothing redeemable here about either of these. I'd honestly be very happy if I never saw this again. 

1. Scooby Dooby Guru
We've reached the bottom of the barrel here, and it is a very deep bottom. To be blunt, we go from a sexist episode to one that is just flat-out racist. The plot has the guys visiting the Taj Mahal. When they walk in the building, Shaggy sees a guard, and remarks "nothing real could be this gruesome!" This isn't a monster or anybody creepy-looking, it's merely just the Indian guard in the above image. Then, Scooby begins pointing and laughing at the way the guard's face looks, despite the guard looking visibly uncomfortable (pictured above). When the guard tries to chase them out of the museum due to their constant antagonism of him, they accidentally trip him and cause him to break the Statue of Vishnu. Instead of apologizing, the guys take no responsibility for ruining this priceless statue, and run out of the museum without saying anything.

What is so bad about this episode is that it relies on ridiculously incorrect stereotypes about Indian people to advance the plot, such as the guard jumping on a random elephant and chasing them around town. The guard's voice is also a very poor impression of how someone from India would sound. This one is embarrassingly bad on a number of levels. I would consider it the worst episode in the franchise, even including Velma, since this whole episode is a string of one racist stereotype after another.

We've gotten past the worst now, so it's time to talk about the best shorts! There are three that I considered for my top 10 that didn't make my list. The first one is "Hard Hat Scooby," featuring Shaggy, Scooby and Scrappy getting jobs at a construction site. Unbeknownst to them, the foreman is a vampire who wants them to build the Vampire State Building. The plot is pretty quirky, but I think it's really fun for what it is!

The second short that just missed my list is "Scooby's Luck of the Irish." I've always had a soft spot for this one, and tend to watch it every year around Saint Patrick's Day. The leprechaun was a fun villain on his own, but I particularly liked the secondary villain of the banshee. The design is super cool, with jagged and crooked teeth, and a huge mouth. I would have loved for the banshee to get their own episode. 

The third episode to just barely miss was "Scooby's Trip to Ahz." Most of the movie parodies didn't really do anything for me, but I found this one to be pretty fun. The Yellow Brick Toad (a parody of the Yellow Brick Road) was voiced by someone doing an impression of Jimmy Durante, which I thought was a cool touch. I also stan the witch's singular flying monkey lol.

10. Hothouse Scooby
I just finished highlighting ten shorts that spotlighted how bad the writing of this series could get, but this episode is one of a few where the writing is so ridiculous that it's amazing. In this episode, the guys starting the Triple S Garden Service, but they quickly find themselves scared out of their wits when they realize their first client is a creature with a garden full of monster plants. The plot of this episode is so wacky, and the tomato-headed man who hires them has a hilarious design. This one goes to show that despite the flaws of this series, the writing can sometimes be so wacky that it's fun.

9. Up a Crazy River
In the same vein of episodes that are hilariously wacky, we have our first and only Yabba-Doo short to make the best list. This one is hilarious because the villains are pirates who are addicted to stealing. The episode starts with Dusty, Yabba and Scrappy catching pirates in the act of robbing a store. When Dusty tries to stop them, they steal his shirt and his pants. Scrappy makes the comment that "Dusty is worth more than gold," and the pirates take this literally and steal him. I have no idea if the writers intended to make the pirates this humorous, but this episode is the only Yabba short that takes its odd writing style and makes it into something fun.

As an aside, this episode also shows us that Tumbleweed has a very troubling crime rate. Early in the episode, one of the pirates casually strolls out of the store carrying the TV he stole in broad daylight, without any weapons or anything. It's rather shocking that crime is so bad there that criminals feel comfortable strolling down the street with their loot, right outside the scene of the crime lol. I was also amused by how uncertain Dusty, Yabba and Scrappy is about actually enforcing the law. They just keep saying things along the lines of "You're gonna be sorry if you do that!" and "Nobody messes with the law in this town," but then they don't actually do anything to stop the pirates as they are actively robbing this store lol.

8. Comic Book Caper
This one doesn't fall into the "so bad it's hilarious" category, and presents us with a rare example of one of these shorts mirroring the classic formula very well. The short's plot has the guys at a Comic Convention, where a comic book is stolen by a comic book creature named Slime Boy. For once, the pacing is actually quite good, and the mystery is interesting to follow, even if it doesn't quite live up to the traditional 22-minute mysteries due to lack of runtime.

7. Scooby-Doo 2000
This is another example of a short that manages to be so zany that it's fun. This episode sees the guys getting jobs cleaning Big Ben, but they discover the clock tower has the secret power to bring people forward in time. The guys are transported to the year 2000, where they see many futuristic inventions. Given it's 2024 now, it's funny to look back all the things the writers predicted would happen in the year 2000. Some of said things include a world with conveyer-belt sidewalks, robots running everything, and devices that could instantly make food. They also run into a giant robotic ape that seems to have gained the ability to think for itself. Many of the futuristic inventions are so oddly specific that they are amusing to look back on now, and make this episode a lot of fun.

6. Where's the Werewolf?
​This is another rare episode with a surprisingly great plot. The episode has the guys going into an old house together, but Scooby accidentally drinks a potion that turns him into a werewolf. While the guys try to turn Scooby back to normal, he is pursued by werewolf hunters. The Werewolf Scooby design (pictured above) is really excellent, and this is one of very few times where there actually manages to be some level of atmosphere to the setting. The plot manages to be so interesting that I wouldn't have minded seeing this as a full-length episode. 

5. Sir Scooby and the Black Knight
This is the last episode on this list to fit the "so bad it's funny" category. On the surface, this is just another mess-around episode in which the guys go into a castle hotel to spend the night, and discover the innkeeper is a knight. What makes this one so funny to me is that at the end, the knight is revealed to be just a random guy who is dressed up for no particular reason. The idea of the gang being chased around someone who is live-action role playing as a monster is hilarious to me lol.

4. Snow Job Too Small
This is one of a few episodes in these series to take on the classic Scooby-Doo formula. The episode features Shaggy, Scooby and Scrappy driving a kid named Wilbur to his uncle's house to claim his inheritance. However, they are pursued at every turn by an Abominable Snowman. The kid is a bit annoying with how whiney and entitled he is, and the snowman's voice sounds kinda goofy, but the episode is really good for what it is. I liked the supernatural vibe that the uncle's house gave, and the mystery was great for such a short episode!

3. Surprised Spies
This episode is loads of fun. The plot involves the government asking Shaggy and Scooby to be secret agents to capture a spy. It's a rather absurd plot, but it's executed so well. When the guys encounter the spy, they have gentlemanly exchanges with him, politely trying to take the secret package he stole back from him. It's just such a goofy episode and I love it for that.

2. Moonlight Madness
We've almost arrived at the best short! This one is so excellent that I would have loved to see it adapted into a full-length episode, or even a movie. Shaggy, Scooby and Scrappy go to Shaggy's ancestral home to stay the night, but they quickly discover that the Rogers family has a horrible curse on it. The house is home to a fabled medallion which has the power to turn any Rogers into a werewolf. While the episode still has antics in it, they're done in such a way that don't detract from the plot, and feel similar to what you might see in a regular 22-minute Scooby episode. This is an excellent one that almost made the #1 spot, but there is one that I like just a little more.

1. A Fit Night Out for Bats
I've always had such a soft spot for this short. This episode starts off with the Mystery Machine getting four flat tires outside a creepy house. The guys go in the house to get help with the tires, but they soon discover it is home to a vampire who is hungry for blood. The vampire, who's named Sylvester, manages to be really endearing. He says that he is excited about getting fresh blood, because he's sick of drinking tomato juice as a substitute lol. Despite his quirky side, he also manages to be spooky in a fun way. I feel this episode demonstrates that these shorts actually could have been decent with better writing. Even with the seven-minute runtime, this episode manages to have a premise that is both fun and enjoyable throughout the whole thing. The plot doesn't digress into chaotic antics or have the guys acting like oblivious jerks; it manages to tell an engaging supernatural story that doesn't feel rushed or half-baked.

I had fun putting together these lists! I hope you enjoyed reading them, and if you want to share your own worst and best lists, I'd love to read them in the comments!

One aspect of this blog I haven't done as much recently is non-news articles. It's a part of this site I really enjoy doing, but it's become a more occasional thing these past couple years. This was for a few reasons, partially personal reasons, but also because I wasn't feeling particularly inspired about any ideas for articles. I was thinking this past week about how it's something about the blog that I miss doing, so I've decided to start up again with posting monthly articles. I will likely do rankings sometimes, but I also don't necessarily want them to become just posting rankings of things every month. Like I mentioned in the 10th anniversary post, the articles I've most enjoyed posting on here have been the ones that are creative projects (i.e. the evolution of technology in Scooby article and the history of the online fandom one), so I'm planning for there to be a balance of different types of articles.

For no reason other than I've been rewatching Buffy the Vampire Slayer lately, I thought it would be fun to restart doing articles by doing a ranking of the vampire episodes and films in the franchise. We've got 19 total episodes, so here we go!

19. Vild Vest Vampire
This is my favorite episode of the Yabba-Doo shorts, but that isn't saying all that much considering I find many of them to be amongst the worst episodes of the franchise. The vampire here is kind of neat, and I thought his ability to turn people into zombies was cool. His design leaves something to be desired imo, considering he's just a guy with a hat and a moustache lol. The main reason this is above the other Yabba shorts for me is the supernatural element, but the rushed plot doesn't come anywhere close to the level of most of the rest of these for me. I also thought the ending of everybody bathing in washtubs outside the town's "Fost Office" (yes, there's a typo in the sign lol) was a bit of an odd way to end it.

18. Music of the Vampire
I'll be honest, this has never really been one of my favorite Scooby movies. I feel like there have been films/episodes where the musical aspect has been done well in the Scooby franchise; Scooby Goes Hollywood and "The High School Wolfman's Musical Lament!" being the two that come to mind. To me, the musical parts of the film felt a little forced in, and didn't really fit with the plot like they did in the aforementioned two examples. This is my bottom 10 Scooby films.

17. Coast to Ghost
I do like the aesthetic this episode offers, and it's a really cool premise! I like the idea of the gang traveling cross-country to save Vincent and race against the clock, and the museum was an excellent setting. I really like Rankor's design as well. However, there are a number of confounding writing decisions that bring this one down for me. It's odd to me how Rankor is subservient to SAPS considering he is supposed to be one of the 13 most powerful ghosts in the world. Him not only willingly going into the chest, but thanking the gang and calling them "pals" is also a rather mind-boggling writing choice lol.

16. Who's Minding the Monster?
The plot of this one involves Daphne, Shaggy and the dogs babysitting for Dracula and his wife, because their usual babysitter, Frankenstein, has abandoned them. While Daphne and Scrappy search the woods for the babysitter, Shaggy and Scooby realize that they are sitting for a werewolf baby. While I thought the plot was interesting, the execution felt all over the place, and divulged too much into antics at times. The vampire designs were also pretty mediocre imo, and I also thought Dracula's nickname for his wife being "Poopsie" was rather dumb. It's by no means a bad episode, but not one I return to a lot.

15. Hard Hat Scooby
This one is pretty fun! The plot of Shaggy and the dogs not realizing their foreman is a vampire is a really good plot, and it's one of the more memorable shorts. The vampire's design is nothing super special, but I thought it was cool for what it was.

14. Super Scary Movie Night
​This Get a Clue episode utilizes one of my favorite tropes of having all the Universal Monsters teaming up. The vampire only makes a few appearances in this episode, so it doesn't stand out to me as much as a vampire episode. Still, it's a really fun episode regardless - having the Universal Monsters invade Shaggy and Scooby's mansion during their scary movie marathon was a very unique plot, and it manages to feel very reminiscent of the Scooby formula. The money-hungry mummy has always amused me as a villain, so that is also a bonus in this episode's favor lol.

13. A Fit Night Out for Bats
I've always found this short cute! This episode is a rare episode of the seven-minute episodes that's able to build a spooky atmosphere. Sylvester is also an excellent villain, arguably one of the best of these shots. His quirk of being pouty of having to drink tomato juice because there's no blood around is kind of endearing, haha. This is my favorite Scrappy short.

12. Me and My Shadow Demon
I love the atmosphere of this episode! Morbidia's castle is really creepy, and is one of the best settings of this show imo. Morbidia was a great villain with a neat design, although I wish her screen time hadn't been so limited. The Shadow Demon is one of the coolest villains of the series, so I would have loved for him to get his own episode, and have Morbidia get more of a focus in her own. Another minor nitpick I had with this one is that I wasn't a fan of the songs. Overall though, this is one of my favorites of the series for its amazing atmosphere and excellent villains.

11. The Secret Serum
This episode isn't among my favorites of its series, but it is still really good. The vampire's design here is neat for how much it stands out compared to the other vampire designs of the franchise. The mystery is really solid, and the quest aspect of the gang having to find the ingredients really raises the stakes (no pun intended lol). I also loved the added twist of Daphne believing the vampire is her mom.

10. I Left My Neck in San Francisco
We've reached the top 10, and it gets really tough from here! This has always been one of my favorites of The Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo Show. The Lady Vampire is a great villain with a cool design, and the fact that Daphne is the prime suspect makes this one very interesting. The San Francisco setting is also really well-done, and the mystery in this episode is overall amongst the strongest of its series.

9. Scooby's Peep Hole Pandemonium
Most people would probably put this one above "I Left My Neck in San Francisco," but I've always had a huge soft spot for this one. I think it is both one of the best and most underrated Scrappy-Doo episodes of the franchise. Daphne having to sneak into a spooky house to get a story sets up a really interesting premise for the episode. Norma's house is an amazing setting, and it arguably is able to create one of the strongest atmospheres of any 11 minute episodes in this era. Norma and Franklin Stein in particular are excellent villains, and even though the mummy isn't as creepy as they are, the mystery surrounding her is interesting. What I love most about this episode is the twist at the end after the reveal. The execution of the twist is amazingly done, and I'm especially impressed with it considering how action-packed the rest of this 11 minute episode is.

8. Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf
Many of you know that I have a huge soft spot for the Superstar 10 films. This is my least favorite of them, but that is definitely a relative term as it's still one of my favorite films of the franchise. Shaggy being captured by Dracula and turned into a werewolf is such a cool plot, and I love the atmosphere of the castle. While I would have put this film in my top 5 films of the entire franchise a few years ago, it has gone a little in my rankings. In recent rewatches, I've felt the racing antics bog down the plot just a bit in the second half, but it's still a top-notch film. Another thing that brings this one down a little for me in terms of this ranking is that I've never been crazy about Dracula's design.

7. How to Train Your Coward
This one didn't stand out to me quite as much when I first watched it, but it's really soared up in my rankings in recent rewatches. The vampire's design in this episode is extremely creepy, more so than a lot of the vampires in the franchise imo. The castle is also a really strong setting here. This episode's strongest point is easily the humor, which I feel is really on-point alongside the rest of the beginning of season 2. The first half of season 2 is where Be Cool shined the most in terms of humor imo, and this episode is a great example of that. This episode also exemplifies another core aspect of the series, that being how character-driven it is. Shaggy and Scooby threatening to leave reinforces how important each of the gang member's roles are very well.

6. A Gaggle of Galloping Ghosts
I had a really tough time deciding what didn't make the top 5. Regardless of this one not making it, it's still an iconic episode. This is one of the first episodes that come to mind for me when I think of a Scooby-Doo vampire episode, mainly because of the iconic villain and setting. I love the vampire's design here, and the fact that there are three monsters running around makes the stakes feel a lot higher. Franken Castle has such a strong atmosphere as the setting, and feels like it fits these monsters perfectly. The mystery here is interesting and quite well-written too, especially considering the lack of suspects in the episode.

5. The Vampire Strikes Back
This is an iconic What's New episode. I go back and forth between this, "It's Mean, It's Green, It's the Mystery Machine" and "Simple Plan and the Invisible Madman" being my favorite from the series, but this is my current favorite. The castle setting is immaculate, and is arguably the darkest and creepiest setting of this show. The amount of detail put into the vampire's design and the pupil-less eyes make him look really creepy. The mystery here is also intricate and very well-written. And if all that wasn't enough, we also have my favorite recurring characters, The Hex Girls, in this episode!

4. Legend of the Vampire
Speaking of The Hex Girls, they're here again in this episode! This is easily a top 10 Scooby film for me. The Yowie Yahoo has the scariest vampire design of the franchise imo, and the fact that he is so giant and has such a deep voice makes him feel nightmarish. The Wildwind Vampires' designs are also amazing! I loved the mystery surrounding the singers disappearing from the music festival, and the fact that recurring characters you know and love (The Hex Girls) are here make you even more invested in the mystery. The film also feels very cinematic, and manages to be a smooth transition from the iconicness of the Mook era where it doesn't feel like a significant downgrade or anything.

3. Ghoul School
I really debated where to put this one, since the only reason this qualifies is because of Sybella and her father. It is my favorite Scooby movie, but it also didn't feel fair to put it above two other episodes which I love and come to mind much more for the theme. The plot of the guys teaching at a monster school is so much fun, and I really like the slow burn of Shaggy and the dogs getting to know and trust the girl ghouls over the first half of the film. While some might find the fact that Revolta doesn't really appear much until the second half to be poor pacing, I feel like the film is structured perfectly. The slower first half allows the atmosphere of the school to feel more cozy, and makes Revolta's kidnapping of the girl ghouls feel so much more impactful than it otherwise would have. In terms of the vampires, Sybella has always been my favorite of the girl ghouls, and I like her dad's design as well.

2. A Halloween Hassle at Dracula's Castle
I've mentioned before that the episodes with Universal monsters teaming up are always amongst my all-time favorites, and this one is certainly no exception. This episode is a masterpiece, and is definitely my favorite Halloween episode of the franchise. Dracula's castle is the most atmospheric setting of this show imo. Even the short scene with the costume is able to create a spooky atmosphere, with Fred and Velma's alien prank and the howling winds at the beginning of the episode. The plot is really cool too, where the gang is surprised by the partygoers all being real monsters, only for the real monsters to ask for help about the ghost that they're afraid of. This is one of my favorite episodes of the franchise, but one episode manages to beat this as my favorite vampire episode.

1. Vampire Bats and Scaredy Cats
The second season of The Scooby-Doo Show is collectively my all-time favorite season of a Scooby-Doo show, due to the whole season being full of amazing episodes. This episode rises to the top of the season for me as my favorite episode. The atmosphere of the hotel is super dark and creepy, especially considered the gang is on an isolated island in the middle of the night. Some scenes in particular, like Lisa's transformation and the vampire calling Lisa in the dark room, stand out as being some of the darkest scenes of the franchise up to that point. The vampire is an excellent villain and his design is very creepy. It's also worth noting that the culprit's motivation is also probably the most dark and twisted of the franchise. Scooby-Dum is also in this episode, but despite his goofy aesthetic, he manages to fit in really well with this episode and does not detract from the tone at all. This is an iconic episode and, even to this date, remains one of the darkest episodes of all-time for the franchise.

​With that, those are my rankings! I had a lot of fun putting this article together, and I hope you enjoyed reading it. I looked back at the vampire poll we did back in 2021, and it looks like that was before people started doing rankings in the comments. If people want to share their own rankings in the comments, I'd love to read them!

Fifty-five years ago today, the first episode of Scooby-Doo, "What a Night for a Knight," aired for the first time on CBS. Right now, we're in a very odd period of transition for the franchise. Besides the impending Velma Halloween special, there is no Scooby-Doo series currently airing. We also have no announcement of if there any DTVs coming out this year, or anywhere in the near future. I've already reviewed and ranked the movies back in 2022, which you can check out here if you haven't already. However, besides a few off-handed mentions in various comment sections, I haven't talked in-depth on here about my thoughts about the various eras as a whole. As we reflect back on the past 55 years, and look towards the future of what's next for Scooby-Doo, I thought it would be fun to look back at all the film eras we've had in the franchise. ​To differentiate it from the previous movie rankings post, I'll be rating and discussing all of the eras as a whole. At the bottom of each section, I'll include how I'd rank the movies. My film rankings are still quite similar to my 2022 post linked above, but at the bottom of this post, I'll also give my updated film rankings.

Superstars 10 Era (1987 and 1988)
Rating: 9.5/10
Those of you who have been visiting this blog for a while will know that I absolutely adore this era of Scooby. These were the first Scooby films I ever saw as a kid, so I have a lot of nostalgia over them in the same way as I do The New Scooby-Doo Movies. I really like how experimental this era was, while doing it in a way that remained true to the franchise's roots.

In my opinion, while the Scrappy shorts had some episodes that involved mysteries, the seven-minute runtime stifled the ability to create any compelling plot that wasn't just run-around antics. Some episodes did better than others, but even the best episodes of that series were only decent to good. However, these films did an amazing job capturing the dynamic of Shaggy, Scooby and Scrappy, even while still keeping in some of the antics-based stuff, like the Billy Bob subplot in Boo Brothers or the slow exposition of the guys getting into various antics while teaching the girl ghouls. Not only this, but the writing of the mysteries was a huge step up from those shorts. Boo Brothers feels like it is excellently able to pull off a classic Scooby-Doo haunted house plot, with the twist of some of the ghosts being potentially real and the plot being built around a scavenger hunt. It feels like a natural extension of what we saw in the first few series, and remains my second-favorite Scooby movie of all time.

While Ghoul School doesn't capture that classic tone as much, it's still a really fun adventure that, again, feels like a natural extension of the franchise's core formula. Shaggy and Scooby having to face their fear of monsters by teaching kindhearted girl ghouls was a really cool angle to explore, and I like how the slow exposition allows us to get to know the girl ghouls and realize that they're not as scary as Shaggy and Scooby think. I also feel the tone is able to successfully shift to a darker tone towards the end of the film when the Revolta plot picks up. The film overall does a great job of creating compelling, likeable side-characters that we want to root for. For those who don't know, this is my favorite Scooby movie of all time.

While my nostalgia for the other two films has remained unchanged since childhood, my feelings on Reluctant Werewolf have changed a little over the years. It was always my least favorite of the three films, although calling any of these films "least favorite" feels odd because they're all in my top 10 Scooby films. 5 years ago, this film would have been in my top 5. However, I have worn a bit on this film because I feel the plot gets a little bogged down in antics during the race. My change in opinion feels kind of ironic, because the race part was always my favorite as a kid lol. That all said, I still have so much nostalgia over this film, partially because I have a huge soft spot for plots that involve all the Universal Monsters teaming up. I'd still consider this to be a top 10 film, and I think it's one I'll always have a lot of nostalgia over, but the plot getting bogged down midway through makes this one not quite as good as the other two imo.

Overall, I'd give this era a 9.5/10. It's an incredible era that I have so much nostalgia over, but I'll take a half a point off because I don't feel Reluctant Werewolf is quite as strong of a movie as the other two.

These would be my rankings:
1. Ghoul School (10/10)
2. Boo Brothers (10/10)
3. Reluctant Werewolf (9/10)

Mook Animation Era (1998-2001)
Rating: 10/10
This remains the most incredible era of Scooby-Doo. Everything here is perfect, from the evolved, mature characterizations, amazing villains, and incredibly well-written mysteries. The atmosphere of these films feels so nostalgic and peaceful, and really helps to create a strong tone for the films. I've gushed about these films many times, so I'll keep this one short as not to repeat myself, and just leave it at saying how amazing it would be if they returned to making films with this same style and tone. All of these films are 10/10 in my book. 

1. Zombie Island
2. Witch's Ghost
3. Alien Invaders
4. Cyber Chase

What's New Era (2004-2009)
Rating: 8/10
I love how the atmosphere of these films feel like they perfectly capture the tone of the What's New series. What I like most about this era is how cinematic these films feel, which is something that I feel has been a little lost in more recent films. If WB is thinking about starting a new era, I personally would love to see another era of films that felt cinematic in the same way these did. To me, the difference between these films and some of the more recent ones is that these movies felt like they tackled plots that couldn't have been properly serviced in episodes, because there wouldn't have been enough time. While I have enjoyed the recent films, I feel many of them could have been made into 22 minute episodes, and they still would have had the same atmosphere. I would love to see a return to this era someday, and would argue that it would be a safe alternative that would likely please most fans, if WB didn't want to do something as risky as doing a major reboot of the entire franchise with a film like Zombie Island.

The one aspect that I feel brought these films down a tiny bit was the shift to focusing so much on Shaggy and Scooby separating from the gang. It worked really well in Goblin King, which was such a unique, interesting film for how magical and fantastical it was. I feel it worked moderately well in Chill Out and Samurai Sword, but the films would have been a bit stronger if Fred, Daphne and Velma had larger roles imo. I'm assuming maybe Get a Clue only focusing on Shaggy and Scooby led to WB wanting to experiment with Shaggy and Scooby having the biggest roles in regular continuity films, but I feel the formula works best when the whole gang has prominent roles.

Here are my rankings of these films:
1. Goblin King (9/10)
2. Where's My Mummy? (9/10)
3. Pirates Ahoy (8/10)
4. Loch Ness Monster (8/10)
5. Aloha (8/10)
6. Chill Out (7/10)
7. Samurai Sword (6.5/10)

Live Action Films
I realize these aren't an official "era," but I also didn't want to completely gloss over them. I mentioned in my movie rankings that I think the first two live-action films are pretty good, but I've never had the nostalgia that some fans have had over them. My biggest issue with the film is that Freddie Prinze Jr's Fred doesn't do it for me; his characterization makes Fred seem full of himself and kind of jerkish at times. I also didn't love Scrappy being the villain, although that's kind of a retroactive souring on my part due to the 20+ years of "haha Scrappy sucks!" jokes that followed. Shaggy, Daphne and Velma were very well cast though, and as a fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I especially thought Sarah Michelle Gellar did an amazing job as Daphne.

This is a bit of a controversial take, but I liked Mystery Begins better. The gang's characterizations feel more natural and down-to-Earth than they did in the film, and I really liked the mystery. It doesn't have the same cinematic feel as the previous two live-action films, but I would argue that it didn't need to. The quaint, simple storytelling is what makes this film appealing imo. On the other hand, I didn't like Curse of the Lake Monster at all and it's my least favorite of all five live-action films. I thought it tried too hard to be like SDMI with the Shaggy and Velma romance, which overshadowed the film quite a bit imo. Although it wasn't toxic like in Mystery Incorporated, the romantic subplot felt a bit random and shoehorned in, which was a problem given how much focus there was on it.

This is even more of a controversial take lol, but Daphne & Velma is my favorite of the live-action movies. As I mentioned just a few weeks ago in a different post, while it was far from perfect, I really appreciated the experimental plot. It was really cool to see them explore an origin story where the gang doesn't all meet at once.

In terms of my rating, I don't think it's fair to give all the live action films one rating as if they were a single era. They all have a vastly different tone and atmosphere to them, so it makes more sense to give ratings for each group of live-action films individually. I'd give the first two and Mystery Begins/Curse of the Lake Monster each 6/10. I did like Mystery Begins more than the first two live-action films, but it's greatly brought down by Lake Monster. I'd give Daphne & Velma a 8/10. This would be my ranking:

1. Daphne & Velma
2. Mystery Begins
3. Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed
4. Scooby-Doo
5. Curse of the Lake Monster

I'll briefly talk about the LEGO films as well. I honestly really don't have much to say about Haunted Hollywood, other than it was decent but forgettable. With Blowout Beach Bash, I found the plot to be really poor, and I thought the songs were annoying. The mystery feels like it drags on imo, and while I don't remember the exact time, I believe it's over 30 minutes into the film before the villains appear. I would give these two films a collective 4/10.

1. Haunted Hollywood (6/10)
​2. Blowout Beach Bash (2/10)

Modern Era
Rating: 6/10
It feels a bit tougher to decipher the eras beginning with 2010. In a way, Abracadabra Doo feels like the last big reboot we've had, and the films have been relatively similar with some changes throughout the era. On the other hand, it feels a bit strange to put Camp Scare and films like Krypto Too in the same era, because they have significant differences in tone and writing. Given this, I thought it made most sense to divide this era up into a few sub-eras. I'll rate the modern era as a whole, but I will also give the individual sub-eras ratings.

1. 2010-2018 Era
Rating: 7/10
I'm not really sure what else to call this era, but the tone of these films feels mostly the same despite the latter half including crossovers, with a few exceptions at the beginning. Overall, I think the 2010-2018 era was good, but doesn't quite reach the level of great. The era started out incredibly strong with two heavy-hitters, Abracadabra Doo and Camp Scare, which remain amongst my favorite Scooby-Doo films of all time. The writing of those films was really strong, and I would have loved to see the era continue with films like those. Beginning with Legend of the Phantosaur, I felt the films were consistently good, but didn't quite reach the level of greatness of those first two films. If I had to sum it up, I would say the biggest reason they didn't is because many of the films felt like extended episodes. They didn't quite have that same cinematic feel, and for the most part, many of them felt like they could have been condensed into 22-minute (or perhaps even 44-minute) episodes. That's not to say I found them bad at all - pretty much all of them, except for Music of the Vampire, were good films. They just didn't quite have the same magic as those first two films, and feel generally less memorable than the films that came before.

In the later part of this sub-era, I enjoyed the crossovers for the most part, and remember being intrigued when I first heard the announcements of Scooby teaming up with unexpected celebrities like WWE and KISS. After a while though, I felt myself getting a bit burned out on all the crossovers, particularly after we continued to get them while Guess Who was airing. Not that I disliked the crossovers, but getting them constantly detracts from the specialness of them imo. I've given it some thought, and I would be okay with continuing to get crossovers in the future as long as they were more spaced out (I think a crossover film every two or three years would be a good balance). I'm hoping that if we are in fact getting the Gremlins Getaway film, that it's the last crossover we get for a while.

Here would be my rankings for this sub-era. Note that I'm not including the LEGO films or Mystery Map.

1. Camp Scare (9/10)
2. Abracadabra Doo (9/10)
3. Shaggy's Showdown (8/10)
4. Mask of the Blue Falcon (8/10)
5. Stage Fright (7/10)
6. Brave and the Bold (7/10)
7. Gourmet Ghost (7/10)
8. FrankenCreepy (6.5/10)
9. Legend of the Phantosaur (6.5/10)
10. WrestleMania Mystery (6/10)
11. Moon Monster Madness (6/10)
12. Curse of the Speed Demon (6/10)
13. Music of the Vampire (5/10)
14. Rock and Roll Mystery (4/10)

2. 50th Anniversary Trilogy
Rating: 4/10
​I've made my thoughts on these pretty clear, so I'll keep this short. I don't feel either of the two sequels remained faithful to the originals, and I've soured on them quite a bit since Jim Krieg has stated these "sequels" were just attempts to retcon aspects of the franchise that doesn't like. I feel the writers did a good job with what they had, particularly with Curse of the 13th Ghost, but ultimately I just can't get into these films after he revealed the intent behind them.

I do have a bit of a soft spot for Happy Halloween and liked how they tried out a different formula. The car chase was a little bit long, but overall, I thought this was a fun film and it's one I still return to every Halloween. In terms of viewing these films as a trilogy, the random dropping of the Mystery Machine plotline brings it down a bit for me. Maxwell Atoms stated in an interview that the idea of recovering/rebuilding the Mystery Machine being destroyed was thrown at him at the last minute, and for creative purposes, he decided it could not naturally fit into the film. I think this decision totally makes sense on his part given the circumstances, but ultimately, it doesn't make for a very cohesive trilogy when this major plotline isn't fully addressed. Combined with my dislike of the other two sequels, this is easily my least favorite sub-era in the franchise.

1. Happy Halloween (8/10)
2. Curse of the 13th Ghost (4/10)
3. Return to Zombie Island (1/10)

3. 2021-2023
Rating: 7/10
Overall, I feel this final sub-era has ranged from decently good, to a couple films reaching the level of great. The Sword and the Scoob isn't the most memorable film, but overall I felt it was good. The Courage film was really well-written, and I liked the darker tone of the film. It's the only film in the past decade besides Scoob! and Daphne & Velma to make my top 20 films. I liked how Trick or Treat experimented with zany, random humor towards the end, and I also really enjoyed the mystery and villain. I liked Krypto Too as well, but would rank it as my least favorite of these films. This sub-era feels like a hodgepodge of everything, so it's tough to give it a rating, but if I had to give it an average ranking, I'd give it a 7/10. Even then, Krypto Too and Sword and the Scoob aren't bad, they're just not necessarily super memorable.

My only real issue with these, which is an issue I had with Guess Who as well, is the character development. I feel the writers have latched onto keeping the gang's development mostly limited to give it a "classic" feel, but I am a bit confused why they just latched onto this one element of the classic series without taking into account the other stuff that made the original series feel how it did. The original series had more of a focus on tone, atmosphere and mystery, but the recent DTVs (and Guess Who) have only honed in on the limited character development to try to give the franchise a nostalgic feel.

I don't feel this significantly detracts from the movies, but it can make them feel a bit bland at times, especially in full-length movies where we're spending a lot of time with the gang, and could benefit from having more complex character development like in What's New, SDMI, Be Cool, and the Mook/2000s/early 2010s films. A part of me thinks that perhaps it's part of the current mindset of WB execs, since Krieg has shared that he has a more narrow view of the franchise's classic formula being "real estate developers in masks." Personally, I feel this is an oversimplification of what the franchise can be. We have seen so many different iterations of the franchise over the past 55 years, many of which we arguably wouldn't have seen if they would have made 55 seasons of Where Are You, or tried to force the franchise to fit into a narrow view of constantly remaining "classic." I think there are ways to experiment with the formula that retain the classic elements of the franchise that we all know and love, so it makes me happy to see that they're continuing to make shows that develop different aspects of the franchise, like the upcoming Go-Go Mystery Machine and the Netflix live-action series.

Here are my ratings for this sub-era:
1. Straight Outta Nowhere (8/10)
2. Trick or Treat (8/10)
3. Sword and the Scoob (7/10)
4. Krypto Too (7/10)

To wrap up this post, I wanted to share my updated ranking of the films. My top 10 is almost the same as it was two years ago, other than Where's My Mummy? replacing Daphne & Velma, which falls to #20. This was a pretty recent change to my rankings that happened just a couple months ago, when I rewatched Daphne & Velma and didn't quite have as strong of love for it as I had in the past (although I still really like the film, even if it's no longer top 10). The same happened for Trick or Treat, which fell out of my top 20 and was replaced by Straight Outta Nowhere.

The other biggest change is with my bottom four films. Return to Zombie Island goes to being my least favorite film, mainly because of the intent behind it, while Arabian Nights jumps to being my second-least favorite. Blowout Beach Bash shifts to being my third least-favorite, as in hindsight, I feel it's not quite as bad as Return to Zombie Island and Arabian Nights. Curse of the 13th Ghost moves to fourth least-favorite, as while I feel there was ill-intent behind it like with Return to Zombie Island, I feel Tim Sheridan did a pretty good job with what he was given despite the strict executive mandates, and there are overall quite a few good parts of the film despite the ending not providing any sense of conclusion to the series.

​1. Ghoul School
2. Boo Brothers
3. Zombie Island
4. Witch’s Ghost
5. Alien Invaders
6. Cyber Chase
7. Reluctant Werewolf
8. Goblin King
9. Legend of the Vampire
10. Where’s My Mummy?
11. Camp Scare
12. Abracadabra Doo
13. Monster of Mexico
14. Pirates Ahoy
15. Loch Ness Monster
16. Scooby Goes Hollywood
17. Aloha
18. Scoob!
19. Straight Outta Nowhere
20. Daphne & Velma
21. Shaggy’s Showdown
22. Mystery Begins
23. Trick or Treat
24. Mask of the Blue Falcon
25. Chill Out
26. Stage Fright
27. Brave and the Bold
28. Happy Halloween
29. Gourmet Ghost
30. FrankenCreepy
31. Legend of the Phantosaur
32. Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed
33. Sword and the Scoob
34. Samurai Sword
35. Moon Monster Madness
36. WrestleMania Mystery
36. Moon Monster Madness
37. Big Top
38. Krypto Too
39. Haunted Hollywood
40. Mystery Map
41. Curse of the Speed Demon
42. Scooby-Doo
43. Music of the Vampire
44. Curse of the Lake Monster
45. Rock and Roll Mystery
46. Curse of the 13th Ghost
47. Blowout Beach Bash
48. Arabian Nights
49. Return to Zombie Island

I hope you enjoyed reading this post! If you have thoughts about the direction you'd like to see the next era of DTVs take, or have your own rankings you'd like to share, I'd love to read them in the comments!

I've talked before on here about my love of Crystal Cove Online, an Internet game designed by Cartoon Network as a companion to Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated. For those unfamiliar with the game and haven't read my past posts on this, essentially the game adapted each Mystery Incorporated episode into a video game level. This included creating "minions" for each of the villains for the player to have to defeat, which weren't in the episodes. This was always one of my favorite parts of playing the level each week, because sometimes the side-enemies would be really creative and interesting.

Recently, I was quite excited when a friend and frequent visitor of the blog, Grumpydrawer, sent me the final sprite images of each of the different minions and villains found via the game's files in Flashpoint. In the game, the minions show up briefly and move quickly to attack you, so it's a bit tough to make out certain features of their designs. These images of each of the minions allow you to see their designs in great detail. To my knowledge, these designs have never been shared online before, and this is the first time they're being posted in high-quality. I wanted to share these images with you all, as I think they are really cool, and was amazed by the level of detail put into them. I particularly think the shrunken head looks really frightening and gruesome for something in Scooby-Doo.

The minions are listed in order of the episodes. Note that "A Haunting in Crystal Cove" is the only level to have two different types of minions, which are living bear rugs and haunted chairs. "Escape from Mystery Manor" re-uses the rats from "Beware the Beast from Below" as minions. There are also a few minions that don't appear in levels, but are still in the game, which include caterpillars, flies, and wasps. For some reason, the image of the fly that was found only shows it from the back. I also added Thorn's design, since the design for her was found as well.

The images for each of the villains were also uncovered. While all of them were also the villains of their respective episodes, I'm including them here as well because some of them have interesting differences in coloring or design. Examples of this would include "Nightfright," where he is colored red instead of purple, and "All Fear the Freak," where  The Freak's skin color is more ghoulish rather than just white. I actually like the game's design for The Freak a little better than the actual episode!

In addition, because the Fish Freaks were made into minions for its respective level, the boss fight was against one larger Fish Freak, who appears to have some differences in facial features to make him look more monstrous. There are some other very minor differences as well, such as the Headless Horror looking a bit skinnier than in the episode.

Other notable differences in the game adaption include that female gator monster was not a boss villain in the game, although she did show up during the unmasking and it's just said Fred, Velma and Daphne caught her off-screen. In addition, the boss fight in the "Secret of the Ghost Rig" level was against a ghost-truck driver, since the challenge of fighting a truck would likely be immense considering Shaggy's only weapon is an umbrella lol.

Here are the villain images from the game:

I hope you enjoyed this little blast from the past! I had a lot of fun looking through these images, and think it's so cool that these designs were discovered so they could be posted here as an archive. I don't have the page on the side menu, since the game is technically discontinued, but I did make a page on Crystal Cove Online detailing pretty much every piece of info you could ever want to know about the game. With these designs now available, I gave the page a redesign over the past few days, and I think it looks really cool with the villain and side-villain designs added. You can check the page out here.

As I posted about a few weeks ago, some old concept art and storyboards from SCOOB! have recently surfaced thanks to the Behind the Scoobs Instagram account. In that post, I did a brief write-up in the linked post about how the film drastically changed from what it was originally supposed to be. I was enjoying following their SCOOB! concept art while they were posting, and I was inspired to do a deeper dive on how the original film would have differed from what we ended up getting. From what I can find, there isn't one comprehensive article that tells the story of the original concept for SCOOB!, so I thought it would be fun to compile that story myself, and share it with you all through interviews, concept art and news articles. Just so it's clear, all of the concept art and other materials were found and shared previously with the fandom around the time SCOOB! came out, so I am not linking to any new information that hasn't been seen before.

Disclaimer: All of the concept art I'm linking to is all publicly available on the web and can be viewed by anyone. All concept art is owned by the individual artists and Warner Brothers-Discovery, and will be credited to the respective artists in each instance they are referenced throughout the post. To avoid any potential copyright or crediting issues, I will be linking to the places where the concept art is posted on the Internet rather than including the images directly in this post. I do not take credit for any of the concept art linked to.

In addition, there is no definitive source to tell us what the movie would have been about. This is just me piecing things together based on my own interpretation of the interviews, concept art, and news articles that are out there, and I make no claims as to whether my interpretations are correct or not.

If any of the artists or anyone at Warner-Brothers Discovery has any issues with me sharing links to this publicly available concept art, please don't hesitate to reach out and I will be happy to remove the links from this post. 

For those who don't know, SCOOB! was originally announced as far back as August 2013 via Variety. Charles Roven and Richard Suckle, who produced the first two live action movies, were set to produce the film. Matt Lieberman was the first person hired to write the script. Another announcement was later made in June 2014, sharing Randall Green had joined the writing team, and also that it would "reboot" the franchise.

Early concepts featured a much more experimental tone, involving the Mystery Inc. gang joining forces with former villains to stop a larger threat. In a storyboard posted on Nassos Vakalis's art portfolio website (the third one in the second row), The Creeper joined forces with Simone from Zombie Island to stop some demonic creatures. This concept was later scrapped.

On the movie's release day in 2020, Matt Lieberman shared in an interview with SyFyWire that SCOOB! originally was titled S.C.O.O.B., standing for Special Covert Organization of Otherworldly Beings. Despite the acronym being written out of the movie, the title was kept. A different interview with Matt Lieberman confirmed 80% of the basic plot of the film stayed the same in the final version; it was just the atmosphere and scenes that changed.

In August 2015, it was announced that Tony Cervone would direct the film, and his wife Allison Abbate would help produce it alongside Roven and Suckle. It was also announced that Dan Povenmire would executive produce the film. In April 2016, Entertainment Weekly reported that the film could lead to a Hanna-Barbera Cinematic Universe, providing the official tagline of "our first shot at unlocking the whole Hanna-Barbera Universe."

In September 2016, Dax Shepard was announced as a writer and director for the film by Variety, and the release date was announced as September 21, 2018. In May 2017, Variety reported an update that the release date would be pushed back to May 15, 2020. According to a Variety article from 2017, S.C.O.O.B. was originally supposed to be Hanna-Barbera's version of the Avengers/Justice League, with a group of heroes teaming up to stop Dick Dastardly and Muttley. 

A piece of concept art from 2015 by character designer Paul Sullivan on his website, shows one of the concepts that was considered for this "Justice League" of Hanna-Barbera characters. As can be seen from this art, the original concept included more than just Blue Falcon, Dynomutt, Dee Dee and Captain Caveman. Jabberjaw, Penelope Pitstop, Atom Ant, and Grape Ape were also originally a part of the film, but were written out in the final version. An art portfolio page by Alex Konstad shows some much darker, more sinister concept art for the film was at one point considered. This page also shows that Captain Caveman appears to have originally had a much bigger role in the film than just the brief scene that he got. According to Konstad's Instagram, he pitched The Great Gazoo from The Flintstones as the villain, similar to how Scrappy was made the villain of the first live action film.

In the original version of the film, there was a mystery with a zombie named Dr. Bandersnatch planned as a villain. Artist Bill Robinson posted designs on his Instagram for the villain, which appear to have maybe been inspired by Dr. Coffin from "The Harum Scarum Sanitarium." Robinson's Instagram caption mentions the character was from a "cut scene," meaning it could have also just been an opening scene, rather than part of the main plot. Sheriff Stone would have also made an appearance in the film, according to another Instagram post by Bill Robinson.

The film originally appears to have gone much deeper into Greek lore, as can be seen in a few other storyboard animatics on artist Nassos Valakis's website. The Greek lore looks like it would have been more heavily embedded into the whole film with a darker tone. Alex Konstad's site features captions on some of the concept art like "The Gates of Hell" and "It Follows," which may further hint to the darker tone this film originally had. A design on John Nevarez's website even shows Dick Dastardly meeting what appears to be the Grim Reaper.

In September 2018, it was announced by Variety that Dax Shepard was no longer involved with the project. Tony Cervone remained as the sole director, and Kelly Freamon-Craig replaced Shepard as a co-writer. It was also announced that Chris Colombus would produce the film, and that Derek Elliott and Jack Donaldson had written a previous draft of the script. This appears to have been the turning point for the film, as much of the cast and story as we know them today starting getting announced in March 2019.

So, why were all these changes made? I was curious about this too, so I did some research to see if I could find any official statements from the crew who worked on the film about the shift of direction from the original version. In an interview with Michael J. Lee of RadioFree, Tony Cervone shared that a struggle the film faced is that telling the story through the lens of the broader Hanna-Barbera universe caused a sort of identity crisis for the film, because there were too many characters to be properly developed.

"Scooby and Shaggy really just wanted to be Scooby and Shaggy, you know?" Cervone shares. "We spent a lot of time thinking about, "Should we create one overall look that can fill this whole universe?" Like, how are we going to create one look that accommodates Fred Jones and Dick Dastardly? They're so radically different. And we just did it the Hanna-Barbera way, and the Hanna-Barbera way mixed stuff up all the time. I knew Iwao Takamoto, and I knew a lot of the Hanna-Barbera people, and in a way, I was just kind of listening to them in my head, and they were all like, "Play to the characters' strengths, listen to the characters. And I think that's kind of what led us, and where we eventually wound up."

Producer Pam Coats adds on to Cervone's sentiment in another interview with CinemaBlend: "At the core you want to end this movie really emotionally attached to Scooby and Shaggy, Dastardly and Muttley, and Dynomutt and Blue Falcon, and we couldn't do that with those characters there."

Tony Cervone, who took part in this same interview, added "I think when we first started this was much more like Hanna-Barbera Avengers, and then somehow along the way the more time we spent with Scooby and Shaggy, we were just like, 'This is all we care about.' Scooby and Shaggy had their own gravity that took up space."

In an interview with ComingSoon.net, Tony Cervone explained that Marvel's Spider Man: Into the Spider-Verse was an inspiration for the creative team.

"Just like “Into the Spider-Verse”, the “Spider-Man” movie Sony made, was such a great representation of New York, we wanted to do that for L.A. We wanted this movie to feel like, “I could drive down that street. I know where that is.” And we knew we would go to some very fantastical places, so we wanted our Southern California to feel idealized but still kind of real." Cervone shared.

In a sense, the Avengers/Into the Spider-Verse metaphor is perhaps the best way to sum up the difference between the other version of the film, and the final version we saw. The original concept was focused on the broader Hanna-Barbera universe and was larger-than-life, similar to what Avengers is within the Marvel Universe, whereas the final version is a much more grounded picture that focused on a specific group of characters' universe, like Spider-Verse is in relation to the rest of the Marvel Universe.

I had a lot of fun researching for this article, and even though I already enjoyed SCOOB!, doing this research gave me a greater appreciation for what we ended up getting. I think Cervone and everyone involved did a great job creating a very grounded, character-focused story that was still able to properly service the Hanna-Barbera universe.

Prior to a couple of weeks ago, I was completely unaware of the rich and complicated history that surrounded the making of Scooby-Doo's early video games. While Scooby-Doo's Maze Chase had a relatively swift and uncomplicated release as far as we know, the next several Scooby-Doo video games in 1986-1991 faced a number of development problems. Although Scooby-Doo and the Castle Mystery survived the tumultuous development process, it was originally going to be a completely different game. Not only this, but there was originally going to be a game in between 1986's Castle Mystery and 1991's Scooby and Scrappy-Doo, but it never saw the light of day. Join me in the following article, as I share the complicated history of the early era of Scooby-Doo video games.

According to Games That Weren't, Scooby-Doo and the Castle Mystery was originally going to be an 8-bit Laserdisc game set for release in 1986 released by Elite Games, and the entire gang was supposed to appear in the game. There would have text-based descriptive cutaway scenes in between the game's eight action scenes, as well as sound effects to correspond with the characters' actions. This all likely sounds very normal now, but at the time, the concept was something that hadn't ever been seen before on a 8-bit game.

A lot of research was done into developing this ambitious concept for a game. Programmers consulted the current animators and artists of the Scooby-Doo series at the time, in order to ensure that the animations would be as accurate as possible.

The game was originally announced in autumn 1985 in Computer and Video Games Magazine. The advertisement originally detailed a mystery advertised as "the first ever computer cartoon" featuring a shark, and the Miner 49er on the cover. An October 1985 date was originally announced. Here was the original description of the game, courtesy of RetroArcadia:

Whether he's being hotly pursued at midnight over an eerie castle rooftop, or scrabbling around in the darkness of a creepy old dungeon the hapless Scooby is always at the centre of the action. In his first computer cartoon, Scooby goes hurtling through underground caverns in a run-away coal truck and finds that even a leisurely paddle with Shaggy in a rickety old rowing boat can turn out to be an unofficial attempt at the waterspeed record when he's pursued by an angry shark! Scooby-Doo: The Computer Cartoon contains over 100 sometimes creepy, often crazy scenes of startling animated action! We think it's going to start a whole new craze in computer games! What do you say, Scooby? Scooby Dooby Doo!

The October 1985 obviously never ended up happening, and developers took on a more ambitious mindset with the game. No announcement of the postponement was ever made, except an indirect one when a "programmers wanted" advertisement was published in the January 1986 issue of Computer and Video Games Magazine, on the same page as a picture of the Scooby-Doo in the Castle Mystery game.

In February 1986, Computer and Video Games magazine published an exclusive interview with Steve Wilcox, who worked for Elite, directly saying "Despite what you’ve read in other magazines, Elite still plans to release its cartoon computer adventure, Scooby Doo in the Castle Mystery, for the 48K Spectrum." Wilcox announced the game would be coming out finally in April, but it would be "different" than what was announced in October 1985. The issue also advertised a competition in which 50 free copies of the game would be given away with release, along with a free Scooby t-shirt and poster. We also learn the writer of the advertisement apparently loved alliteration, as the game was advertised with the tagline "a marvellous mystery with creepy and crazy scenes."

In April 1986, the game never released, and there was silence from Elite Games. After eight months of waiting, a random announcement was placed in the December 1986 issue of Computer and Video Games Magazine saying "after months of development, it's finally here!"

The reason for the delays eventually surfaced: the developers were facing significant issues carrying out their ambitious plan of "the first animated computer game." The animations were bare-bones and not nearly as robust as was originally planned. For those who haven't played the original game, here is how the final animations turned out:

Scooby-Doo in the Castle Mystery wasn't the only abandoned game in the franchise, though! What would have been the second Scooby-Doo video game in 1989 was entirely abandoned! Microillusions Gaming had made plans to put out a game simply called Scooby-Doo for the Commodore 64. Microillusions had recently struck a deal with Hanna-Barbera to make video game adaptions of their most popular cartoons. However, that deal came to a halt when they released The Jetsons game...without getting Hanna-Barbera's approval first. Hanna-Barbera cut all ties with Microillusions and ended the contract with the company, which caused Microillusions to go bankrupt. The game would have featured Scooby trying to solve four different mysteries of an Sea Aztec God, Ski Village, Haunted Mansion, and Ghost Town. The first three levels were completed and were leaked online in 2014 by one of the game's developers, but Microillusions had just begun work on the Ghost Town level when Hanna-Barbera ended the contract, so it was never completed. Here's an image of the main menu courtesy of Games That Weren't.

While the actual third video game, Scooby and Scrappy-Doo, didn't face the complications that Castle Mystery and Scooby-Doo (1989) did, it was originally not going to be a Scooby-Doo game! The original game was going to feature a rat named Stig as the main character, but he was replaced with Scrappy. You can enter a cheat code to play as the original character, Stig the Rat, according to StrategyWiki. This wasn't the only game where there was an original concept before Scooby was attached - our first Scooby-Doo video game, Scooby-Doo's Maze Chase, originally also featured different main characters that were mice! The Three Blond Mice were originally going to be the main characters, but the company didn't feel the game would sell well enough on its own, so the game was redesigned at the last minute to include Scooby.

I had no idea what a complicated history this early era of Scooby games had, but it was really interesting researching these! I had a lot of fun putting this article together. A big thank you to Juan for suggesting this article idea!