I really liked this episode! This one was a nice take on the classic Frankenstein story and had a very original monster! The deep lore around the monster was a breath of fresh air and is something we didn't really get in the last episode with the gargoyle.

I thought Alton Brown did a great job as a guest star. He seemed super into the role and provided a great addition to the gang. Though I sort of suspected the villain was Alton himself, I thought it was a neat twist to have (almost) everyone be the villain.

This is definitely one of the better episodes of this season so far and would definitely recommend it. Still can't get into that intro though, it's so annoying I have to skip it every time. :P

How does this one rank up? This one actually cracks my top 10 just barely, knocking out "What a Night, for a Dark Knight!"

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

I think this episode was a slight improvement upon the Joey Chestnut one, but not much. The plot was completely reused from "Ready to Scare" from What's New, Scooby-Doo?, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. I didn't feel like too much original was done with it that hasn't already been done before, however.

I liked the element of Gigi Hadid being Velma's friend from criminal psychology class. Overall, Gigi was a pretty good guest star! I got annoyed by the "Gigi Hadid!!!" song with holy music playing in the background. That could have been a one-time joke, and didn't need to be done over and over like they did. 

I enjoyed how they started out with the gang already working to solve the mystery, instead of them running into it. It provided a nice change of pace. On the other hand, the mystery did seem a bit rushed in this one and some of the jokes (especially the monkey ones) seemed a bit kiddish for my liking. ​I'm also still not enjoying the constant door scenes every single episode, but I imagine that will probably be a trope throughout the entire series.

Overall, this was a decent episode but was middle-of-the-road for me and not anything super special. Ironically, the episode lands right in the middle of my current rankings, at #16/31.

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

Overall, this was another average episode. I really liked the Tree Monster as a villain! As a whole, they're doing a great job coming up with some very original monsters in this season. However, Joey Chestnut kinda felt like he was just there and didn't have much of a role. He almost felt like a side character to me. Fred and Daphne also seemed to have very few lines, unfortunately. This definitely was not a bad episode, it just wasn't particularly memorable in any way.

Also, did anyone else think Scooby being in a hot dog bun was a little disturbing lol? Scooby's song with lyrics such as "boil me until I burst" was also kinda disturbing haha.

On a related note, maybe I'm a monster for doing this, but honestly I like both ketchup and mustard if I eat a hot dog, not just mustard.
​
This ranks towards the bottom, at #24/30.

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

I feel there are some guest stars in this show who are just kind of there without much purpose, and are kind of bland in their line delivery. Kristen Schaal was absolutely not that guest star. I felt she really shined in the role, and despite not knowing anything about her, her quirkiness and desire to try to find out which member of the gang she was most like really added a lot to the episode and made it feel cool and different. I loved that twist at the ending too where she tries to steal the van! Btw, I'd totally be down for her replacing Fred for a few episodes haha.

Other than Kristen, I thought the setting was super creepy, and the Phineas Phrag Monster design was super original. Honestly, this felt to me like it could have been an episode of The New Scooby-Doo Movies, and it really seemed like they put a lot of love into this episode and making it true to the original tone, rather than making it seemed like forced nostalgia like certain other episodes have. I hope we see more episodes like this, and especially more guest stars as passionate about their role as Kristen. Episodes like the Kacey Musgraves one were decent plot-wise, but to me, Kacey just really didn't seem like she was into her role, and this episode shows us a stark contrast to that because of how into her role Kristen Schaal was.

For these reasons, this one is another really high ranking one for me, just below Maddie Ziegler's episode at #6.

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

I absolutely adored this episode! Morgan Freeman was an incredible guest star, and his narration was amazing! His narration throughout the mystery sort of served as a meta-analysis of the gang from an outsider's lens, which I found to be so cool. The setting was super creepy, and I loved the villain too! The references to The Creeper and the Jane Jetson poster were really cool, and the head nod from Captain Cutler was hilarious!

Honestly, Morgan Freeman narrating the entire episode was just so cool to me and the whole episode being structured like a documentary was such a unique and amazing idea. I want Morgan Freeman to narrate my life now lol.

I did guess who the villain was, though I guessed grandson instead of great grandson, so I was slightly off haha.

All I've done is rave about this episode, so does it top my rankings as the new favorite episode of Guess Who? Not quite...it's edged out slightly by the Hex Girls one. It's going to take a lot to dethrone that one for me haha.

Star-Studded Scoreboard:
1. I Put a Hex on You!
2. The Last Inmate!
3. The Sword, The Fox and the Scooby-Doo!
4. One Minute Mysteries!
5. Dance Matron of Mayhem!
6. Elementary, My Dear Shaggy!
7. Too Many Dummies!
8. When Urkel-Bots Go Bad!
9. What a Night, for a Dark Knight!
10. Attack of the Weird Al-osaurus!
11. The Cursed Cabinet of Professor Madds Markson!
12. A Run Cycle Through Time!
13. The Nightmare Ghost of Psychic U!
​14. The Wedding Witch of Wainsly Hall!
15. Revenge of the Swamp Monster!
16. The Scooby of a Thousand Faces!
17. Now You Sia, Now You Don't!
18. The High School Wolfman's Musical Lament!
19. The New York Underground!
20. The Phantom, the Talking Dog, and the Hot Hot Hot Sauce!
21. Hollywood Knights!
22. Fear of the Fire Beast!
23. Quit Clowning!
24. Peebles' Pet Shop of Terrible Terrors!
25. Space Station Scooby
26. Ollie Ollie In-come Free!
27. The Fastest Food Fiend!
28. A Mystery Solving Gang Divided

Overall, while not amazing, I thought this was a decent episode. I really liked the the ghost of Captain Taggart's design, though IMO too much of the episode was spent just chasing around. It inhibited the overall mystery and reduced it to just the bare minimum, which is a problem that Guess Who has faced before.

In terms of Kacey as a guest star, I thought her line delivery wasn't the best. Some of her lines seemed a bit forced, though the way they worked her into the episode was interesting and enjoyable. 

Some of the jokes in the episode seemed also a bit forced. Fred's gag at the end where he couldn't remember his lines was not at all funny though, quite possibly the worst joke of the episode. The two in the horse costumes at the beginning were almost equally annoying to me though. I thought it was interesting how they made Scooby's catch phrase "Scooby Snacks." 

What I did really love about this episode though is the setting. The Country Music Hall and the showboat had a great spooky atmosphere to them, and worked well with the villain.

Overall, this was a very "meh" episode for me. I certainly didn't hate it, but I didn't love it as much as some others either. This one ranks 19/27 for me of the episodes so far.

Star-Studded Scoreboard:
1. I Put a Hex on You!
2. The Sword, The Fox and the Scooby-Doo!
3. One Minute Mysteries!
4. Dance Matron of Mayhem!
5. Elementary, My Dear Shaggy!
6. Too Many Dummies!
7. When Urkel-Bots Go Bad!
8. What a Night, for a Dark Knight!
9. Attack of the Weird Al-osaurus!
10. The Cursed Cabinet of Professor Madds Markson!
11. A Run Cycle Through Time!
12. The Nightmare Ghost of Psychic U!
​13. The Wedding Witch of Wainsly Hall!
14. Revenge of the Swamp Monster!
15. The Scooby of a Thousand Faces!
16. Now You Sia, Now You Don't!
17. The High School Wolfman's Musical Lament!
18. The New York Underground!
19. The Phantom, the Talking Dog, and the Hot Hot Hot Sauce!
20. Hollywood Knights!
21. Fear of the Fire Beast!
22. Quit Clowning!
23. Peebles' Pet Shop of Terrible Terrors!
24. Space Station Scooby
25. Ollie Ollie In-come Free!
26. The Fastest Food Fiend!
27. A Mystery Solving Gang Divided

Please note that this review does contain spoilers!

So I really loved this film! I'm super glad I decided to just pick up a DVD copy while I was at the store today, and cancel the pre-order which I think I had mentioned in one of the comment sections that I was originally going to wait for. I think this is the best Scooby film we've gotten in years, and was a breath of fresh air after Curse of the 13th Ghost and Return to Zombie Island.

The mystery felt very cinematic to me, and I enjoyed the inclusion of The Scarecrow much more than I thought I would. Even though he wasn't a main villain, he provided a great setup for introducing the living pumpkins. Surprisingly, I really enjoyed that so much of the movie was the pumpkins pursuing the gang. I think it could have been done in a very boring way, but the constant presence of the pumpkins made it creepier!

​I loved all the old references to previous Scooby and Hanna-Barbera material as well. Between a Frankenstein Jr. float, a kid dressed as Blue Falcon, a Phyllis Diller mention, a Fred Flintstone costume, RED HERRING(!), and the Ghost of the Three Stooges, it really felt like a lot of love was put into this film. Am I the only one who would have liked to see the ghosts of the Three Stooges mystery though? I feel like that would have been really cool haha.  

I'm not sure if this was just my Scooby-oriented brain creating references that weren't there, but did those two vampire statues when Shaggy and Scooby went in the corn maze look like Dracula from "A Halloween Hassle at Dracula's Castle" to anyone else? It sure did to me. 

We also got a reference to Fred's middle name, Herman, which is the first time it's been mentioned 15 years since Aloha, Scooby-Doo! from 2005! 

One thing I really did not like in this film was the use of 60s bubblegum pop music during the chase scenes. I know they're trying to beckon back to Where Are You with that, and they did it in Return to Zombie Island too, but it just seemed out of place to me and I hope it doesn't happen again.

The one other big thing in this film is Daphne's personality is much more quirky and reminiscent of her Be Cool, Scooby-Doo! personality. I thought it was interesting Daphne wanted to become Elvira too, as Elvira kinda seems more gothy than "in-fashion" to me...so this version of Daphne wants to be a goth I guess? I'm here for it.

Speaking of Elvira, I thought her and Bill Nye fit in really well. They did not seem forced at all as guest stars, and I thought both of them definitely had roles to play in this film.

I also was shocked that the sheriff was the villain! That was such a cool twist and I loved it! 

Overall, this film was an amazing Halloween movie that I will definitely be watching every year from now on around this time of year. This film is like SDMI and BCSD had a baby, and it's amazing. It's got a much darker tone that more recent films/series, but it also is pretty silly in some parts. Was this better than Goblin King? I love Goblin King so much, so it would be very hard to top that film. I think this comes close, but it's good in a different way from Goblin King. Goblin King is this very idealistic, magical film to me whereas this one is darker but also very cinematic in quality. I would highly recommend this film!

To conclude this review, I have to end it the same way the film did...so Elvira's hair is just a monkey? Hahaha

To continue with our "A Pup Named Scooby-Doo" theme this week (which was totally unintentional by the way, just coincidental), I'm reviewing a very special and very rare piece of Scooby media: the only A Pup Named Scooby-Doo comic ever made! This issue was published 1995, and was written by Bill Matheny and drawn by Scott Jeralds, both of whom worked on the original A Pup Named Scooby-Doo television show. 

Before I go and further, I want to give a huge thanks to my friend Deandre (aka Scoobyfan4ever) for sending this comic to me so I could read and review it!

We started with "The Pizza Delivery From Beyond," which feels like a lost episode of A Pup Named Scooby-Doo. It stays very true to the tone and style of the series, and all the characters are on-point with their younger personalities.

We get the normal assortment of minor characters, including this one random zoo ape lol.

And speaking of minor mentions, we also get O'Greazy to return, who was a recurring character for three episodes of A Pup Named Scooby-Doo. I thought it was really cool how we learn his first name is Al.

The comic starts off with Shaggy narrating that him and Scooby are waiting for a pizza delivery, but they get way more than they bargained for when a monster pizza deliveryman attacks them. After a narrow escape, they alert the gang and attempt to solve the mystery. 

The plot is very much something that could have happened in the show, even down to the villain design, which is really cool. I was very disappointed however, that Red Herring never appeared, and even more so that Freddy didn't accuse Red Herring! 

But overall, it's a great short story and my favorite of the two.

The final story is titled "Daphne Has Risen From The Grave!" and features Daphne going exploring in some caves, and returning as a blood-sucking vampire. After she attacks Shaggy and Scooby and tries to turn them into vampires, they enlist the help of the gang.

I enjoyed this story, but we quickly find out (spoilers) the culprit is just Daphne practicing for the school play and I felt that was a little cheesy.

We do get one inconsistency in this comic, however...the cave Daphne is "turned" in is discovered to be a place where Scooby Snacks are mined, but "Wanted Cheddar Alive" would beg to differ since they are made in the Scooby Snacks Factory in that episode.

This really felt like it could be an episode of A Pup Named Scooby-Doo, though. They captured the tone of the series perfectly once again, even down to Freddy accusing Scooby of being a vampire as one of his crazy conspiracy theories.

It's funny, Daphne turning into a vampire seems to be unintentionally foreshadowed in the beginning of "The Ghost of Mrs. Shusham," when the animators forgot to animate her reflection in the mirror lol. (Actually, now that I'm thinking of it, it's further proof that she was a vampire in that one Scrappy episode, "I Left My Neck in San Francisco," when she was never around when the vampire was and looked similar to the Lady Vampire of the Bay haha.)

Overall, these two stories were a fun nostalgia trip for me! Though the stories were pretty short to be full episodes of the series, I could see them working as good 11-minute shorts like the three they did in the final season of A Pup Named Scooby-Doo. The one element I would say was off in an otherwise perfect representation of this series is they seemed to s separate Shaggy and Scooby by themselves for about half of each story, which is more of a trope in the series where they are adults, but not in A Pup Named Scooby-Doo. 

Thank you again to Deandre for sending me these stories! This article would not have been possible without him!

This review will include some light spoilers, though I'm not going to reveal the culprit or anything like that. I will be discussing some details that happen throughout the course of the book.

I thought this follow up to the first novel was really good! Even though we get a different author this time, Morgan Baden (instead of the author of the first book who went by the pseudonym Josephine Ruby), I thought the writing stayed really consistent and nothing felt strange or off-character to me compared to the first one.

Once again, this book seemed to have references galore. Our main villain of the book this time was The Lady Vampire of the Bay, originally from "I Left My Neck in San Francisco" of The Scooby and Scrappy-Doo Show in 1979. She seemed to be described with the exact same appearance as the ghoulish vampire from the original episode.

Besides the Lady Vampire, we also get sort-of a role reversed reference to A Pup Named Scooby-Doo where Shaggy's dad is a cop. Instead of that though, Shaggy's mom is a cop, whereas Shaggy's dad (named Samuel, in continuity with SDMI) is a hardened, somewhat unpleasant businessman. Without ruining the ending since I did say light spoilers, I have to say the very last page of this book leaves me on the edge of my seat for the next one!

Shaggy also eats vegetarian lasagna in the book, so it's potentially confirmed that Shaggy is a vegetarian in this universe.

Moving on from the many references, I want to talk about how much I love Daphne's characterization in this. She's sort of the rich girl who we know and love from the main continuity, but she's also a bit insecure because of her parents divorcing among other teenage angst. It's hinted she was more bossy and stuck-up as a kid, which I really like since that sort of bridges that gap between her A Pup Named Scooby-Doo personality her the main continuity version, but she's sort of broken now because of all that's happened to her.

Daphne also recounts the gang playing their pretend "mysteries" in an old van, presumably hinting at the Mystery Machine. I could see how this would be a turnoff for some, but I sort of like, just in this series's continuity, how they've played it up to have much of their adventures of Mystery Inc. being just kids playing pretend, and now they're faced with real mysteries for the first time. It's sort of neat and makes this series feel like a more realistic take on the franchise. I'm not saying I'd want this in every series, but it's a neat trope for these novels.

Before we move on from Daphne though, I absolutely have to point out that the word "bougie" has officially now been said in the Scooby-Doo franchise for the first time ever. This has been your official "bougie" count, now back to the review.

Fred gets a little bit more of a part in this than simply having women all draped around him like in the first novel. He seemingly hits on Velma a bit, which I found a little odd and I'm not sure if it was because she went on a "no glasses" phase and wore contacts, or if he was genuinely interested in her. I guess we'll have to see. Fred also helps solve the mystery in this novel, and I was happy to see him get a little more of a role.

Still no Scooby whatsoever other than brief mentions, so let's move on to Shaggy. Building off his characterization in the first novel, he seems like a very laid-back, surfer dude type of guy. In a way, he also seems a little tortured as well, and unhappy with his situation with his father. We don't exactly know what that is though, but there seems to be a bit of a mystery still looming over Shaggy's family, so I'm excited to see where that goes!

Velma went on a no-glasses phase in this novel, but later decided that it didn't matter what others thought of her. I thought this was a really nice coming of age message for young adults and was super glad they put this in there. Not really much more to say on Velma this novel, other than I love her personality in this and her snark/wit.

I thought Daphne and Ram's interaction provided a super good message that's really relatable to young adults, or anyone honestly. (This paragraph is probably the most spoilery FYI, so you may want to skip to the next paragraph if you're worried about that). Daphne falling in love with him and opening up so much, only to be crushed and tricked by him is something that's relatable to a lot of us, especially in those teenage years. Many of us have probably met someone we really got along with, opened up to them, and then felt horribly betrayed when we found out the person was not who we thought they were, or even worse, took advantage of us. This happens to Daphne when Ram takes full credit for the story she wrote. I think this is a great, relatable message to have put in here, especially to show young adults that it's okay to feel betrayed and down or whatever, but what's important is that you feel confident in yourself. Some people are going to be untrustworthy or cruel when you open up, but what really matters is that you feel empowered and like who you are. I also liked how they tied it in to the societal phenomenon of men taking advantage of women's work and thinking of them as "lesser" simply because they are women.

I enjoyed that the Hex Girls reappeared in this novel! It seems like they're going to be regular characters. On a related note, this is probably due to my own misreading, but I honestly thought the weird little interludes in third-person where the characters have supernatural encounters were something to do with the "ghosts" from the first book, but it happened again in this book, so I'm thinking now it's actually part of the overall mystery with "The Vanished," the people who disappeared from Crystal Cove 300 years ago? I'm absolutely we're going to get an overarching storyline later on in this series diving into it further, and I can't wait to see where it goes!

I'm really intrigued with this novel series and where it's going. The writing is spot-on, and develops the characters in such an interesting way. It also has a much more mature feel than really any Scooby series I've read before (with the exclusion of Scooby Apocalypse), but it's also really down to Earth and makes important social commentary. I would highly recommend reading this book, and the first one if you haven't already (you can check out my review for that here).

The next in the series, #3, comes out on February 2, 2021, so it's kind of a long wait based on how short of a period it was between #1 and #2. There's no info on the author, or title, or much of the plot, or anything really, but I am 100% buying #3 when it comes out. This has been a great series and I really hope this keeps going for a long time!