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
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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! The movie only came out and hour and half ago and I'm already posting a review...you better believe I was refreshing that page over and over at 11:59pm EST until midnight. In fact, I'm still listening to "On Me" by Thomas Rhett, Kane Brown & Ava Max over the end credits as I type this lol.
This was an awesome movie! I thought the plot was amazing, as was the acting. I really didn't mind any of the new actors. All four of the main cast did a great job, and I thought Amanda Seyfried as Daphne was the standout actor for me. I loved Ken Jeong especially as Dynomutt and thought he was excellent in playing a more serious version of the classic character. Everyone else did a great job I thought as well, but Jeong and Seyfried really stuck out to me as doing a great job. The kids also all did a great job, especially Daphne and Shaggy's. I'll admit, I was actually familiar with Iain Armitage, who played young Shaggy, as he's the main character in another show I love, Young Sheldon, which has referenced Scooby three times in its three seasons and I've written fun facts about it before! In terms of the characterization, I thought everyone was spot on. No one seemed out of character, and the few supporting characters that had their characters changed all seemed reasonably so. I liked that Blue Falcon wasn't the original Blue Falcon, but rather his son Brian. It was a cool touch and I didn't mind the change-up there. I also really liked how Dynomutt was much more serious as a character. Despite his goofiness back in the 70s, this version of Dynomutt really worked for me. Regarding Captain Caveman, I was expecting him to be a much bigger part of the movie. He was in such a brief part of it, which I didn't think was bad, just more unexpected than anything. I honestly thought the other two Teen Angels were going be in the film too besides just Dee Dee! This must take place before that though, since Captain Caveman didn't seem to know her. Dee Dee was a really nice character as well, and I greatly enjoyed her presence as a strong feminine leader. I really liked Dick Dastardly as a villain. Jason Isaacs did an amazing job taking on the role, and Dick seemed like he was exactly like he was in Laff-a-Lympics (as Dread Baron...never watched Wacky Races personally). I absolutely adored the plotline of Muttley being lost in the underworld...it made me actually feel a little bit for Dick...until the end at least lol. In terms of villains, Cerberus had an amazing design. He was a super cool villain and I almost wish he would have been just a little more prominent in the film! The comedy was top notch and Scooby was super funny and witty. I especially enjoyed the IKEA joke and him randomly asking if Muttley was chipped haha. And speaking of comedy, Simon Cowell was certainly an interesting addition to the film lol. It was interesting how he wanted to invest in Mystery Inc. as a business and how he was repeatedly brought up throughout the film. It seemed like they almost combined the three groups of prior live action film series for this film...Shaggy and Scooby wanting to prove they're not screw-ups like in the first two, the origin story like the two prequels, plus all the robots and technology of Daphne & Velma. It was also really neat how they had all the other Hanna-Barbera characters like Jabberjaw, Magilla Gorilla and Atom Ant (was that the third one?) become part of the Falcon Fury during the credits. I felt the plot was just top-notch and I love how it sort of felt like a mystery but a bigger, more expanded one that didn't necessarily have to do with a ghost/monster until the end, but still had the unmasking and all the clues. Such an aspirational plot definitely made for a great Scooby movie! I didn't mind that the mystery wasn't centered around a monster, and Dick Dastardly and his robots, as well as the looming threat of Cerberus, made good villains. With references galore and such a tearjerking plot (especially that ending! I almost cried lol), this is an amazing film that I would definitely recommend as a must-watch for any Scooby fan. Oh, and I've gotta say I liked that Blue Falcon's intro song was DJ Khaled lol. Well, I guess that's it for this review until another one comes out. (Extra points to anyone who gets the terrible pun I just made) In all honesty, I thought this episode was very middle-of-the-road. I loved the setting and the monster, but Neil and especially Bill's performances seemed very phoned in and it didn't seem like they were into it. The episode wasn't bad, it was just sort of "meh" and not anything noteworthy or memorable in the slightest. I did think it was cool that the background of that area where they tried to trap the Tardigrade was in the same style as the opening background for The New Scooby-Doo Movies intro.
One sort of general note I also had was that I feel like "The High School Wolfman's Musical Lament" may have been intended as the season finale, because it seems much more like one than this did. I guess they mentioned Bill and Neil knowing Urkel though, which I thought was funny. Also, notice that this episode is the second to not have an exclamation mark in the title. I know this was a pretty short review, but this was just really a very unmemorable episode! One last time, let's update the episode rankings for the end of the season! 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. Hollywood Knights! 20. Fear of the Fire Beast! 21. Quit Clowning! 22. Peebles' Pet Shop of Terrible Terrors! 23. Space Station Scooby 24. Ollie Ollie In-come Free! 25. The Fastest Food Fiend! 26. A Mystery Solving Gang Divided I'll admit I wasn't sure what to expect when I went into this. I finally got the book delivered to my house on Saturday, thinking I'd maybe read a bit here and there when I got time. Given you're reading this review now, it shouldn't come as too big of a surprise that I finished this book in two days. This was really good, to the level of "can't put it down it's so good!" Admittedly, I may have finished it in one night had it not been after midnight when I started reading on Saturday...but even then, it was hard to put the book down!
Before I get into the review, let me clarify a few things. Despite the design on the cover, no, this is not in any way connected to the Daphne & Velma live action film released in 2018. Also, this is a non-spoiler review, so if you're reading this review to get a sense of whether to buy the book yourself, I'm not going to spoil anything! I also thought it was interesting how the author used a fake psuedonym, Josephine Ruby (a reference to Joseph Ruby, creator of Scooby-Doo). One of my favorite things about Daphne & Velma is that had lots of great references, the most blatant one being they live in Crystal Cove, CA. The city also has rumors of a "Crystal Cove Curse," although it's a different curse than the one in SDMI. In a sneak preview of the second book, the Lady Vampire of the Bay (from Scooby and Scrappy-Doo) is mentioned and it seemed to me they were setting her up to be the main villain in the second book. The whole atmosphere of Crystal Cove potentially being haunted sets the novel up to have a very creepy feel, which I loved. Daphne and Velma, as the title hints, are the two main characters. But it's not just them! Shaggy, Fred and Scooby also appear in the book. One major difference is that Scooby cannot talk, at all. He appears very briefly in the final scene of the book, but is referenced a few times. Fred does make an appearance, but he is also very much a side character. He makes a single appearance and is said to be a playboy-type (his single appearance is making out with a girl). As Daphne puts it "Fred Jones has dated one half of the school, and made out with the other half." And I suppose I didn't say it, but they are in high school in this series. Daphne and Velma are said to be juniors, but it is not clear if Shaggy and Fred are in the same grade. Shaggy, on the other hand, is a pretty consistent character in the book. He's not a main character, but he shows up regularly throughout the book. Shaggy is super laid back, but is also very popular and throws parties for the entire school. He says, however, that he does it as a public service and he actually hates parties, thus why he hangs out in his room during all his parties. I sort of liked this version of Shaggy, though it's strongly implied at the end that Shaggy is hiding something, which seems like it will be the focus of the next book. Let's get to our main girls! Velma is a social outcast who does not have any friends. She is uber smart, but is an edgy loner after Daphne betrayed her as a child. It takes most of the book to reveal to the reader how this happened, but it does eventually come out and I think the explanation is pretty heartbreaking! This is hardly a spoiler, but Daphne and her do make up, hence why they're the main characters of the series. This does make for the most realistic portrayal we've probably ever seen of the gang, however. In addition to Daphne and Velma, Fred and Shaggy also used to hang out with the girls when they were all 10 years old, but the rift between Velma and Daphne's friendship cause them to all break up. Their mystery solving hobby at the time was said to just be kids playing pretend, but now, Daphne and Velma are able to put the skills they learned to the test. While this might anger some fans that their supposed "Pup Named Scooby-Doo" era adventures were just a child's imagination, I personally liked the more realistic feel of this book as a separate, more mature universe. While I found Velma's loner, "no one could ever love me!" personality to be quite sad, I did really sympathize with a message that her character discovered early in the book. At the beginning, when Daphne and Velma dislike each other, Velma interprets everything Daphne does as being about Daphne's frustration for her. As the reader quickly finds out, Daphne had wanted to apologize for years but was too afraid of being rejected by Velma. I think it's easy, whether you're a teenager or an adult, to think the world revolves around you and that everybody is doing stuff directly in response to the vibes you're giving off. In reality, most times, the other person is going through stuff as well and it is important to remember that their reaction might be simply about their own frustrations or anxiety rather than an affront to your identity. I've been talking about Daphne a lot, so let's get to her. Daphne is a spoiled brat, who is best friends with Velma's second (or third, she doesn't remember) cousin Marcy. It's not directly said, but this appears to be inspired by Marcy from "A Scooby-Doo Halloween." She hates her mom and her new stepdad, the latter of whom she blames for ruining her family. This is where the book gets into really mature topics. It turns out, Daphne's mom (named Elizabeth, as with the continuity of the franchise), cheated on her dad when she was 10, and married the person she cheated with, divorcing her husband. This is pretty serious stuff, and Daphne's hatred of her stepdad is quite intense. Speaking of maturity, this book has quite a lot of it. One thing in particular that stuck out is that tampons are mentioned. I'm not bringing this up to make a huge deal out of it or sound the mature topics alarm, but that little mention definitely symbolizes how mature this book is. Feminism is also mentioned and discussed briefly, but not at all in an in-your-face-way in my opinion. If the Daphne & Velma film didn't bother you, this won't either. Let's talk about another major mature topic and special appearance that we get: The Hex Girls show up! Luna and Dusk are barely present or developed in the story, however, Thorn is portrayed as a lesbian in the book, and hits on Velma. By mature, I don't mean Thorn's taking off her shirt or anything so crude, but a brief little flirt session does occur, though Velma immediately dodges it and says she's not interested. Daphne also jokes that it seemed like Thorn was hoping for a "make-out session" because of Thorn's obvious flirting. My explanation is about as much as it's ever mentioned, but I'm not sure about it being in future books. Besides the Hex Girls, we also get the continual return of Shaggy's parents. His father is a police officer, like in A Pup Named Scooby-Doo. He is said to have had an ancestor who came here in 1850 to settle during the Civil War, which definitely lines up with Shaggy having an uncle in the Civil War (Colonel Beauregard from Boo Brothers). It also sort of goes along with the trend that Shaggy's ancestors are explorers, like McBaggy Rogers from "Wedding Bell Boos." Fred's uncle also runs a local newspaper, The Howler, which is said to be a hack newspaper. This is reminiscent of A Pup Named Scooby-Doo where Fred's Uncle Eddie ran that sketchy "National Exaggerator" newspaper. Fred's uncle is named Milford in this continuity however, and ironically appears far more than Fred does in this novel. In terms of the mystery, I thought it was really well written. It wasn't necessarily easy to figure out, and lots of red herrings were put out there to throw the reader off the track. The idea that girls were vanishing and seeing ghosts was super creepy, especially Marcy's sort of cryptic disappearance. The villains, who I won't say who they are, were unexpected and again a sort of mature theme with drugs comes up. Instead of the Malt Shop, Daphne and Velma's hangout is a coffee shop named The Mocha. I kinda of liked this modernized version of the classic Malt Shop trope here, and given the sneak preview for book 2, it's definitely going to be recurring. Overall, this is a great read! It does come across as a bit fanfiction-like at times, which I know bothers some people, but I would definitely recommend at least giving it a chance because it's a really solidly developed universe with a mature take on the characters that many of us adult fans crave. Wow, what a crazy episode! But before I dive into it, I want to make sure everything regarding the next episode is clear since some people still seem to be confused. Unfortunately, Spain is holding back episode 26, "Space Station Scooby!" which guest stars Bill Nye and Neil DeGrasse Tyson, for an unexplained reason. This is the last episode that will be posted for now, unfortunately. The episode has aired in Italy, however. I asked a friend on the ScoobyAddicts forum who has seen it (though no, they don't have a link unfortunately), and he said that the monster will be a Tardigrade Monster. A Tardigrade Monster is essentially like a giant moon worm, so I'm imagining it looks similar to the giant worm from What's New, Scooby-Doo?'s "The Fast and the Wormious!" But let's get into the episode! This episode is a full-on musical. It was definitely an odd episode that was sort of reminiscent of the Music of the Vampire DTV. I don't know if I can rank one song over the other, as they all sounded pretty similar, but here's the track list if anyone's interested: 1. The Mystery Machine's On Broadway! 2. Do-Over Prom 3. Suspects 4. Diners for Dinner, Dinner for Diners 5. Trappin' Man (A Man Called Fred) 6. Beautiful Meddling Kids Diving deeper into a few of the songs, "The Mystery Machine's On Broadway!" includes a montage of several classic monsters. The following classic monsters appear: The Phantom, Captain Cutler, Miner 49er, Charlie the Robot, Zombie, Space Kook, Ghost of Redbeard, Green Ghost, The Creeper, The 10,000 Volt Ghost and the Headless Horseman. Unfortunately, The Headless Horseman is misidentified as the "Headless Specter" by the gang in the song, even when the design is clearly the Headless Horseman from The Scooby-Doo Show. Also, during "The Mystery Machine's on Broadway!" numerous clips from previous episodes of season 1 of Guess Who are shown. This sort of makes it seem like this should have been the last episode of season 1 given how it looked back at the season, and that "Space Shuttle Scooby!" should have been earlier in the season. In "Suspects," we get a very interesting twist on the introduction of suspects. Three suspects are introduced to us during this montage, as well as their potential motives for being the werewolf. I thought this was a really cool plot device and it was well done. And speaking of suspects, Simone returns for the fourth time! It's interesting how the writers seem to have latched onto her. Simone is said to have gone to high school with Christian Slater, but was kicked out for an unexplored reason. The gang also seems to recognize Simone, as they ask Slater in surprise, "You know Simone?" In "Diners for Dinner, Dinner for Diners," we get an interesting reference that I never would have expected in a million years...Scrappy-Doo! Christian says "I love hearing a dog talk, and you know I don't mean Scrappy!" Similar to how "Screama Donna" had Velma sing the culprit's motive at the end, this episode also has that. Velma's dancing is...interesting...to say the least, and almost seems like she's having a seizure or something lol. We do unfortunately get another "Scooby Dooby Doors" scene, as well as a "dress-up to fool the villain" bit. I thought the latter bit was done well this time, and the werewolf was pretty cute practicing a solo. He looked so proud of himself haha! It was kinda of cruel for Shaggy and Scooby to slam the piano down on his paw as they ran away! I thought a high school was an interesting setting, though I didn't think the redo prom idea was explored very well. It was very lightly touched upon because most of the episode was singing, which was disappointing. Getting into the gang, we learn that Shaggy failed third grade five times. Velma also seems to have a bit more personality in this episode, which I was glad about given past episodes have made her very two dimensional. Christian Slater was a decent guest star I thought, but didn't have as much personality as some other guest stars because the songs took up so much energy in the episode. The villain was good too, and although you can't see it in my picture, I thought it was goofy how the werewolf was wearing pants. It looked silly and made the villain far less scary. The last bit I wanted to talk about was Timmy, a suspect who was briefly mentioned. It's said he's living out of his car in one song, however, the picture looks like he's in jail! And this guy really hates Christian Slater lol. You have to really hate a person to literally get a gigantic tattoo on your chest that you hate them haha. I'm ranking this #17, just above the Steve Buscemi episode. By no means was this a bad episode, but the singing took up so much of the episode that there was absolutely no time to develop plot, and the culprit's motive was really cheesy too.
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. Hollywood Knights! 20. Fear of the Fire Beast! 21. Quit Clowning! 22. Peebles' Pet Shop of Terrible Terrors! 23. Ollie Ollie In-come Free! 24. The Fastest Food Fiend! 25. A Mystery Solving Gang Divided |
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