How Scoobynatural Compares to A Night of Fright is No Delight

In this article, I wanted to do something a little different and analyze Scoobynatural from the aspect of how it lines up with "A Night of Fright is No Delight." While you can read my review here, I'm going to analyze how well crossover syncs up with the original episode.

Surprisingly, upon my rewatch of the two side by side, Scoobynatural definitely takes a lot more creative liberties than I remember! Until about the 10 minute mark, pretty much nothing that happens was utilized in the original episode. In fact, the episode utilized a lot of more of the various Scooby tropes that did not occur in "A Night of Fright is No Delight," such as the door scene and the gang being at the malt shop. While the malt shop appeared in almost every episode of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?, ironically the malt shop did not appear in "A Night of Fright is No Delight."

After Sam and Dean race the gang in the Mystery Machine, this is when actual content from the original episode began to be utilized. The reading of the will scene was copied verbatim from "A Night of Fright is No Delight" (except Sam and Dean's lines, of course). The atmosphere was a bit redesigned, but it felt more like an updated version of the original setting. Following the will reading, the scene in the bedroom with Fred, Shaggy and Scooby is copied, but slightly abridged. The scene with Scooby trying to feed the fish was not present. When the gang hears Cousin Slicker cry out for help and attempts to go to his rescue, everything changed. No other scene is copied or reused, and everything is rewritten, which is honestly pretty great symbolism for how the events of the episode is altered by the presence of a real ghost. Various other scenes from the episode are reimagined with different outcomes, such as Shaggy and Scooby going in the wine cellar, Shaggy hanging on the drain pipe (Scooby was also on the drain pipe in the original episode, but not in Scoobynatural), and the trap with the washing machine was used. While Sam, Dean and Castiel eventually did convince the gang that Cosgoode Creeps was the villain (even though it was a trick), Mr. Crawls never makes an appearance in the episode.

Honestly, when I was rewatching this episode to write this article, I expected there to be a plethora of scenes from the original episode reused or perhaps slightly abridged, but I was surprised to discover upon my second watch that there was a huge difference from the scenes in the original episode to what we see in the crossover. I, and I'm sure a lot of other people, kind of had the perception that the episode was just an updated version of the original episode, but intentionally looking for all the similarities and differences demonstrated that there was a lot of creative freedom throughout the episode. The writers completely reimagined this episode and created something new from it, which I think is super cool and very symbolic, given pretty much every aspect of the original mystery was changed when the gang discovers that Cousin Slicker was actually murdered rather than kidnapped. Oh, except Dean exclaiming "Son of a bitch!" when all the gang said their catchphrases. That was totally part of the original episode haha. :P

As I mentioned in my review a few years ago, I really appreciated how well they integrated the two shows here. Even if they didn't use a lot of elements from "A Night of Fright is No Delight," the fact that the two separate writing teams of Scoobynatural and Scooby-Doo could completely integrate themselves to create a flawless representation of both shows is incredibly unique and not something that a lot of shows could do. This crossover truly felt like it was "A Night of Fright is No Delight" with the tone of Zombie Island, and I hope we see more like it someday!

I hope you enjoyed reading this article, even if it was a little different and shorter than I originally thought it would be when I originally decided to write about this idea. I'd love to hear others' thoughts on this subject, or just your reviews of Scoobynatural in general!

Also, apologies if anyone has been having trouble with getting the site to load recently. From what I've heard, Weebly (the domain that hosts this site) has been attempting to upgrade all of the sites they host recently, which may be causing some loading errors. Hopefully it will be taken care of soon, and sorry for any issues people may have in the meantime.