Scooby-Doo & Guess Who? Revenge of the Swamp Monster Review

6/27/2019

I just finished watching the first episode of Guess Who?, and I must say I was pleasantly surprised. The episode definitely goes back to the roots of classic Scooby, even down to the retro feel of the background music and sound effects at times.

Chris Paul seemed like a good guest star, and the vibe of this episode sort of reminded me of the Wilt Chamberlain (another basketball player) episode from Goober and the Ghost Chasers. Paul didn't overshadow the gang at all.

There were definitely some good bits in there, like the classic Shaggy/Scooby trick the monster gag, the Scooby Dooby Doors sequence among other humorous things such as Chris Paul not being able to get the ball in the hole at the end.

I didn't really like the intro though. It felt like too much of a rip-off of the Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? theme song (it's even credited as such in the end credits). I don't mind them trying to reference the classic theme song, but I would have preferred something original.

Though this was a small criticism, the bit at the end bugged me where the announcer said the cops recovered all the missing people. This was within like a few moments of gang capturing the swamp monster, and some of those people were just captured minutes before. I definitely get that they were trying to wrap things up, but the whole "Everyone captured by the swamp monster was found by the police, somehow within 5 seconds of the culprit being arrested!" felt a bit cringey. It seems like they were trying to cram everything in too quickly at the end.

Other than these minor criticisms, I'm really loving the new series and I'm definitely looking forward to next week's episode!

20 Comments

DS 616

6/27/2019 04:08:51 pm

I think the intro makes sense considering it's the 50th anniversary and the show is paying tribute to the original series in several ways.

WildwindVampire link

6/28/2019 11:11:11 am

I guess, and I can certainly see why some people would like it. It just seemed like a bit of a cheesy rip off to me. I'm sure it will grow on me.

Joshua Lindquist

6/27/2019 07:23:38 pm

Is it really only a regular length episode? I've been holding out they'd be hour longs like the new scooby doo movies to give more time for the plot and the characters to breathe.

DS 616

6/27/2019 08:06:16 pm

Have you ever actually watched The New Scooby-Doo Movies? The episodes are all horrendously paced filled with a mind-numbing amount of pointless, drawn-out scenes that were clearly done just to extend the runtime to a "movie" length and live up to the name of the series.

Joshua Lindquist

6/27/2019 09:26:27 pm

Yes, I watched it a ton, I enjoy every episode a lot, extended and all, I devoured the episodes on dvd and again when we just got 8 of the missing 9 a few weeks back. I love the series, it is one of my favorites. I won't deny we may have differing opinions, fine, I stand by however, that a 20 minute episode isn't enough to give time to a new cast member every week, especially if they are now explaining who they are and fawning over them.

DS 616

6/28/2019 05:58:48 am

It's cooI that you like the show, i'm not debating personal preferences as we all like certain things for very specific personal reasons.

I only pointed it out as I just watched them all for the first time ever and was highly confused at how most episodes were paced and structured. You have episodes like the one where the country singer is being held captive and he plays a song which the kids keep hearing to try and find out where he is........and then he plays it again.......and again.........and one more time yet again to the point that you want to mute/smash the tv. Where as if it was a regular timed episode of something like SDWAY he would've played the song once, the kids would've found him, set a trap for the monster, the end.

There was also another episode where the villains of the episode changed the arrow directions on a road sign which caused the kids to end up going the wrong way and getting lost in the woods, except they stayed lost for a mind-numbing amount of time doing nothing in the process. It was like watching real people in real time as they go around in circles not knowing where they are, then finally about 10+ minutes later the actual plot of the episode of trying to catch the actual villains finally resumed.

As someone who's apparently watched it several times you must be able to notice these obvious cases of drawing out the episode length. Plus I don't remember any of the original celebrities ever getting considerably more fleshed out because of the extended run time, if it was comedian celebrity then you'd just get even more cheesy one-liner jokes, and if it was a musician celebrity they'd (like I said) play the same one song over and over. The Batman and Robin episodes were particularly brutal with those repeated "pesky powerful protectors" one-liners from Joker and Penguin, not to mention the single most grating character in the entire series that professor who mispronounces every word the wrong way round. That's not fleshing out a character, it's just incredibly annoying.

WildwindVampire link

6/28/2019 11:13:33 am

Yeah, it's only 20 minutes long. I felt they did a good job though with the amount of time they had.

John Locke

6/28/2019 09:31:54 am

You mean the episode where the song would be played through the air vents and therefor bouncing all around and difficult to pinpoint, especially with a large music hall to search? Personally I thought that was an inspired episode where they found a clever way to keep them on the grounds beyond "lets just solve the mystery." They were searching for their friend.

I get we have different opinions on this, but you aren't going to convince me they are artificially lengthened. I just enjoyed the comedy, the guests and the episodes. Granted a lot of that is nostalgia, I've been watching them since I was 5 and it is fine if you don't like them. But to say no one did because of it, is frankly wrong.

DS 616

6/28/2019 10:21:46 am

@John Locke Well let's just clarify that last bit you mentioned as I never said (nor ever would say) that no one likes the show or should like the show because of my own personal observation regarding the episodes feeling too long with the storyline being unnecessarily stretched out.

As I already said, everyone has personal favorites for very specific, personal reasons. I never got to watch this version as a kid since Cartoon Network never aired it alongside all the other 60's/70's/80's era Scooby shows they had during that time, and i'm sure if I did have it back then I wouldn't have noticed nor cared about any of the parts i'm critiquing now, but all i'm pointing out now is just an objective observation on what occurs during these episodes that make them stand out from a regularly paced Scooby episode or movie. They don't have the "quickly and smoothly jump from act 1 to act 2 to act 3" pace of a standard 20 minute tv episode, but they also don't contain anywhere near the same amount of content as a direct-to-video movie either.

I'm not even saying it's for every single episode (the Sonny and Cher one was well paced and didn't feel like it was stalling for time) but I really don't think this is some incredible revelation that I alone just stumbled upon, I would expect this to be one of the first things fans of this show would both point out and admit to disliking, the same way you hear tons of Star Wars fans say something like "Yeah I really love Return of the Jedi, but the Ewoks are a really stupid part of that movie that didn't need to be included."

I'd be absolutely stunned if I pointed out these observations on a highly populated forum or comment section filled with TNSDM fans and the overwhelming response wasn't something along the lines of "I really liked that show as a kid and still like it now, but yeah it's clear that they tried to stretch out the episodes into a 'movie' length without really adding much to the overall story". It's not even a negative point against the show, just a simple objective observation.

The cop

6/28/2019 11:11:23 am

They are realesing a glow in the dark captain Cutler funko pop

WildwindVampire link

6/28/2019 11:15:06 am

That's cool!

The cop

6/28/2019 01:49:45 pm

Sadly its exclusive to the funko shop

WildwindVampire link

6/28/2019 03:19:49 pm

That's too bad to hear! Hopefully they'll give it a wide release at some point.

Sebastian

6/30/2019 05:30:07 pm

I agree with the end. the end was a bit cringey, when the police found all the victims that were captured. It be more better if the gang themselves explain how the swamp monster captured the victims. the ending was odd.

WildwindVampire link

6/30/2019 08:43:44 pm

Yeah, there was not really an explanation of the swamp monster capturing people, and why he captured them in the first place. Just kinda this lame "By the way, police recovered everyone who was captured within five seconds! Ain't law enforcement cool?"

sdf

7/1/2019 04:42:00 am

I had many issues with this on. First i didn't like the intro but that's something i can live with. The mystery on the other hand was too stupid for me to enjoy the episode. Finally the gang interactions are poor [not like bcsd where they explored the friendship of velma and scooby or fred and shaggy etc].

I loved the old vibes a lot. I also liked Chris Paul. Great guess star.

Overall the series aren't bad it's just me having my issues. I hope i ll be used to it so i can enjoy the series

WildwindVampire link

7/1/2019 10:22:56 am

I didn't mind the mystery, I just felt it wasn't developed to its full extent, like suspects weren't even really talked to. The culprit was also way too easy to guess.

Isaiah

7/3/2019 12:45:21 am

I think some of the dialogue can be punched up a bit there are some very odd lines in this

WildwindVampire link

7/3/2019 10:23:35 am

I totally agree. My favorite being that crappy "we found everyone in five seconds!!!" line. Though some of Chris Paul's dialogue was odd too, like the lines where he said "shoot" (obviously he's not going to say the other word, but it just sounded weird IMO).

Samuel Kirkwood

7/16/2019 09:51:09 am

Way behind in my comments for this episode. I laughed my head off when they went over the 3 golfers with clear and definitive motives and then when I went back over and looked at the second one I couldn't help but think local art and child hater Donald I mean C Habernackle.

Scooby-Doo & Guess Who? Revenge of the Swamp Monster Review

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