Happy New Year's Eve! I hope everyone is having an enjoyable holiday season. Our final poll of the year is a bit of an unorthodox one, but it comes with a bit of a story related to the holidays. For those who don't know, Cartoon Network released a number of Scooby-Doo VHS tapes following the success of the re-runs on their channel. Most of these were Where Are You episodes, but there were four tapes they released in 1996 that had rare Scrappy-Doo episodes that, at least at the time, hadn't been released on DVD (Wedding Bell Boos and Halloween Hassle still aren't on DVD). My parents got three of these tapes for me when I was a kid, those being "Wedding Bell Boos," "A Halloween Hassle at Dracula's Castle" and "The Nutcracker Scoob." The fourth tape, featuring "The Ghoul, The Bat and the Ugly," was one that my parents were never able to find. I always thought of those four as a set, so when I was younger, it always bothered me that I never managed to acquire the fourth VHS in the set.  Although it wasn't a part of this Cartoon Network set, another rare Scrappy VHS I've wanted for the longest time is Scooby-Doo in: Swamp Witch. The VHS features four Scrappy shorts - "Swamp Witch," "Scooby's Desert Dilemma," "Mummy's the Word" and "Scooby at the Center of the World." An alternate "double feature" version of this VHS also had it paired with "A Haunted House Is Not a Home." Even though the Scrappy shorts are far from my favorite series, for some reason this VHS has always appealed to me, probably because it has my favorite Flintstones episode on it, and I really like the art. I feel the cover is much more detailed than most of the Scooby VHS covers, considering most of them just have a stock art image of Scooby on a solid-colored background. There's also the added bonus that the tape features "Scooby at the Center of the World," which is a very odd case of an episode that got a VHS release but has never been released to DVD to this day.
As many of my friends in the fandom know, I've wanted both of these VHS tapes for a long time. I've thought about getting them in adulthood, but I've never ended up doing it. After years of wanting these, I'm excited to share I finally got these two VHS tapes as presents this Christmas! I'm so happy to finally own them, considering they've been my most sought-after pieces of Scooby merch since I was little. After finally acquiring the last of the rare Scrappy VHS tapes, I thought it would be a fun poll idea to see which episode is the favorite of those four. Note that I'm not including "Swamp Witch" in the poll, since it isn't part of the Cartoon Network series (I'd just mentioned it since it was the other Scooby VHS tape I most wanted). Also, coming up next week, I'm excited to share that we'll be doing another short poll series that was recommended by a friend and longtime commenter on the blog, so look forward to that! Last week's poll results ended up being super close! Our top 3 were each just one vote apart from each other. What is your favorite ski lodge episode? There's No Creature Like Snow Creature - 17 That's Snow Ghost - 16 The Ghost of Bigfoot - 15 Watt a Shocking Ghost - 11 Be Cold, Scooby-Doo! - 7 Rocky Mountain Yiiiii! - 4 Scooby's Swiss Miss - 1 Snow Place Like Home - 1
21 Comments
Becker
12/31/2023 04:33:05 am
I never knew about these VHS tapes. Seems a bit random to release just 4 and only one of them was a 70s episode. As for my favorite here, it's A Nutcracker Scoob. I could easily see any of the 80s episodes win this poll though, they're all highlights of the era. However I will say though The Ghoul, The Bat and The Ugly is one of the SD&SD episodes I remember vividly the most since I was a kid, it's always been one of my favorites of that show. This is a great quartet of Scrappy episodes here, I can't really rank them besides #1. 12/31/2023 10:23:53 am
Actually, three of the four tapes included a bonus episode from The Scooby-Doo Show. Idk why "To Switch a Witch" just got included in the title of that one. The other bonus episodes were "The Tar Monster" on Halloween Hassle and "To Switch a Witch" again on Wedding Bell Boos. (It's odd that they made it a bonus episode twice, and even more odd imo that they didn't put it on Halloween Hassle, which is where it would have made most sense given the Halloween theme) The Nutcracker Scoob VHS also had a bonus episode, but it was just "Alaskan King Coward."
Becker
12/31/2023 10:47:08 am
Ah, Scooby-Doo and bizarre physical media releases, a tale as old as time
Mr Neither
12/31/2023 04:39:04 am
We only had two sets here in the UK that I remember as a kid, the nutcracker scoob, https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/325705301979?chn=ps&_ul=GB&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=710-134428-41853-0&mkcid=2&mkscid=101&itemid=325705301979&targetid=1405062617979&device=c&mktype=pla&googleloc=9045804&poi=&campaignid=17218284410&mkgroupid=142217514411&rlsatarget=aud-1641271186540:pla-1405062617979&abcId=9300867&merchantid=7140744&gclid=Cj0KCQiAv8SsBhC7ARIsALIkVT2J-SiCGvMl52GaKEdc34DW93ciTwbMcW04HVTyEftppTYhvKML6x8aAlT_EALw_wcB 12/31/2023 11:06:13 am
Interesting to see "Hang in There, Scooby-Doo" on the second tape. It was never released on VHS in the US, so it's very possible that bumper tape was the only way to physically own the episode for decades (it wasn't released on DVD in the US until 2013).
Mr Neither
1/1/2024 05:49:01 am
I never knew that it wasn't released on dvd for so long and never had a vhs release in the States. 1/1/2024 10:59:17 am
Yeah, we didn't get it on DVD here until the 13 Spooky Tales sets. 12/31/2023 12:25:09 pm
4. The Ghoul, The Bat and the Ugly - super tough to rank these, because not only are these all among my favorites of their respective series, and the top 3 on this list are my top 3 Scrappy episodes of the franchise. I really like the horror movie aspect here and the Shadow Creature was a cool villain!
Scooblius
12/31/2023 12:32:37 pm
I've never seen Halloween Hassle or Wedding Bell Boos, despite the praise they receive. Modern home media availability matters haha. Of the other two, I love the vibe and plot of The Ghoul, the Bat, and the Ugly, and I was pleasantly surprised they made an original werewolf design for one of the red herring characters (considering how often they've reused monsters over the years). But my vote goes to Nutcracker Scoob because it was the only one I actually owned on VHS! Back in the day, nearly all of my Scooby watching came from tapes I recorded off of Cartoon Network rather than the official releases. 12/31/2023 02:08:50 pm
Even though I'd rank it last among these four (it's a very strong list), I also love the vibe of "The Ghoul, the Bat and the Ugly." The mansion is super cool, and I especially like the scene out in the hedge maze. Yeah, considering they almost always reused villains back in that era, it is pretty neat that they created an original design for the werewolf.
Matt
12/31/2023 01:41:30 pm
I’ve said before, but I am a big Scooby Doo vhs collector. I own all of these, including The Swamp Witch double feature with A Haunted House Is Not a Home. I just like the vibes of watching a VHS tape, and they are a really cool collectible that usually don’t cost too much, so I took up collecting them 12/31/2023 02:15:26 pm
I was never a huge VHS collector like you were, but I also like the vibes of watching something on a VHS tape. I don't have a ton of Scooby VHS tapes and wouldn't be too interested in collecting ones like the Where Are You episodes that have been released a million times, but I've always been interested in the more obscure tapes like the Swamp Witch one and those Scrappy ones.
Matt
1/1/2024 01:27:25 pm
I could see The Ghoul, the Bat, and the Ugly beating Wedding Bell Boos due to availability more than anything. I feel like Wedding Bell Boos is only getting more and more obscure the further we get from VHS tapes. Truly a shame because I think it is one of the all time greats of the franchise 1/1/2024 01:58:37 pm
That's fair, I don't hear as much discussion of The New Scooby and Scrappy-Doo Show as I do the first Scrappy series. I agree it's one of the best Scrappy episodes and I consider it a classic.
Juan
12/31/2023 06:27:02 pm
Nutcracker is my favorite but I voted for A Halloween Hassle at Dracula's Castle because I want to own that episode in high quality someday. 12/31/2023 10:15:21 pm
Hot take, but Goblin King is my favorite of the What's New movies. I love how fantastical and different it was, and the overall atmosphere to the film feels so whimsical in the best way. Where's My Mummy is my second favorite, though. I'd rank them like this:
Carson Maitland - Smith
12/31/2023 06:58:25 pm
Happy 2024 🤎💚💙💜🧡
Scooby fan 99
12/31/2023 07:33:52 pm
Since, alaskan king coward is included on scooby doo, a nutcracker scoob vhs then shouldn’t you include alaskan king coward as an option on the poll. 12/31/2023 10:18:08 pm
I thought about it, but I decided not to include the bonus episodes and just kept it to the main four. I don't think "Alaskan King Coward" would have gotten more than a few votes even if it were included, since that's about the most the Scrappy shorts ever get.
Gibby Norton
12/31/2023 09:13:37 pm
That is awesome! I don’t know what it is, but I feel like this year’s Christmas seemed to be one of the best ones of the last few years for myself and a lot of my friends! I’m very glad you finally got to complete your collection of Scrappy episode releases. I grew up with only two of the Cartoon Network VHSs, which were: 12/31/2023 10:34:04 pm
Thank you! Yeah, this Christmas was one of the best for a lot of people I know as well! I didn't own those two VHS tapes, but I remember seeing a couple of the What a Cartoon! pilots on some other VHS tapes I owned, and I enjoyed them! Besides the Cartoon Network VHS tapes, I also owned Scrappy-Doo Volume 1 (which had "The Hairy Scare of the Devil Bear" on it) and the four Laff-a-Lympics VHS tapes (which contained two Laff-a-Lympics episodes each). Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWildwindVampire Categories
All
Archives
August 2026
|
RSS Feed
