Via our cable’s on-demand system, I introduced my now 5-year old son to the original Scooby-Doo series a few years back. Suffice it to say, ever since, I have been watching a lot of SD with him and his 3-year old sister.
I had no idea there were so many iterations of this show!
Besides watching cable’s current offerings, we’ve bought some of the newer movies and checked out older iterations from the library and Netflix. I’ve found that I really enjoy the first season of the original series and many of the 2002-05 series What’s New Scooby-Doo. However, the show really goes off the rails when it deviates too far from the tried-and-true formula of its original characters “meddling” in the affairs of bad guys behind masks (I’m looking at you, Scrappy Doo and Zombie Island).
Like What’s New, the animation is more modern and stylized, although the coloring is more muted, harking back to the darker palette of the original. I haven’t really paid much attention to the plots (I tend to doze on the couch while my early-rising son watches these), but I’m a bit on the fence about the series explicit pairing of Fred/Daphne and Velma/Shaggy and the scarier situations.
Have you seen this? What say you? Other Scooby-Doo observations?
I like it. It is in some ways a parody of the Scooby-Doo conventions. funny
Also, I don’t like the pairings. Why must EVERY crime-solving show on TV have relationship stuff interrupting the mystery-solving?
My son (12) watches the new series. I’ve only caught glimpses of it. It looks pretty good. He has probably seen everything Scooby-Doo that has ever been shown on the Cartoon Network. He mentioned something to me about it being better mysteries than the other series, but basically the same formula. He isn’t interested in the boyfriend/girlfriend stuff at all, so I am not sure if he really even noticed it.
I like it. They certainly put in the shoutouts if you’ve done your Scooby Doo time. I like the overarching plot, though I may end up a bit disappointed.
I think Abracadabra Doo was the best of the movies, by a wide margin. The vast majority of Scooby movies are terrible. As a general rule if the villain turns out to be a real monster the show is going to be terrible.
One more note. If given the choice between watching an episode with Flim Flam and blocking a tennis service machine with your crotch make sure you bring your cup.
The three seasons of What’s New Scooby Doo were easily as good as the 1969 original, actually better. Every other incarnation of Scooby Doo sucks hard, and double hard if Shaggy has a red shirt.
The same bloke has voiced Fred right from the start - that’s over 40 years! (The exception is the one where Scooby was a puppy, but that’s because Fred was also young). He also voices Scooby, but that’s a recent thing.
And:
A HUGELY successful actor whose face you’d never recognise but whose voice might ring an unexpected bell if he were chatting away on the next restaurant table.
You had me worried when you said modernized graphics. It looks just as good as the old episodes. It just looks like a different artist drawing the exact same thing–and, or course, Velma being updated to fit better her live action hotness.
(and apparently to give the Shaggy/Velma shippers something. I never thought I’d see that be canon.)
Shaggy sounds weird, though. I’ve heard better impersonators–amongst my friends.
Well, depending on your reference, he’s probably not an impersonator. It’s Matthew Lillard, who played Shaggy in both live-action big screen movies. So, just as Casey Kasem previously defined the character for several decades, the producers are apparently hoping that Lillard redefines Shaggy.