When I was a kid in a family with access to cable and satellite (and during spells where we just used the cords and boom! Instant un-encryption, I was open to many types of TV shows of the classic nature: sitcoms, dramas, variety, sports, specials, TV movies and especially cartoons. Like any kid, animation was not only a fun time for me, but it was escapism; watching cartoons felt like a chance to get away from real life and enjoy the laughter and zaniness with your favorite characters. So what do you get when you mix some of the most famous personalities of each of the genres of TV into 60 minutes of one weekly cartoon? Let’s find out, gang.
After the out-of-the-blue monster (rardon the run) success of the first series of what is at this point a franchise, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, executives at CBS have decided to do the first steps of helping create and grow out a television phenomenon: constantly air reruns. From the WAY!’s end in 1970 (on Halloween no less!) and throughout that year, ‘71 and ‘72, the Eye network got the eyes of the youngsters tuned into the (grand)daddy of the litter, and from that collected the revenue they never realized they could make from any Saturday morning cartoon before and since. But on the other side of the office, the creators and producers at Hanna-Barbera wanted to actually continue the franchise with new shows, even wanting another season of Where Are You! since they realized how much of a 300-pound gorilla they had on their hands. After months of negotiations and back-and-forth, CBS finally agreed to a new Scooby-Doo series. And this series would be extravagant: scarier villains, guest stars, music, and double the length of typical WAY! Episode! And the viewers were all for it.
But it would be the beginning and end of Scooby-Doo as we knew it!
(Well, end for CBS, and beginning for the franchise itself.)
It’s The New Scooby-Doo Movies.
So, for this one, our favorite gang from Mystery Incorporated is joined on their usual snooping investigations with some of our favorite icons of entertainment.
Season 1:
- Jonathan Winters – Himself and Maude Frickert (character) / “The Frickert Fracas”
- Phyllis Diller – Herself / "A Good Medium Is Rare"
- Sandy Duncan – Herself / "Sandy Duncan's Jekyll and Hyde"
- Sonny & Cher – Themselves / "The Secret of Shark Island"
- Laurel and Hardy - “Themselves” / "The Ghost of Bigfoot"
- Davy Jones (The Monkees) – Himself / "The Haunted Horseman of Hagglethorn Hall"
- Jerry Reed (Country music star) – Himself / "The Phantom of the Country Music Hall"
- from The Addams Family:
-- John Astin – Gomez Addams
-- Jackie Coogan – Uncle Fester
--Ted Cassidy – Lurch
-- Jodie Foster (future award-winning actress) - Pugsley Addams [yes, she voiced a boy; it’s not new]
-- Carolyn Jones – Morticia Addams / “Wednesday is Missing”
S1 Multiple Episodes: - Don Knotts (The Andy Griffith Show, later Three’s Company) – Himself / "Guess Who's Knott Coming to Dinner?" and "The Spooky Fog of Juneberry"
- From The Three Stooges:
-- Pat Harrington (The Inspector, One Day at a Time) – Moe
-- Daws Butler (voice acting legend) – Larry & Curly Joe / “Ghastly Ghostly Town” and “The Ghost of the Red Baron”
- The Harlem Globetrotters - Themselves / "The Ghostly Creep from the Deep" and "The Loch Ness Mess" (plus "The Mystery of Haunted Island" [Season 2 premiere])
- Jonathan Winters – Himself and Maude Frickert (character) / “The Frickert Fracas”
- Phyllis Diller – Herself / "A Good Medium Is Rare"
- Sandy Duncan – Herself / "Sandy Duncan's Jekyll and Hyde"
- Sonny & Cher – Themselves / "The Secret of Shark Island"
- Laurel and Hardy - “Themselves” / "The Ghost of Bigfoot"
- Davy Jones (The Monkees) – Himself / "The Haunted Horseman of Hagglethorn Hall"
- Jerry Reed (Country music star) – Himself / "The Phantom of the Country Music Hall"
- from The Addams Family:
-- John Astin – Gomez Addams
-- Jackie Coogan – Uncle Fester
--Ted Cassidy – Lurch
-- Jodie Foster (future award-winning actress) - Pugsley Addams [yes, she voiced a boy; it’s not new]
-- Carolyn Jones – Morticia Addams / “Wednesday is Missing”
S1 Multiple Episodes: - Don Knotts (The Andy Griffith Show, later Three’s Company) – Himself / "Guess Who's Knott Coming to Dinner?" and "The Spooky Fog of Juneberry"
- From The Three Stooges:
-- Pat Harrington (The Inspector, One Day at a Time) – Moe
-- Daws Butler (voice acting legend) – Larry & Curly Joe / “Ghastly Ghostly Town” and “The Ghost of the Red Baron”
- The Harlem Globetrotters - Themselves / "The Ghostly Creep from the Deep" and "The Loch Ness Mess" (plus "The Mystery of Haunted Island" [Season 2 premiere])
Season 2:
--Tim Conway (The Carol Burnett Show) – Himself /
"The Spirit Spooked Sports Show"
-- Don Adams (Get Smart, later Inspector Gadget) – Himself / "The Exterminator"
--Cass Elliot (The Mamas and the Papas, later a solo musician) –
Herself / "The Haunted Candy Factory"
--Dick Van Dyke (The Dick Van Dyke Show, later Diagnosis: Murder) – Himself / "The Haunted Carnival"
And the casts of:
--Jeannie (the sort-of cartoon version of I Dream of Jeannie) / (“Mystery in Persia”) {I’m honestly surprised no one mentioned or even played a subplot about how Daphne and Jeannie look like twins}
-- Speed Buggy (“The Weird Winds of Winona”) and
-- Josie and the Pussycats (including Casey Kasem [again] also voicing Alexander Cabot, essentially voicing two versions of the same character) /
"The Haunted Showboat" (all in Season 2)
- While I kind-of enjoyed the hour-long format, I feel there’s some lengths of padding in each episode. There are some moments in the padded scenes I do like, but they mostly drag until we reach the case of the week again and get closer to finding the villain.
- And when M.I. and the special guest(s) finally do reach the villain, the shock awe and surprise don’t come in as strong or the revealed people don’t appear as much in the episodes - making their appearances blink-and-you-miss-it moments while also making their unmaskings dull (or at least to me). As for the episodes, I blame the trend of combo hour shows influencing the decision of the hour-long show story-wise, but hey, more adventure is still fine by me, I suppose. While the writers tried their best to keep the viewers hooked throughout (and I appreciate it greatly), it didn’t with me (which might explain why the show was split in half like 60s Batman for syndication; to have some modicum of interest from the first half to the second).
- Also, unlike Where Are You!, The S-D Movies doesn’t have the high amounts of tension or genuine scares (or at least that’s what I think when I was a kid). While I enjoy this one for its own merits of entertainment, this (along with the padding) feels like a turn-off to me.
-Also, a turn-off, the way the gang just so happens to meet the special guest by happenstance -- if not plot-based contrivance. It's one thing to meet your favorite star where you know they'll be at (even if you run into them), but meeting them as the plot calls for it makes little to no sense. Especially when they meet the characters from another Hanna-Barbera show (see when they meet the cast of Jeannie or Josie and the Pussycats. Unless they're all in the same universe, they must watch CBS on Saturday mornings like the rest of us. Well, rest of you, I wasn't even a sperm/egg in 1972).
- Plus, the fact that despite being titled The Scooby-Doo Movies, it’s obvious that each episode really not. Then again, after the decade where TV-movies and miniseries reigned supreme, anything these days can count as a movie (just ask Nickelodeon during the 2000s to now), so I’ll give this a pass.
I also love that, years and generations down the line, that The New S-D Movies introduced many kids to these guest stars -- especially those they’ve never heard of (like in my instance: Phyllis Diller, Jonathan Winters, Laurel & Hardy, Cass Elliot (and later The Mamas and The Papas), The Harlem Globetrotters, Davy Jones (and later The Monkees) and Tim Conway. Thanks to The S-D Movies, I now have a great appreciation for these actors/singers/ and their works and appearances on other shows.
Finally, after over two years of rerunning Where Are You!, The New Scooby-Doo Movies debuted on CBS on September 9, 1972. With its characters, mystery aspect, goofy co-main characters, and the fact it came after the first series, it - like its predecessor - was an instant success. Kids loved it, critics enjoyed it. And it later got its second season (which aired from September 1 where it also received high ratings. Then… CBS went back to rerunning it and WAY!. Why? Because, according to one source, as thought by the execs at the time, the network could make as much money rerunning old shows instead of making new ones with Hanna-Barbera. (Like, while that is all fine and good for like one year, this annoys me, because the folks at Hanna-Barbera have said they were open to more S-D shows or even new episodes of New Movies or Where Are You!--and the popularity was there. But to CBS’ Eye, the almighty dollar won out) Reruns of The New Scooby-Doo Movies (along with Where Are You!) continued for almost three more years from November 3, 1973 until the network’s option on the franchise ran out on August 25, 1976.
While Scooby-Doo and Mystery Inc. may have solved its last mysteries here on CBS, it wasn’t the end of their adventures as thanks to a namesake certain television executive whom taken the gang with him to his next destination: ABC.
I don’t have many (or any, really) favorite villains from this series. Because of the hour-long format, the dragging, the weak scares, and the fact that I can guess who it is within the first fifteen minutes. So here are my five favorite guest stars, scenes and funny scenes (known hereafter in honor of the franchise I'm reviewing as my "Rive Ravorites".)
Rive Ravorite Guest Stars:
- The Three Stooges
- Don Knotts
- The Addams Family
- Phyllis Diller
- The Cast of Josie and the Pussycats
Rive Ravorite Scenes:
- Don Knotts’ costuming and changing fracases ("Guess Who's Knott Coming to Dinner?")
- The key scene with Laurel & Hardy ("The Ghost of Bigfoot")
- Any scene with any Addams (“Wednesday is Missing”)
- The introduction of Maude Frickert (“The Frickert Fracas”)- All scenes involving Shaggy and Alexander together (knowing they're both voiced by Casey Kasem). ("The Haunted Showboat")
Rive Ravorite Laughs:
- Again, Don Knotts’ costuming and changing fracases (Again, "Guess Who's Knott Coming to Dinner?")
- The Globetrotters' bank shot ("The Ghostly Creep from the Deep")
- Every scene with Laurel & Hardy ("The Ghost of Bigfoot")
- Shaggy, Scooby & Alexander jumping ship... to a lower level ("The Haunted Showboat")
- Anything with Uncle Fester (“Wednesday is Missing”)
The series is d available on DVD and digital on Warner Home Video. But… a funny story to tide over. When it was released to VHS, not every episode was released because of licencing rights pertaining to the estates of the special guests or the company that owns the shows that feature the guests (that being The Addams Family episode [and very aptly-titled at that] “Wednesday is Missing”). And the DVDs didn’t get better in that regard, as only all but eight episodes got cleared for release on the plastic disc as The Best of The Scooby-Doo Movies. That is, until on June 4, 2019 (five days ago as of posting this), when WHV released those eight other episodes under the title “The Lost Episodes”, and almost all episodes on DVD and Blu-Ray as The (Almost) Complete Collection. “Wednesday is Missing” is still missing (unless...).
In conclusion, The Scooby-Doo Movies was a fun, intriguing, entertaining and hilarious literal hour of stars, scares, scams, solves and Scooby. It's not my favorite of the franchise, but it's still a "wail" of a good time. regardless.
Thank you everyone for joining me for the start of the Fifty-Difty-Doo! A Scooby-Doo! 50th Anniversary Relebration. Tune in next week when I discuss the first S-D series during its thrice-as-long run on ABC, the start of a decidedly darker nature than before, and the first under more names than Saturday Night Live: The Scooby-Doo Show.
I'm Andrew, and until next week... Rooby-Rooby-Roo!!!
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