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By the time I was getting up early to watch cartoons on Saturday morning, the Scooby-Doo franchise must have been in its fifth or sixth series. Still, I always preferred those classic, original episodes to the updated shows featuring that annoying pup, Scrappy-Doo—so I was eager to pick up a copy of the second volume of shows from the original Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! series (despite its blatantly incorrect punctuation).
For those of you who somehow missed out on the show as a kid, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? was a weekly cartoon (originally airing from 1969-1971) that followed the adventures of four teenagers (suave Freddie, girly red-headed Daphne, bespectacled Velma, and hippie Shaggy) and their cowardly Great Dane, Scooby-Doo, as they investigated ghostly mysteries.
Bump in the Night includes four episodes (episodes five through eight) from the original series. In “Decoy for a Dognapper,” Scooby-Doo acts as a decoy to catch the villain who’s kidnapping prize-winning show dogs (while inexplicably dressed as a witch doctor). In “What the Hex Going On?” the kids’ friend, Sharon, is haunted by the ghost of Elias Kingston, who demands her family’s fortune. A legendary ape man wreaks havoc on Daphne’s uncle’s movie set in “Never Ape an Ape Man.” And a strange alien-like being brings an amusement park to life in “Foul Play in Funland.”
You always know what to expect from this simple, formulaic cartoon. There will be some kind of ghost or monster, who almost always turns out to be a bad guy in disguise. There will always be some sort of a chase scene (often involving a secret passage), and when the kids try to trap the monster/ghost, their plan will inevitably backfire. But, in the end, the villain will be caught, unmasked, and carted off to jail. It’s all pretty predictable stuff, but it’s a fun Saturday morning flashback nonetheless. I remembered all four of the shows on the disc (probably because I watched the reruns over and over for years), yet I still enjoyed rewatching them. I still chuckle when Shaggy and Scooby-Doo scurry off in fear, and I still laugh at the pun-filled jokes and the slapstick comedy.
The super-simple 2D animation may not compare to today’s computer-generated cartoons, either, but it’s bright and vibrant and imaginative. The characters are lovable, too—from clumsy Velma, who’s always losing her glasses, to Shaggy and Scooby, who will do just about anything for a Scooby Snack.
As with many of these blast-from-the-past cartoon collections, though, my greatest complaint with Bump in the Night is that there’s just not enough of it. The four episodes are familiar and fun-filled, but I’d rather have all of the show’s episodes in one convenient set. So if you’re looking for a few laughs from the original Scooby-Doo series, this release is still worth checking out—but die-hard fans might want to pick up a multi-disc set instead.
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