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Back in the days before everyone had cable…back before DVRs…even back before remote controls and VCRs…kids would get up at the crack of dawn on Saturday mornings to watch their favorite cartoons—stuff like Muppet Babies, Alvin and the Chipmunks, and The Littles. But my own personal favorite was always Scooby-Doo—the original version—which once again comes to DVD in its fourth collection, Spooked Bayou.
The four episodes in this fourth Scooby-Doo collection follow the gang from Mystery, Inc. as they find themselves in all kinds of creepy places, solving all kinds of creepy mysteries. In “Which Witch is Which?” the gang gets lost in a swamp on the way home from a fishing trip, only to find themselves in a deserted town, where the residents have fled in fear of a witch and the zombie she’s conjured. In “Go Away Ghost Ship,” they decide to help a shipping magnate whose ships are being raided by the ghost of Red Beard and his ghostly pirate crew. A ghostly alien lands his haunted flying saucer in an old, abandoned air field in “Spooky Space Kook.” And Scooby-Doo is set to inherit a share of a million dollars in “A Night of Fright Is No Delight”—but only if he can survive the night in a haunted mansion.
If you grew up watching Scooby-Doo on Saturday mornings, like I did, you’ll most likely remember all four of these episodes. But even if you don’t remember them, you’ll know exactly how they’ll play out, since the show always follows the same formula. Still, it’s the dependable formulas that make the show so much fun to watch. You’ll expect the gang to split up. You’ll expect the chase scenes. You’ll expect a script full of silly, punny comedy. You’ll expect some kind of wacky plan to trap the villain (which always goes just slightly awry). And, of course, you’ll expect the grand unveiling of the bad guy, who isn’t a witch/zombie/ghost/alien after all.
The gang’s escape plans are always completely cockamamie, and the scenarios are totally contrived, but, really, the show wouldn’t be any fun if it were realistic—if the gang solved nice, normal mysteries by calmly thinking through the facts and bringing the evidence to the police. You may know the outcome, but you’ll never know how the gang will get there. They could accidentally catch the villain by riding a jackhammer (which they thought was a motorized pogo stick). Or they could hatch an elaborate plan involving a giant fan and a washing machine. It may be kooky, but that’s what makes it an entertaining cartoon.
This fourth volume of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! episodes is another reliably enjoyable blast from the past. The bad guys may be creepy, but the characters are lovable, the situations are silly, and everything always works out in the end. And, as an added bonus, you don’t even have to wake up at the crack of dawn on Saturday morning to enjoy it.
DVD Review:
If you just can’t get enough of Scooby and Shaggy, you can check out the special features menu on the Spooked Bayou DVD release for a bonus episode from the show’s 21st-century incarnation, Shaggy & Scooby-Doo Get a Clue! In “Lightning Strikes Twice,” Shaggy and Scooby have to stop the evil Dr. Phineas Phibes from unleashing the power of lightning on the planet. While Phibes’s bumbling agents are amusing, though, Scooby-Doo purists probably won’t be sold on the new storyline—or the sketchy animation.
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