Scooby Doo and the legend of the Vampire (2003)

Scooby-Doo and the Legend of the Vampire (2003) **/*****

With almost an entirely new production team, the series reverts back to the "Where Are You?" formula wholeheartedly and thus the movie is produced and plays like an episode of the Saturday Morning series. Even the Scooby gang is reverted back to their OG costumes, and what appears to be minimal alterations to the original character models.

On the plus side, the brighter color pallet means this should be easier for the kiddies to watch.   

However, I will not forgive them for what they did Thorn (Hex Girls)

Witch's Ghost

Legend of the Vampire

Those are supposed to be the same character. But WB has always loved to butcher their whole library of IP's they somehow ended up with. The same story time and time again. Going back over 30 years ago. I swear to god WB is embarrassed by most their IP's. 

Now with that out of the way, I treated the other 4 entries as movies in their own right and not as cartoons, I don't think I will be able to switch to cartoon mode yet for at least another movie. So this comes off as the ramblings of a cranky old man. 

But this is no better or worse than an episode of the classic series, making use of simple plots and reusing tons of cues from the series. Which is intentionally done by the production team. Soundtrack cues play over nearly every single second of the movie that does not feature a song, it uses sound effects from the series every 5 seconds or so. 

The bad guys are obvious the second the mystery is presented. But the "how" is absurd and perfectly in tune with original series. 

Anyway, getting back to the intentions of the production crew, once you realize it features no less than 3 members of the original cast, it becomes obvious this  is an homage to the original series. It is a reunion of sorts that is only missing the legendary Don Messick who passed away 7 years prior.

This also marks the final use of the "Where are You?" theme in the DTV series. It's performed by The Mystery Inc. gang as the closing song of the music festival. The actual vocals are provided by Krystal Harris in one of my favorite renditions so far in the DTV series.

Also I can't let it go unnoted, but the Yowie's a tribute to the Bald Mountain sequence in Fantasia (1940) 

It wasn't until I watched this that I realized Nicole Jaffe's Velma is an extremely warm nostalgia blanket, for whatever reason her, as Velma, was just comforting hear. In terms of warm nostalgia blankets, she now rests at number 3. Just behind Olan Soule (Batman in Superfriends), and Cam Clarke (Leonardo from TMNT' 87)   

There are other voice actors that take me way back to my childhood, but none are quite as comforting and reassuring as the warm nostalgia blanket trio. 

For me this is a huge step down from previous 4 and is hard me to fully accept it on it's own terms. Lovers of the franchise of a whole will love this, but for those who got here from Zombie Island, they will probably come away very disappointed. 

Mark Turosz is really a terrible writer, I cannot stand his work, he wrote both this and the previous entry. The man had no business being anywhere near the franchise, but yet WB foisted him on what, until he arrived, was a consistently entertaining DTV series. Unfortunately, there is one more Scooby Doo movie written by him but that comes after the "Monster of Mexico". 

Voice cast

Frank Welker as Scooby-Doo and Fred (Not only returning from the previous entries, but debuting as Scooby-Doo, replacing Scott Innes)

 

Casey Kasem as Shaggy (The original voice of the character, marking his DTV debut, and replacing Scott Innes, after leaving the character 8 years prior. He sticks around until the 13th movie: "The Samurai Sword" in 2009) marking the 40th anniversary of the franchise and the character he originated 

Nicole Jaffe as Velma (Who played the character from 1969-1973, and then again in 2003 for both this movie and the next, "The Monster of Mexico" marking her final appearance as the character 

Heather North as Daphne (Actually the second voice of the character, replacing the Stefanianna Christopherson, in the second season of "Where are You?".  She continued with role through 1986 with "13 Ghosts", Then again in 2003 for this movie and "The Monster of Mexico", which also marked her last time as the character)  

Phil LaMarr as Daniel Illiwara and King

Jeff Bennett as Jasper Ridgeway, Jack and Lifeguard #1
Kevin Michael Richardson as Malcolm Illiwara, the Yowie Yahoo
Jennifer Hale as Thorn and Queen
Jane Wiedlin as Dusk
Kimberly Brooks as Luna
Michael Neill as Russell/Dark Skull and Matt Marvelous
Tom Kenny as Harry/Stormy Weathers, Barry/Lightning Strikes and Lifeguard #2