Scooby-Doo! and the Samurai Sword (2009)

 Scooby-Doo! and the Samurai Sword (2009) */*****

Well, here we are... the 40th anniversary and the farewell performance of Casey Kasem as Shaggy Rogers. A return that lasted 6 years and 9 movies culminates in this, the 13th movie in the DTV series. Is it a worthy send-off? We'll find out. 

The Mystery Inc. crew travels the globe on a transcontinental treasure hunt to solve a series of ancient riddles. Scooby-Doo and Shaggy are indoctrinated by an unlikely Sword Master.

Scooby-Doo! and the Goblin King (2008)

 Scooby-Doo! and the Goblin King (2008) ****/*****

With spooky season right around the corner, join me as we venture into the realm of "The Goblin King". 

For those keeping track, this is the 12th movie in the long running DTV series that launched in the year 1998. 

Scooby-Doo and Shaggy must go into the underworld ruled by the Goblin King in order to stop a mortal named The Amazing Krudsky who wants power and is a threat to their pals, Fred, Velma and Daphne.

                                                              

Chill Out, Scooby-Doo! (2007)

 Chill Out, Scooby-Doo! (2007) ****/*****

 For those keeping track, this is the 11th of the long running DTV series featuring Hanna-Barbera's most iconic and enduring franchise. 

The gang's vacation to Paris takes a wrong turn when Scooby and Shaggy miss their flight and end up on a skydiving expedition in the Himalayas. To make matters worse, upon arrival they must outrun the Abominable Snowmonster..

Apparently, I have watched this one before, but didn't have any clear memory of it. Although the opening few minutes gave me a strong case of deja-vu. So I headed over to IMDB to see if I at least rated it previously. I had, and gave it a 6/10., which seems a little too harsh.  

Scooby-Doo! in Where's My Mummy? (2005)

 Scooby-Doo! in Where's My Mummy? (2005) ****/*****

Here we are, earthlings, the 9th movie in the DTV series, It's been a long road, and sometimes boring road, but we made it! We have nearly completed 1/4 of our journey.  Let's see what adventure awaits us this time as. 

Mystery Inc. fight graverobbers and a curse left behind by Cleopatra while vacationing in Egypt.

                                           

Scooby Doo and the Monster of Mexico (2003)

 Scooby Doo and the Monster of Mexico (2003) ****/*****

We've made it to the sixth entry in the DTV series! Only thirty more to go! 

Much love to Scoobypedia for their excellent Wiki, that has been an invaluable resource for me. I suggest you give them visit and be amazed at the depth of information.

 

This one marks the final teaming of the surviving cast of the 1969 series. Both Nicole Jaffe and Heather North departed the series  before the next movie. 

Scooby and the gang are in Mexico for the Día de Muertos (Day of the Dead) when they discover a frightening Chupacabra on the loose!

When I first saw this movie upon its debut over 2 decades ago, it struck me as a series finale, though I don't remember why. And a rewatch awhile back didn't give the same bittersweet farewell vibe, so I have no idea what I was thinking. Pretty sure I was just stupid.

At any rate, this is far superior to the previous 2 entries. The writer (Douglas Wood) of this movie understands not only the characters, but how to write for the medium as well. Which isn't surprising considering he was the story editor for the original Tiny Toons among other things for Amblin animation in the 90's. 

It's a fast paced story, with a catchy soundtrack and pleasant early 00's TV animation. Still nowhere near the first three in terms of tone and production values, but sure as heck a huge step up from the 4th and 5th ones.  

I'm not entirely sure what happened between the cast recording of Legend of the Vampire and this movie, but Daphne's voice aged like 40 years. She's hesitant and almost sounds as if she has vocal fatigue. Granted, she's in her late 50's, but considering that at least Casey Kasem and Rita Moreno were in their early 70's at the time this was released, they still sound relatively youthful. Only Daphne sounds like she's aged.

I think the soundtrack is my favorite part of this movie, it's a shame it was never released. 

The plot is a simple land grab scheme by a greedy developer and his accomplice. They want the land and use El Chupacabra to scare them into selling. 

It's a premise that makes excellent use of setting and characters.  

The absence of the "Where Are You?" theme, or any identifiable theme is kinda jarring to say the least, instead, what we have is nice, catchy, and has fantastic rhythm, but nothing suitable for the chase scene. It's  weird.

What we do have is a gathering of some nice Latin American influenced songs that are really good.  

"Viva Mexico"	Written by Rich Dickerson & Gigi Meroni	Maria Carmen Diaz
"Scooby Cha Cha Doo"		Maria Carmen Diaz & Rich Dickerson
"Sol (Batucada)"	Written by Gilberto Cerezo, Ulises Lozano, Carlos Chairez, Omar Gongora, and Cesar Pliego	Kinky
"A Donde Vas"	Written by Kike Santander & Javier Gaviria	Carolina
"Mueve Mi Sangre"	Written by Artro Santillanes & Janko Rodriguez	Plastiko

Cast

Mystery Inc. (No change)

Frank Welker as Scooby-Doo, Fred Jones, El Chupacabra
Casey Kasem as Shaggy Rogers
Heather North as Daphne Blake (final film role)
Nicole Jaffe as Velma Dinkley (final film role)

Supporting Cast                                                      Other Scooby Projects

Eddie Santiago as Alejo Otero                            What's New, Scooby Doo? 112. Lights, Camera, Mayhem!

Jesse Borrego as Luis Otero                               What's New, Scooby Doo? 102. 3-D Struction 
Candi Milo as Charlene/Museum Guide             Alien Invaders, Big Top Scooby-Doo!,  Stage Fright,                                                                                                                        Frankencreepy,  Be Cool, Scooby Doo: 202, There Wolf
Rita Moreno as Doña Dolores
Maria Canals as Sofia Otero / Old Woman
Brandon Gonzalez as Jorge Otero
Rip Taylor as Mr. Smiley / Ghost of Señor Otero   Scooby Goes Hollywood, 

                                                                                                    What's New, Scooby Doo? 106. Riva Ras Regas
Cástulo Guerra as Señor Fuente
Benito Martinez as El Curandero                       What's New, Scooby Doo? 204. High-Tech House of Horrors 

Current DTV rankings. Based on how much I enjoyed them, not necessarily the quality of the production

1. Zombie Island
2. Alien Invaders
3. Monster of Mexico
4. Witch's Ghost
5. Cyberchase 
6. Legend of the Vampire

The next movie in the series is "....and the Loch Ness Monster" which is at least partially written by Mark Turosz, who penned my least favorite entries so far. It also features one returning voice actor, and one debuting in the DTV series. In the roles of Daphne and Velma, respectively.  

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