SCOOBY-DOO AND THE RELUCTANT WEREWOLF: Shaggy Gets Shaggier

RETRO REVIEW

As previously mentioned last week, Hanna-Barbera launched a series of syndicated films called the "Hanna-Barbera Superstars 10". To briefly recap, in the '80s, Hanna-Barbera was struggling to stay topical with the Saturday morning generation, so they made the "Superstars 10" films to bring back their original characters for a new audience. However, bringing characters from the '60s forward twenty years is a fairly difficult prospect. Especially one that has so many incarnations like Scooby-Doo.

"Scooby-Doo, Where are You?" began airing in September 1969. It was instantly popular although formulaic in plot: every episode managed to end with the creature/ghost/monster that Mystery Inc. was chasing to be none other than a disturbed and disgruntled adult intoning the now infamous phrase: "And I would've gotten away with it too if it wasn't for those meddling kids!" Two years later, another series followed called "The New Scooby-Doo Mysteries" that featured real-life celebrities (more often than not, voiced by their actual counterparts). It launched the characters even more into pop culture (oddly enough, the theme song of the show managed to make its way into the background of David Fincher's Zodiac).


But by the '80s, Scooby had been having some trouble maintaining his popularity. The series "The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo" attempted to have a darker tone with the ghosts being real manifestations rather than crooks in sheets. They even managed to procure the legendary Vincent Price to perform the voice of Vincent Van Ghoul, a benevolent sorcerer who tasks Scooby, Shaggy, Daphne, Scooby's nephew Scrappy and a young pickpocket named Flim-Flam to recapture 13 of the world's most terrifying ghosts who were imprisoned in a Chest of Demons after Shaggy and Scooby were tricked into opening it. Still, the show was canceled after - naturally - 13 episodes. But Scooby would become an integral part of the "Superstars 10" series with a trilogy of films: Scooby-Doo and the Boo Brothers, Scooby-Doo and the Ghoul School and the one I've decided to talk about today: Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf.


Count Dracula (voice of Hamilton Camp) is readily organizing the annual Monster Road Rally in Transylvania which gathers together the world's most famous monsters in a race for fabulous prizes (at least as defined by the monsters themselves). He's dismayed to find that the Werewolf has retired and skipped town to Florida. Now he has to come up with a new werewolf who has a talent for racing. He stumbles upon Shaggy Norville Rogers (voice of Casey Kasem). Shaggy - who lives with Scooby (voice of Don Messick), Scrappy (Messick) and a girlfriend we haven't heard about until now, Googie (voice of B.J. Ward) - is now a professional race car driver. Little does he realize that he is being stalked by Dracula's gruesome twosome henchmen, The Hunch Bunch. After a few unsuccessful attempts, they finally are able to turn Shaggy into a werewolf. They then kidnap him and the gang and take him to Transylvania. Upon arriving, Shaggy makes Dracula promise to change him back to normal if he wins the race. Dracula "agrees" and gives Shaggy a new car to race with, the Wolf-Wagon. If Shaggy can just survive the Rally, he'll go home but Dracula won't make it easy for him.

I'm happy that Shaggy finally gets a central role in a Scooby-Doo adventure. He's my favorite character and I loved his '80s red shirt. This premise sounds decent, but it quickly descends into a knockoff of "Wacky Races". I have nothing against "Wacky Races", but there's a better series of situations one could get into based on the Reluctant Werewolf title. And Scrappy-Doo is a horrible character. Speaking of characters, who is Googie? Since when does Shaggy have a girlfriend? She doesn't show up anywhere else but this movie.

All in all, Reluctant Werewolf isn't an unwatchable film by any means, but it simply does not take advantage of what could be a great story. Scooby-Doo is a franchise that suffers from overexposure. Let's take a few years off of anything Scooby-Doo related and then bring the character back.

THE JETSONS MEET THE FLINTSTONES: Yabba-Dabba To the Future

RETRO REVIEW

In the late ‘50s, William Hanna and Joseph Barbera – two former MGM animators – struck out on their own and established their own animation studio aptly named after them. Throughout the next decade, they would create numerous classic characters that the world immediately fell in love with: Scooby-Doo, Yogi Bear and Top Cat, to name just a few. However, they made history when, in 1960, they created the world’s first animated television sitcom, “The Flintstones”. By establishing that the problems with modern technology had occurred way back in pre-historic Bedrock, Hanna and Barbera were able to make jokes about televisions, automobiles and other contemporary contrivances. Audiences tuned in to see what mishap best friends Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble had gotten themselves into this time. In the six years it was on the air, it became a piece of Americana.

Hanna and Barbera decided to repeat their success two years later with one major difference: take the setting out of the Stone Age and into the (then far-off) 21^st Century. The result was “The Jetsons”. The humor from that show also partly stemmed from technology, but from a different point-of-view – in the future, humans can still be inept of the very things that are supposed to make our lives easier. Though the show never reached the historic heights of “The Flintstones”, it was still regarded fairly well.

However, in the next two decades, Hanna and Barbera soon learned that trying to repeat your successes far too often leads you into an overproduction of content and a lesser quality. In trying to recapture their success with the core characters they created, the two began a series of specially-made syndicated films called the “Hanna-Barbera Superstars 10”: a Yogi Bear trilogy (Yogi’s Great Escape, Yogi Bear and the Magical Flight of the Spruce Goose, Yogi Bear and the Invasion of the Space Bears), a Scooby-Doo trilogy (Scooby-Doo and the Boo Brothers, Scooby-Doo and the Ghoul School, Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf) and then other features like Top Cat and the Beverly Hills Cats, The Good, the Bad and Huckleberry Hound and Rockin’ with Judy Jetson. But the one I’m gonna talk about today brought their two iconic families together for the only time ever: The Jetsons Meet the Flintstones.

Though they are centuries apart, both George Jetson (voice of George O’Hanlon) and Fred Flintstone (voice of Henry Corden) have been having the same kind of problems. All they want is a simple getaway from their troubles. Meanwhile, Elroy Jetson (voice of Daws Butler) has built a time machine and plans to take the family on a trip to the 25^th century. Due to a mishap, they are instead sent back in time to the Stone Age, right where the Flintstones and Rubbles happen to be camping. When Elroy determines that it might take a while to get the time machine repaired, the Flintstones agree to help them blend in to prehistoric society. Elroy finally does get the time machine to work again, but this time it accidentally sends the Flintstones and Rubbles into the future, stranding them in the past. Now that they are both wildly out of their elements, the two groups must learn about their new surroundings and try and get back home.

This is a concept that should have gotten a theatrical release (unlike that horrible The Man Called Flintstone movie). But for what we got, syndication was the best plan. A couple of polishes at the script and it could have been really something. The story takes a while to get going but just as we get to the titular meeting, the story take s a long detour in trying to get Fred and Barney’s job back in a rather underhanded way by Fred in getting George to use his future technology to cheat. I don’t know what’s worse: having Fred being a no-good scoundrel in using George or George allowing Fred to take advantage of his technology. Their efforts matter little as Fred and Barney still lose.

One of my least favorite cartoon characters is Judy Jetson. I have little to no sympathy for this character. In every appearance, she’s either going on and on about some boy she just met or crying her eyes out because of some boy she just broke up with. I’d rather not use a certain word to describe such behavior, but she fits the description. I don’t blame her voice actress, Janet Waldo, for the unlikeable characterization but the writers (and whoever made the horrible business decision to replace her with Tiffany for Jetsons: The Movie).

But, all in all, this is what Hanna-Barbera fans have been wanting for years and finally got. Their two favorite families getting to meet. I’m glad it didn’t turn out to be just a dream of Fred’s (like the earlier episode where the Green Gazoo actually transported the Flintstones and Rubbles to a pre-Jetsons Orbit City) and that clearly H&B cared about their characters. Unfortunately, neither man is alive today, but they left behind a long legacy that won’t be soon forgotten by those who enjoyed  and continue to enjoy what they brought to the world.