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.
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