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Ms Fenris Watches "Scooby Doo, Mystery Incorporated"
4 years ago
As usual in my reviews, its full of SPOIILERS.
Here I go, talkin' about something that's been out for a million years now, and I've only just watched it. First, because it seems like a lot of people love this show and I don't want to get your hopes up, I hated it.
But WHY did I hate it? Therein lies the real mystery. Come on gang, let's find some clues and solve it! Because this may be a very difficult case.
On its veneer there are things I ought to like within this show. They give scooby doo a plot stretched out across its two seasons with a lovecraftian leaning to it, the show is atmospherically eerie, and it's done its best to try and be 'serious', and not hokey like previous scooby doo iterations.
But the devil, as always, lies in the details.
The FIRST clue: As the show opens, we have Velma and Shaggy engaged in a secret relationship with one another, wherein Velma is jealous of a dog. Shaggy flat out says at least once that he might not be ready for a relationship, to which Velma responds with mean-spiritedness and bitchery.
No means no, Velma.
Once Velma and Shaggy stop snogging, the show mildly improves. Fred's bizarre fascination with 'traps' ranges between being actually funny to 'Oh god make it stop, the word 'trap' has lost all meaning please make it stop', and provides the SECOND clue. The gang solves a few mind-numbingly dumb mysteries (Guess what, the gator people were the people who ran the creepy gator motel, who'd-a thunk it?), and it even manages to be good sometimes.
Then, like a parasite waking up from its slumber deep within your bowels, the plot rears its ugly head in the form of a disgustingly stupid parrot named Professor Perrrichles (I don't give a shit about the spelling), and here's where things become truly dumb.
A child play-acting with action figures and toys, who has seen a few movies and television shows, may have the general NUANCE for what makes an evil character. They're always GLARING and SMILING evilly, they've got EERIE MUSIC to tell you they're EVIL, and they talk in an EVIL VOICE.
But in the end, it's a fucking parrot with a scarf, a giant head and a dumb toupee, and I just can't get over that. Clue number 3.
Things carry on, yadda yadda yadda, the 'mysteries' the gang starts to unmask get more and more serious. Eventually they change from 'masked mysteries' to straight out super-villains, armed with super-science, explosions, and out-right sorcery. Clue number 4!
Amidst the ramping up of the danger level of the bad guys, the plot creeps along. ...And by 'creeps along' I mean sometimes the show cuts to the bad guys meeting around an ominously lit room, and saying "We need to get the macguffins! Soon, the macguffins will be in our hands! Mwa ha ha!" Only for them to not do all that much except the same at the end of the episode. Clue 5.
EVENTUALLY, in its own slogging sort of way, mixed in with monster-of-the-episode type 'mysteries' to solve (Clue 6), the final arc of the show actually rises, and the grand mystery is revealed: That an evil space-monster is trapped under crystal cove, and has been subtly engineering (somehow) the creation of various 'mystery solving gangs' throughout history, each accompanied by an animal companion, so that when they solve the 'mystery' of how to find it, it will have an animal to possess, and free itself.
The gang beats the flying spaghetti monster, and time alters itself as if the monster had never existed, and was never exerting an evil influence on the world: Crystal Cove becomes a bright, gaudy, shiny paradise, as saturated as What's New Scooby Doo. All of this is what I call the final and most important clue, Clue number 7.
SO. Let's examine the clues, and solve this mystery, gang!
The first clue, Velma's unpleasant demeanor, lines up perfectly with the general coldness and mean-spirited nature of the entire town and all its characters. When the background characters aren't forgettable, they're unpleasant to be around.
Clue number two, Fred's trap fascination, indicates that the creators of this show just don't really have a grasp for humor. Every once in a while, perhaps ONCE every four or five episodes it got a good laugh out of me, but otherwise it was groan-inducing. Yet, for all their lack of talent, they never got the hint and instead decided to try HARDER by doubling down on it all.
The third clue, the stupid evil parrot, is the bloody dagger of clues. Whoever made this show has only a child's grasp of story-telling, knowing that things are supposed to happen a certain way, that if you play eerie music and make someone smile evilly they SEEM evil; but they write these things into their show with no actual grasp of WHY these tropes are the way they are. ...and then they apply them to a parrot in a scarf.
The fourth clue is apropos, because by now you ought to be getting sick of me writing 'clue'; as sick as I was of hearing the show say 'mystery' and 'clue' and 'trap'. The bad guys of the show start to become super-villains or genuine paranormal entities, and yet the gang still say 'Let's solve this MYSTERY' or 'Let's get some CLUES'. These are no longer masked guys trying to scare you away from their haunted gold mine- these are cyber-ninja, nazi robot super-soldiers with exploding weapons! It shouldn't MATTER whether or not you pull off their mask; they're still shooting things with exploding missiles from inside their tony-stark super-suits!
And yet, the gang presses on. Everything is a 'mystery' or a 'clue' or a 'trap'. These are the only three things that exist in this world. Mysteries, clues, or traps.
We come to the fifth clue. The villains stand around, say evil shit, and stand around some more. This is really just a revisiting of an earlier clue, in that the show writers don't know how on earth to write a story for real. All they know how to do is check tropes off their list, and their list says "We need that scene where THIS happens, because that makes things seem serious!"
Clue number six PROVES the creators of the show have no idea how to do things. Even as the final arc begins, for some reason they still feel it necessary to insert 'one-off, episodic monsters' to be dealt with (Cow-bee-piranhas? Really?), as if they know nothing but that core ethos, that "Scooby Doo is a show where you solve a mystery every episode).
Then, at last, the final clue, and the most damning one: As Crystal Cove becomes bright and shiny, it reveals that this show has an insatiable need to EXPLAIN everything. Why does Scooby Doo talk? Because aliens visited the world long ago, and their descendants were animals gifted with intelligence and speech! Why do four teenagers hang out with a talking animal to solve mysteries? Because an evil monster made them do it! Why is Crystal Cove so riddled with masked villains? Because the EVIL MONSTER exerted its influence to make everyone act that way! Why are most scooby doo shows to bright and cheerful? Because its a world absent of evil, since the spaghetti monster was removed from it! Yes, we have an explanation for why scooby doo is so hokey!
This show is bullshit. It's INSIDIOUSLY bullshit. At a glance, perhaps on paper or in premise it seems fun, and maybe I just came into it too late as a bitter, jaded adult, and don't have some kind of childhood nostalgia for it. But to me its problems are multitude, and all boil down to this: The writers, for all their ambition, just didn't know the very basics of how to tell stories. My dislike for this show is a dislike for all of its squandered potential; a scooby doo show where they solve a grander mystery in a spooky, atmospheric world with lovecraftian influences sounds great to me. But they squandered all of its potential, and we may now never get to see a show like that.
...Oh wait. Gravity Falls did ALL of that, but pulled it off flawlessly on all accounts. Cool.
Here I go, talkin' about something that's been out for a million years now, and I've only just watched it. First, because it seems like a lot of people love this show and I don't want to get your hopes up, I hated it.
But WHY did I hate it? Therein lies the real mystery. Come on gang, let's find some clues and solve it! Because this may be a very difficult case.
On its veneer there are things I ought to like within this show. They give scooby doo a plot stretched out across its two seasons with a lovecraftian leaning to it, the show is atmospherically eerie, and it's done its best to try and be 'serious', and not hokey like previous scooby doo iterations.
But the devil, as always, lies in the details.
The FIRST clue: As the show opens, we have Velma and Shaggy engaged in a secret relationship with one another, wherein Velma is jealous of a dog. Shaggy flat out says at least once that he might not be ready for a relationship, to which Velma responds with mean-spiritedness and bitchery.
No means no, Velma.
Once Velma and Shaggy stop snogging, the show mildly improves. Fred's bizarre fascination with 'traps' ranges between being actually funny to 'Oh god make it stop, the word 'trap' has lost all meaning please make it stop', and provides the SECOND clue. The gang solves a few mind-numbingly dumb mysteries (Guess what, the gator people were the people who ran the creepy gator motel, who'd-a thunk it?), and it even manages to be good sometimes.
Then, like a parasite waking up from its slumber deep within your bowels, the plot rears its ugly head in the form of a disgustingly stupid parrot named Professor Perrrichles (I don't give a shit about the spelling), and here's where things become truly dumb.
A child play-acting with action figures and toys, who has seen a few movies and television shows, may have the general NUANCE for what makes an evil character. They're always GLARING and SMILING evilly, they've got EERIE MUSIC to tell you they're EVIL, and they talk in an EVIL VOICE.
But in the end, it's a fucking parrot with a scarf, a giant head and a dumb toupee, and I just can't get over that. Clue number 3.
Things carry on, yadda yadda yadda, the 'mysteries' the gang starts to unmask get more and more serious. Eventually they change from 'masked mysteries' to straight out super-villains, armed with super-science, explosions, and out-right sorcery. Clue number 4!
Amidst the ramping up of the danger level of the bad guys, the plot creeps along. ...And by 'creeps along' I mean sometimes the show cuts to the bad guys meeting around an ominously lit room, and saying "We need to get the macguffins! Soon, the macguffins will be in our hands! Mwa ha ha!" Only for them to not do all that much except the same at the end of the episode. Clue 5.
EVENTUALLY, in its own slogging sort of way, mixed in with monster-of-the-episode type 'mysteries' to solve (Clue 6), the final arc of the show actually rises, and the grand mystery is revealed: That an evil space-monster is trapped under crystal cove, and has been subtly engineering (somehow) the creation of various 'mystery solving gangs' throughout history, each accompanied by an animal companion, so that when they solve the 'mystery' of how to find it, it will have an animal to possess, and free itself.
The gang beats the flying spaghetti monster, and time alters itself as if the monster had never existed, and was never exerting an evil influence on the world: Crystal Cove becomes a bright, gaudy, shiny paradise, as saturated as What's New Scooby Doo. All of this is what I call the final and most important clue, Clue number 7.
SO. Let's examine the clues, and solve this mystery, gang!
The first clue, Velma's unpleasant demeanor, lines up perfectly with the general coldness and mean-spirited nature of the entire town and all its characters. When the background characters aren't forgettable, they're unpleasant to be around.
Clue number two, Fred's trap fascination, indicates that the creators of this show just don't really have a grasp for humor. Every once in a while, perhaps ONCE every four or five episodes it got a good laugh out of me, but otherwise it was groan-inducing. Yet, for all their lack of talent, they never got the hint and instead decided to try HARDER by doubling down on it all.
The third clue, the stupid evil parrot, is the bloody dagger of clues. Whoever made this show has only a child's grasp of story-telling, knowing that things are supposed to happen a certain way, that if you play eerie music and make someone smile evilly they SEEM evil; but they write these things into their show with no actual grasp of WHY these tropes are the way they are. ...and then they apply them to a parrot in a scarf.
The fourth clue is apropos, because by now you ought to be getting sick of me writing 'clue'; as sick as I was of hearing the show say 'mystery' and 'clue' and 'trap'. The bad guys of the show start to become super-villains or genuine paranormal entities, and yet the gang still say 'Let's solve this MYSTERY' or 'Let's get some CLUES'. These are no longer masked guys trying to scare you away from their haunted gold mine- these are cyber-ninja, nazi robot super-soldiers with exploding weapons! It shouldn't MATTER whether or not you pull off their mask; they're still shooting things with exploding missiles from inside their tony-stark super-suits!
And yet, the gang presses on. Everything is a 'mystery' or a 'clue' or a 'trap'. These are the only three things that exist in this world. Mysteries, clues, or traps.
We come to the fifth clue. The villains stand around, say evil shit, and stand around some more. This is really just a revisiting of an earlier clue, in that the show writers don't know how on earth to write a story for real. All they know how to do is check tropes off their list, and their list says "We need that scene where THIS happens, because that makes things seem serious!"
Clue number six PROVES the creators of the show have no idea how to do things. Even as the final arc begins, for some reason they still feel it necessary to insert 'one-off, episodic monsters' to be dealt with (Cow-bee-piranhas? Really?), as if they know nothing but that core ethos, that "Scooby Doo is a show where you solve a mystery every episode).
Then, at last, the final clue, and the most damning one: As Crystal Cove becomes bright and shiny, it reveals that this show has an insatiable need to EXPLAIN everything. Why does Scooby Doo talk? Because aliens visited the world long ago, and their descendants were animals gifted with intelligence and speech! Why do four teenagers hang out with a talking animal to solve mysteries? Because an evil monster made them do it! Why is Crystal Cove so riddled with masked villains? Because the EVIL MONSTER exerted its influence to make everyone act that way! Why are most scooby doo shows to bright and cheerful? Because its a world absent of evil, since the spaghetti monster was removed from it! Yes, we have an explanation for why scooby doo is so hokey!
This show is bullshit. It's INSIDIOUSLY bullshit. At a glance, perhaps on paper or in premise it seems fun, and maybe I just came into it too late as a bitter, jaded adult, and don't have some kind of childhood nostalgia for it. But to me its problems are multitude, and all boil down to this: The writers, for all their ambition, just didn't know the very basics of how to tell stories. My dislike for this show is a dislike for all of its squandered potential; a scooby doo show where they solve a grander mystery in a spooky, atmospheric world with lovecraftian influences sounds great to me. But they squandered all of its potential, and we may now never get to see a show like that.
...Oh wait. Gravity Falls did ALL of that, but pulled it off flawlessly on all accounts. Cool.
Scooby Doo is one that I feel like I see talked about either as a whole and not a particular show or as small out-of-context clips. "Look, here's a gifset about a funny joke Fred made" "here's a gifset where I highlight scenes that might imply that Daphne and Velma are gay, especially without context" "Here's a short video about a weird thing Scoobs said"
Idunno, maybe that's only me who sees that stuff.
I didn't get far into the series, hell I'm still not convinced it was just a fever dream. But I stopped watching for the plot after watching several episodes of velma being jealous over a dog. Any episodes I continued to watch was out of a morbid curiosity until eventually I couldn't watch anymore. They had done one of my favorite shows so dirty
He doesn't. Shaggy is high, and has been high for fourty years. That's why he only talks to Shaggy. I'm pretty sure that's what they were going for....before this show.
Imagine, it's the summer of 1996. You graduate school. You're ready to settle in to load all summer watching cartoons, on satellite or cable TV.
But it's the summer of 1996. It's the summer where they just play Scooby Fucking Doo on TV. All day. And most of the night.
Just. Scooby Doo. Original, and every series after. All day. All night. Meeting The Globetrotters, Batman, Sonny and Cher. All of them. All god damned summer.
You watch the same Hanna Barbera animation of Scooby and Shaggy running around the corridor of doors chased by the monster of the week. You see the same standing out animated doors that're different from the rest of the backgrounds because lazy and cheap. You see Velma lose her glasses for the 50th time that DAY. You joke about the tropes with your friends but you're also kids and there's nothing else on so a shitty cartoon is better than news you don't care about I guess. So you just make fun of the formula.
And you get so god damned sick of Scooby Doo you don't want it to exist anymore.
Scooby Doo: Mystery Inc is a full on 90s era ironic participation where they mock it the entire time and edge the shit out of it because they absolutely hate Scooby Door. The background characters are over the top and ridiculous and mean spirited on purpose because they're lampshading the whole franchise to make it as absurd as possible. In addition to some genuinely amusing and earnest participation to actually make it as 'mature' as the franchise will allow. Up to and including giving Velma a lesbian love interest named hotdog water.
After living through the Summer of Scooby Doon't, Mystery Inc in the 10s was probably the most fun I've had with Scooby Doo in forever. It stuck to formula and just played it to the hilt.
In the end though, at least it gave us this.