The new episode, airing 7 PM EST on Cartoon Network, is entitled “The Shrieking Madness.” And it guest stars Harlan Ellison in the role he was born to play: “Harlan Ellison.” Who, as it turns out, is Velma’s favorite author. Plus so far I’ve counted one “Galaxy Quest” in-joke.
If you are somehow missing it, it’s repeated at 9:30 PM tonight and at 10:30 AM tomorrow.
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Well, I’m missing it. That’s what happens when you have no cable. 🙁
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I didn’t even know there was a new Scooby Doo series. Do they have guest stars regularly, like the New Scooby Doo Movies did, or is this a one-time thing?
New series, kinda in continuity with the original “Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?” Although firmly tongue in cheek, it definitely is informed by Buffy and occasionally has a real sense of creepiness. Not a guest star of the week thing.
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Watch closely and you’ll find parody cameos of other Hanna Barbara characters (such as teen-age Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm and Yogi Bear).
Is this a typical episode? I may have to start watching it.
It’s surprisingly decent and actually has a metaplot running through the season (each episode is listed as a chapter): What happened to the original Mystery, Inc.?
Was that Jeffrey Combs as Hatecraft?
It was indeed.
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Good casting given Combs’ former role of Herbert West. And the name of Hatecraft’s assistant was fun as well.
Besides Galaxy Quest, there was a lost reference (the numbers were in the trunk at the end).
It’s a Lovecraft parody — Jeffrey Combs is the only choice to play Hatecraft.
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I still shake my head at the James Cameron-inspired episode that had nods to both TERMINATOR and ALIENS.
Yeah, I thought you might hype this ep. It was hysterical. Loved the digs at Lovecraft. The MINUTE Harlan was mentioned, I KNEW you had to be watching.
“And that’s why nothing good has been published since the 1970’s.”
Pity the mystery’s solution was so obvious, though. I am getting a bit sick, however, of the plethora of former military engineers that live in that town.
When did Scooby Doo stop debunking the supernatural, and start telling kids that monsters and ghosts and mummies and whatnot, were real?
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The gang used to always investigate the mystery, only to discover that it had a real-world explanation.
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At some point, that changed. Real shame.
By my recollection, since the 1980s. There was a series called “The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo” in which thirteen actual demons/specters were released from a trunk or something, and they had to run around getting them back.
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But in this new series, they’re back to debunking, at least if we can judge by last night’s episode.
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With Vincent Price, no less.
More recently, the direct-to-video Scooby Doo movies, beginning with SCOOBY DOO ON ZOMBIE ISLAND, began the trend of actual supernatural occurrences. The fact that the gang only dealt with frauds before was humorously played upon. (In said movie, when attempting to pull off the “mask” of a zombie to reveal who it really was, Fred ripped its head off instead.)
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Nowadays, those movies go either way: Fraud or actual freakiness.
Some of my favorite Scooby-related material. Even as a kid, I found the “fake ghosts” stuff kind of tiresome. Sure, it’s okay when you do it once (like Holmes’ Hound of the Baskervilles), but it gets old when you base an entire TV show around it. It’s nice that they’ve changed it up.
Of course, I also like Scrappy, so I’m clearly not in the same mindset as the average Scooby-Doo fan.
This sounds like a good series which happens to have no thematic connection with the original series. The same thing happened with DC’s Phantom Stranger or Dr. Thirteen, moving from a debunker of scams to a mystic practitioner. In this case, I fail to see the purpose of a rationalist character such as Velma in a magical world. Of course, in any universe with real spooks, Shaggy and Scooby would be devoured before the first commercial break. Daphne’s fate would also be unpleasant, if she didn’t like being ravaged by hellhounds. Freddie and Velma would be left alone with each other, and no suitable diversion would present itself.
This sounds like a good series which happens to have no thematic connection with the original series.
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Not quite. It’s written so that the original SCOOBY DOO, WHERE ARE YOU? could be in its continuity. One episode featured the daughter of Mr. Criswell, aka The Creeper, taking revenge on the gang for putting her dad away (or perhaps not . . . )
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And for anyone else who’s seen that episode, is it just me, or was Alice May a dead ringer for Gwen Stacy?
I’ve seen every episode. I think my wife and I love the show just as much as our kids. We get the adult aimed jokes, and the kids get the slapstick.
There is no real supernatural elements in this show. Every mystery has a real world solution.
Also loved Harlan going off on Shaggy’s use of “like.” That moment was pure Harlan.
My parents TiVo the series for my son, Alex, since we don’t have Cartoon Network. He usually watches it without me but I’ll be sure to watch this one. Thanks for the “heads up,” Peter.
Observations:
1) The jokes about Fred’s gayness are overt if you look close, easy to overlook if you don’t.
2) There was a very interesting implication made about Velma’s parentage. (I.E. her mother, and Harlan, were sweet on each other…twenty years ago.)
I never got the impression that impression about Fred. Rather, where women are concerned, the leader of Mystery, Inc. is, ironically, absolutely clueless.
They really do have fun with metahumor though. (Favorite line as they are being chased by a terminator-esque foe and the gang find themselves in front of a manufacturing plant: “Quick! We’ll be safe if we hide among all that dangerous machinery!”)
I actually agree with that impression about Fred (insofar as I’ve ever previously bothered to think about it as all; my loathing of all things Scooby has been published, at length). But that didn’t stop the makers of this series from having some meta-fun with the implication. Witness all the attention paid to the specific positions he got into with those wrestlers from the frat. It’s a joke, a subtle one, but one that was undeniably there.
Yeah, I blinked. Not ‘Tarlan Tellison’ or ‘Ellison Harley’, but Harlan Ellison. All I could think of was “No, it can’t be. Ellison isn’t Don Knots.”
Well, that’s what I get for bragging that I didn’t miss my satellite dish on the Fox thread. Apparently Cartoon Network doesn’t stream full episodes of this show. Oh well, I’ll keep my eye open for the DVD.
I have a feeling some scene will appear on YouTube. Cthulhu is quite popular(spoof, parady or otherwise)
There are at least three scenes on Youtube. I was hoping to find the complete episode, but it wasn’t there, unfortunately.
The episode was silly and goofy and histerically entertaining. Unfortunately, I didn’t make out any of the titles of the Ellison books in Velma’s possession. Of course, in a “real” Cthulhu Mythos” episode Fred and Daphne would have been dead or missing, Velma would end up committed into an insane asylum and Shaggy would have probably been transformed into a ghoul munching on “Scooby-snacks.”
So, when is Unca’ Harlan finally gonna do a SIMPSONS episode (either as writer or voice actor)?
I saw one title. My fiction is better by Harlan Ellison.
Perfect. Absolutely perfect.
This new Scooby Doo is the first one I’ve watched in a long time. It’s a lot fun.
I also like the fact that the guy who dressed up as Cthulhu was named Howard E Roberts……. Robert E Howard, another pulp writer who created Conan the Barbarian. Great episode
Did you happen to catch the Robert E Howard reference? …. Howard E Roberts indeed 🙂
As it happens, I’m off work today and it’s 10:02. I think I’ll check this out.
Did Harlan do his own voice, or did they get an impersonator?
D’oh! I didn’t notice the date. At 10:30 AM today (10/21), they were running The Garfield Show. Oh, well.
Yep, it was Unca Harlan hisself.
Scooby Doo! Myster Incorporated! Is a new continuity. The original continuity they came from Coolsville. The new continuity they come from Crystal Cove. Shaggy’s dad in the original continuity was a cop in the new one I’m not quite sure. But SDMI is basically Earth 2 Scooby Doo!
My 5-1/2 year old son is on a big “Scooby Doo” kick (both the classics and this new stuff), so I caught this the other night – while I don’t necessarily think Fred is gay, that frat his dad sent him to sure seemed to be!
I wasn’t sure if that was actually Harlan or someone doing his voice, so it’s good to know that was him.