What's New, Scooby-Doo: "A Scooby Doo Valentine"

Premiered February 11, 2005.

Note from your trusted holiday reviewers:
2019 marks the 50th “birthday” of the world’s favorite mystery-solving Great Dane, Scooby-Doo.  Scooby and the "meddling kids" of Mystery Inc. have appeared in lots of holiday specials and episodes.  Throughout the year, we’ll be reviewing several of these.  We start with this Valentine’s Day offering!:

Scooby-Doo (Frank Welker) and the Mystery Inc. gang return to their hometown of Coolsville after a long road trip.  It's almost Valentine's Day, which excites Daphne (Grey Griffin), who says it's her favorite holiday.  The next day, they all them receive Valentine cards signed “your secret admirer.”  

The gang learns that teenagers have been disappearing from the local Lover's Lane hangout.  Velma (Mindy Cohn) finds an adhesive at the hangout and thinks it may be a clue.  

Shaggy  (Casey Kasem) runs into his old girlfriend Rachel (Joey Lauren Adams), who is covering the missing teens for the local paper.  

Shaggy and Scooby run into their respective ex-girlfriends, Rachel and Roxanne.

She tells Shaggy that she has a new boyfriend, singer JC Chasez (himself) of the group NSYNC.  Rachel’s relationship with Chasez makes Shaggy jealous and makes Velma and Daphne very envious.  

The Scooby gang's attempt to solve the mystery of the missing teens gets complicated when Sheila (Rachael MacFarlane), who was attacked the night before, identifies them as the culprits who menaced her and kidnapped her boyfriend.  They’re shocked and confused by this accusation.  

Later, Mystery Inc. gets more Valentines, which ask them to show up at Lover's Lane at midnight.  They believe there’s a connection between the kidnapped teens and their secret admirer.    

Upon arrival, they’re ambushed by...themselves!  Or some sort of clones Mystery Inc. that also posses super-strength.  

Coolsville police officer McBride (Dan Castellaneta), who isn't crazy about the gang to begin with, gladly arrests Mystery Inc. and sends them all to jail!

Can Scooby and the gang clear their names and solve the mystery of the missing teenagers?  Or will they spend Valentine’s Day in the Coolsville Jail?

J.A. Morris says: 

I’ve been a fan of Scooby-Doo and his friends for a long time, and this Valentine episode was deliberately meant to remind us of Scooby’s earlier series.  It’s a fun episode and since Valentine’s Day doesn’t have nearly as many episodes as the “bigger” holidays, it’s always nice to have more Valentine-themed programming.  However, there are problems with “A Scooby-Doo Valentine.”

The “fake” versions of the Scooby gang display super-strength and the ability to jump long distances.  This is never explained during the reveal of the villain.  I admit it’s silly to look for “logic” in a Scooby-Doo cartoon, but I wanted to know where they got their enhanced abilities.  

The New Scooby-Doo Movies, an earlier series from the 70s, usually featured celebrity guests who often provided their own voice.  In the tradition of that series, this episode features a guest appearance of JC Chasez.  Many of you might not know who that is and will wonder why everyone is shocked when they hear he’s dating Rachel.  I’m thinking that Chasez’ group NSYNC had already peaked when this episode first aired in 2005, since they hadn’t recorded anything for several years.  

In addition to Chasez, “A Scooby-Doo Valentine” also features a guest voice appearance by actor/director Joey Lauren Adams.  She does a nice job as Rachel.  When she screams “GET OUT!” at Shaggy during the flashback sequence, viewers will likely be reminded of Adams’ performance in Chasing Amy.

I enjoyed the gang’s misadventures in this episodes and the “secret admirer” letters were a nice storytelling device for a Valentine’s Day episode.  We also get a funny flashback scene where we see younger versions of Shaggy and Scooby.   

“A Scooby-Doo Valentine” features a very strong cast of voice actors.  Frank Welker and Casey Kasem were the original voices of Fred and Shaggy.  They give great performances of their old characters and Welker also performs Scooby’s voice (Don Messick, Scooby-Doo’s original voice actor had passed away by this time).  Velma is voiced by Mindy Cohn, who my generation will remember as Natalie Green on The Facts Of Life.  

I enjoyed “A Scooby-Doo Valentine” but its dated pop culture references and plot holes keep me from giving it a higher rating.

J.A. Morris’ rating:

2 and a half Valentine hearts.

RigbyMel says: 

This Valentine’s episode is from the third season of What’s New, Scooby-Doo?, a 21st century update on the Scooby Gang featuring new adventures.    Interestingly,  “A Scooby-Doo Valentine” was written by Nahnatchka Khan, who is probably best known as the producer of shows like Fresh Off The Boat.  

Khan includes a lot of fun meta-references for longtime Scooby-philes, like Daphne’s mention of Sarah Michelle Gellar (who played the character in the live action Scooby-Doo from 2002 and its 2004 sequel) or the inclusion of a “celebrity guest star”.  She also works in a good red herring or two as to who the culprit for the kidnappings might be.    

As J.A. Morris says above, it’s nice to have another addition to the Valentine’s Day TV canon and there are secret admirer messages aplenty, plus it’s always fun to hang out with Scooby and his friends. However, there are also some holes in the plot that bugged me, such as the whole Scooby-doppelgangers' “super-strength without explanation” thing.   

Also, the motivation of the culprit seems a bit … thin considering the elaborateness of the kidnappings.  Then again, maybe that wouldn’t bother the intended audience of kids (whose nostalgic parents or aunties or suchlike might be looking in with a more critical eye than we did when we were watching older iterations of the series).  

Maybe it's that weird mix of nostalgia plus aiming at an audience that is too really young to have nostalgia for earlier iterations of Scooby-Doo that doesn't entirely work for me?    Meaning that in my estimation, “A Scooby-Doo Valentine” is enjoyable all-ages silly fun, but not a classic.

Valentine's Day reminds Scooby and Shaggy of their first love:Food!

RigbyMel’s rating: 

2 Valentine hearts

A Scooby-Doo Halloween

"It's not "regular scary" it's "Halloween scary!""
-Shaggy

Premiered October 25, 2003

The Mystery Inc gang (Scooby Doo, Shaggy, Velma, Fred, Daphne) is headed to Banning Junction for the town's Halloween celebration.  They plan to stay with Velma's (Mindy Cohn) Aunt Meg (Julia Sweeney) and Uncle Evan (Diedrich Bader).  Shaggy (Casey Kasem) is excited because the rock band Kiss will be performing at the Banning Junction Masquerade Ball.  He and Scooby Doo (Frank Welker) are also looking forward to pigging out on Halloween candy.

"Jeepers, it sure is spooky out there!"

When they arrive at Banning Junction, they're met by a pitchfork-wielding angry mob.  Someone has been slashing and burning cornfields at night, the mob is suspicious of the Mystery Inc gang.

Uncle Evan and Aunt Meg rescue the gang from angry corn farmers.

Thankfully, Velma's Aunt and Uncle arrive and vouch for them. They all go back to Meg and Evan's house.  Velma is also happy to see her cousin Marcy (Jenny McCarthy), whose birthday happens to be on Halloween.  Marcy flirts with Fred, which angers Daphne (Grey DeLisle).    Meg mentions that Marcy has been elected Corn Princess of the Masquerade Ball.
   

Velma greets her cousin Marcy

In addition to Halloween, October 31st also marks the 100th anniversary of the founding of Banning Junction.  Evan and Meg tell them a local legend: on that night, the ghost of Hank Banning (the town's long-time mayor) is due to rise from the dead.  After years in office, he became paranoid, began hearing voices, and grew unfit to serve, so he was voted out.  He died on Halloween night, promising to come back from the dead 100 years later to exact revenge from the town that turned on him.  The town expects a huge turnout for the Masquerade Ball, so that people can see if Hank's ghost shows up.

Will Hank Banning's ghost return as predicted?

The next day, they find new damage has been done to the corn fields. When Shaggy climbs a water tower, he sees that the field has been cut into the shape of a Jack O'Lantern.

Other parts of the field are cut into shapes of bats, ghost, witches, other symbols of Halloween.  Agnes (Rhea Pearlman), a local eccentric old woman, says Hank's ghost must be behind this.  Agnes' cat, Mr. Noodles,  doesn't seem to be a fan of Scooby.

Mr. Noodles steals Scoob's candy apple

Daphne suspects Marcy to be the culprit.  Fred and Velma disagree.

Velma, Fred and Daphne hit the library to research the case.  They learn that most of the surrounding lands have been bought by Eldon Reed (Daran Norris), a local businessman.  The damaged cornfields are the last independently owned fields.

Marcy shows up at the library too.   Daphne asks where was before she met them in the town square earlier.  She says she was at work and shows them a security tape that confirms this.

Mystery Inc checks out the cornfields that night.  They're attacked by scarecrows that have machetes and pitchforks for arms.

Zoinks!

They figure out that the scarecrows are actually robots, operated by remote control. Scooby squirts them with a water hose and short circuits them.  Fred decides Scooby and Shaggy should disguise themselves as scarecrows and infiltrate the robots.  Fred uses the short-wave radio in the Mystery Machine to track the signal that operates the robots.  It turns out the scarecrow-bots are headed straight for the Masquerade Ball, where a crowd has gathered for the Kiss concert!

"SHOUT IT! SHOUT IT! SHOUT IT OUT LOUD!"

Kiss opens their set with "Shout It Out Loud".  Everyone is having a rockin' good time, but suddenly, the ghost of Hank Banning appears, and the scarecrow-bots attack!

Can Mystery Inc figure out who is destroying the cornfields?   Will the scarecrow robots ruin Banning Junction's Halloween celebration?  Has Hank Banning really returned from the dead to haunt the town?

J.A. Morris says:

Scooby-Doo was a big part of my childhood, especially the first 3 series.  But I haven't seen many of the "modern" episodes. 

Casey Kasem and Frank Welker reprise their classic roles as Shaggy and Fred, respectively.  Welker also does a nice job as Scooby-Doo, filling in for Don Messick (the original voice of Scooby, Messick passed away in 1997). Rounding out the principals, Mindy Cohn (yep, "Natalie" from The Facts Of Life) is great as Velma.

As we said in an earlier review, any Scooby-Doo episode makes for decent Halloween viewing.  So when an episode takes place at Halloween, you can expect it to be more fun than usual.  Like most Scooby stories, you can guess who committed the crime early on, but it's still a great ride.   

Adding Kiss to the mix adds to the fun.  I'm glad they used "Shout It Out Loud" as their song, instead of more obvious choices ("Rock N Roll All Night", "Detroit Rock City").  It made for good background music during the closing chase scene.

Shaggy and Scooby rock out to Kiss!

There's a subplot that goes nowhere that involves Agnes, Banning Junction's resident cranky old lady. Her cat Mr. Noodles has some humorous interactions with Scooby. Noodles also has glowing, demonic red eyes, this is never explained.  This digression is one reason I can't give it a higher rating.

A Scooby Doo Halloween is available on a dvd called What's New Scooby-Doo:Monster Matinee  and
it usually airs on Cartoon Network every October.

This special can be enjoyed by Scooby-Doo fans of all ages, I've watched it every year since I discovered it several years ago.

J.A. Morris' rating:
3 Jack O'Lanterns

RigbyMel says:

This is a fun Halloween episode that doesn't jar tonally with "classic" Scooby-Doo episodes.  There are some amusing nods to the tropes from older incarnations of the series.   I also find the segment where Shaggy attempts to drive the Mystery Machine and grinds the gears, freaking Freddy out to be rather funny.

The appearance by Kiss is kind of random seeing as I have doubts as to the band's continued relevancy - they were "monsters of rock" in the late 1970s ... are they still really one of the biggest bands in the world in 2003?   It does fit in with the 70s recurring musical bits from the old show, though.

Also, I find it interesting that the animators chose to make Velma a lot skinnier than in the "classic" Scooby episodes.   This bothers me a little bit, as it sort of implies that there was something wrong with Velma in her earlier incarnation.  Velma was (and is) really the brains of the operation. Her weight shouldn't factor into it one way or another and the retconned lost poundage seems to imply that it DOES matter.

It was fun to hear voice actors that I've liked in other shows like Deidrich Bader (of Batman: The Brave & The Bold) and Julia Sweeney (an SNL alum) too.

Also, this image makes me smile:

Scooby with a "Shaggy" looking jack o'lantern

This is a fun addition to your Halloween viewing, but maybe not a "classic."

RigbyMel's rating:
3 Jack O'Lanterns