Toon Tuesday : The New Scooby Doo movies

Almost definitely one of the top three incarnations of Scooby Doo, the New Scooby Doo movies were two part shows featuring guest appearances by a wide array of famous names.

From Batman & Robin, to the Harlem Globetrotters, to the Three Stooges, the show ran the gambit of fun but also did some with great celebrities like Don Knotts, Sandy Duncan and even country music star, Jerry Reed.

It was truly a fun show but even then a lot of fans asked why there wasn't more, why they didn't have more of the other Hanna-Barbera characters in the mix, like Captain Caveman and Space Ghost.  In more recent (and pretty lousy) incarnations of the shows, they did bring in more characters but it isn't even close to the magic of the originals, not at all.

There was a host of greats that could have been part of this series, although some might have taken a bit of a stretch for the, Scooby-verse, a character like H&B's version of Godzilla could have been a guest hero and it would have been more in the scope of the gangs adventures.

A character like Carl Kolchak (from Kolchak the Night Stalker) might have been a bit over the top but the character was wide open in that era for such a crossover, perhaps the character needed to crossover from Scooby Doo to a group that goes after real monsters, it could have been a great move.

The 80's was no shortage of insane possibilities for the show, the Ghostbusters is an easy one to toss out, or the gang of kids from, The Monster Squad, or even Gizmo & Billy from, Gremlins.

Today, the fools who horribly run Hanna-Barbera & The Cartoon Network do some decent films once in a while, Scooby Doo meet KISS, was a pretty good crossover, but so many others are just plain ridiculous and written for very dull intellects, no matter the age.

One of the great team ups from Hanna Barbera I always thought was an automatic winner was the Scooby gang meeting Blue Falcon & Dinomutt but they have already tried and screwed that up, bad.

Hopefully someone will come along and take the reigns at Hanna Barbera/Cartoon Network that will stop making programs/movies that just dumb down the audience and glorify stupidity rather than enlighten and entertain! 


 

Hong Kong Phooey: 47 Years of being Number One

 For 47 years today, the Number One Super Guy has been entertaining us and protecting the city from evil-doers, Happy Birthday to, Hong Kong Phooey! 🍰

It was on this day in 1974 that Hanna-Barbera introduced to kids on Saturday mornings.  Even though it seems like we grew up with him for years, there were only 16 episodes of the original show.

The show centers around a mild-mannered janitor at the local police station, with Sergeant Flint in charge, Rosemary the telephone operator and the stations trusty cat, Spot, also Hong Kong Phooey's sidekick (pun intended).  When trouble starts brewing, Henry jumps into a filing cabinet drawers, down the chute to his trusty Phooey-mobile, and the chaos just gets better.

The shows theme song is one of the most memorable and legendary of Saturday Morning Cartoons, even being rereleased by the, Butthole Surfers (guess they couldn't find a real band). 😆

The cast is a whos-who of the day in television and cartoon voice acting...

Scatman Crothers starred as Phooey and his alter-ego, Henry.  Crothers also voiced Meadowlark Lemon in almost all the Harlem Globetrotters cartoon incarnations, as well as Jazz on the original, Transformers and most other cartoons of the age.

Crothers also appeared on many television shows, Love Boat, Fantasy Island, Mannix, The Incredible Hulk, Hart To Hart and, Kolchak the Night Stalker.  He also appeared in, Twilight Zone : The Movie, Zapped and, The Shining.

Kathy Gors voiced, Rosemary, the telephone operator, and also voices for, Inch High Private Eye, Valley of the Dinosaurs and many others.

Joe E Ross was Sergeant Flint, but is better remembered for, It's The Hair Bear Bunch, but did voices for dozens of cartoons and classic radio comedies & drama.

Then there is, Don Mesick, in the cartoon world, the biggest name on the list, for decades he was the voice of, Scooby Doo himself.  Mesick also provided the famous snickering laugh for Muttley and the wise, Papa Smurf on, the Smurfs.

Other cartoon voice legends like Frank Welker and Casey Kasum would also be heard on the show.

With that kind of "star power" it's amazing the show didn't last longer but the writing just wasn't there, cheesy and corny were the standard and the show really went overboard with it, glad to see the character stayed around for The Great Race and the Laff-A-Lympics. 

Comedy legend, Eddie Murphy attempted a short for making a full length motion picture of the character, and if you've seen it, you know why we're glad it never took off, it was beyond terrible.

 

Toon Tuesday: Scooby Doo and the Hassle in the Castle

 Scooby Doo Where Are You
The Hassle in the Castle
September 27, 1969 📺
Season One, Episode Three

One of the gems of season one, this was the third episode and would give the opening credits several of it's best video moments. 

While on a pleasure cruise ⛵, the gang gets lost in a fog bank then onto an island, 👻Haunted Isle, after Scooby finds a map with a threat on it, the gang decides to make a search of the old Vasquez pirate castle.  (Isn't it amazing that SO many amazing places are within a short drive of, Coolsville? 😆)

They aren't in the castle long before they encounter The

Phantom, who has one of those legendary laughs made famous on the show.  Of course the gang gets separated as Dafney finds a trap door, while Fred & Velma get separated from Scooby & Shaggy.

Scooby and Shaggy run into a talking skull 💀 that is nice enough to provide directions and the famous line "salright". Then Shaggy

gets a little hungry and wished he had a ham sandwich 🍔 with mustard, the ghosts provide one out of thin air, this remains one of the few times that the "ghost" provides help and "kindness" to the "pesky kids".  Looking at the rest of the series, it's kind of an unusual pair of happenings.

After being reunited, the gang see the Phantom go right through a solid wall, they start to believe this one might be real, but then find a room full of old magic equipment, where a flying carpet gives them a ride away from the Phantom.  When they finally go after the Phantom we get to see Scooby Doo's impersonation of John Wayne 💪 and some bravery....after a Scooby snack or two

In the end, the gang unmasks the Phantom to be, Bluestone the

Great, who is wanted in multiple states and was using the old pirate castle as a place to lay low from the police while searching for the Vasquez Treasure.  The unmasking of Bluestone has become one of the most used shots from the show for online meme's to show off, "the real villain" behind the mask.

It's a classic style episode the series would become famous for, with one exception at the end, the criminal seems delighted to show off to the kids how he did all his tricks in the castle.  Even in the end he's a showman wanting to give one more performance before going off to jail, a very gracious criminal, indeed. 😆

MY TAKE 😉... this episode had the opportunity to mix things up, by having the "villain" turn out not to be a villain or criminal, but just an eccentric magician living in an inherited old castle, it would have better explained how the spooks always seemed to be gracious to the kids.  This was the one thing the show lacked, a twist, they never really gave us one that went off the norm of the show and I think that was a mistake.