The New Scooby Doo Movies: The Almost Complete Collection...

Me and the Scooby Doo Movies; 2020

This DVD consists of 23 episodes of the Saturday morning animated series, The New Scooby Doo Movies, which originally aired in first-run production on CBS from September 9, 1972 until October 27, 1973. The series officially consists of 24 episodes (16 produced in 1972 and 8 produced in 1973) but there wasn't an agreement met with the copyright holders of The Addams Family and so the Scooby Doo episode featuring the characters from The Addams Family aren't included here...which is why the DVD is titled The New Scooby Doo Movies: The (Almost) Complete Collection. I had previously purchased a 2005 DVD release titled The Best of the New Scooby Doo Movies. In that collection there are 15 episodes...at that point in time the rights to the remaining episodes hadn't been cleared. Now fast-forward from 2005 to 2019. On June 4, 2019 this DVD was released. The collection contained the 15 episodes from the 2005 release plus 8 additional episodes that had become cleared by their copyright holders. However, in between the time that the 2005 collection was issued and the spring of 2019, the only hold out was the rights to the episode guest starring The Addams Family. This is only my opinion but I assume the executives in charge of releasing/manufacturing this DVD (Warner Brothers) didn't want to keep the episodes on hold any longer while they awaited a potential change of mind from The Addams Family legal team and so they issued 23 of the 24 episodes in a June 2019 release, The New Scooby Doo Movies: The (Almost) Complete Collection. In case the fans didn't want to re-purchase the 15 episodes already released back in 2005 there was a companion DVD with the newly acquired 8 episodes called The Best of the New Scooby Doo Movies: The Lost Collection. I have the 2005 DVD release and I purchased the 23 episode DVD release last year. I did that because I decided to have nearly all of the episodes from this series housed in one collection...instead of having the 2005 DVD of 15 episodes and a 2019 DVD of 8 episodes.

The purists are furious because it doesn't feature The Addams Family and as a result, infuriating them anymore, the opening title sequence is an alternate version...not the one that originally aired. The audio/vocal track heard in the alternate opening sequence is the same and some of the animated sequences featuring the main characters from the series remain intact from the original 1972-1974 broadcasts but notably missing are the images of the guest stars. As the years went on and copyright ownership constantly changed hanged due to business acquisitions it meant that television reruns of The New Scooby Doo Movies as the 1980s and early 1990s came and went were limited to showing only the episodes that were approved by a legal team representing the celebrities who lent their voice and likeness to the series. Episodes of the series reran in 2 parts rather than air in an hour long format as they did when they originally aired on Saturday mornings in the early '70s. Anyway, by the latter half of 2018 the rights were secured to 8 remaining episodes of the series and so in the summer of 2019 along came this DVD of 23 of the 24 episodes.

Now then...here are the episodes that appear on this 2019 collection:

Disc One:
1. The Ghastly Ghost Town (with The Three Stooges)
2. The Dynamic Scooby Doo Affair (with Batman and Robin)
3. The Frickert Fracas (with Jonathan Winters)
4. Guess Who's Knott Coming To Dinner (with Don Knotts)

Disc Two:
1. A Good Medium is Rare (with Phyllis Diller)
2. Sandy Duncan's Jekyll and Hyde (with Sandy Duncan)
3. The Secret of Shark Island (with Sonny and Cher)
4. The Spooky Fog (with Don Knotts)

Disc Three:
1. The Ghost of Bigfoot (with Laurel and Hardy)
2. The Ghost of the Red Baron (with The Three Stooges)
3. The Ghostly Creep from the Deep (with The Harlem Globetrotters)
4. The Haunted Horseman of Hagglethorn Hall (with Davy Jones)

Disc Four:
1. The Phantom of the Country Music Hall (with Jerry Reed)
2. The Caped Crusader Caper (with Batman and Robin)
3. The Loch Ness Mess (with The Harlem Globetrotters)
4. The Mystery of Haunted Island (with The Harlem Globetrotters)

Disc Five:
1. The Haunted Showboat (with the cast from Josie and the Pussycats)
2. Mystery in Persia (with the cast from Jeannie)
3. The Spirited Spooked Sports Show (with Tim Conway)
4. The Exterminator (with Don Adams)

Disc Six:
1. The Weird Winds of Winona (with the cast of Speed Buggy)
2. The Haunted Candy Factory (with Cass Elliot)
3. The Haunted Carnival (with Dick Van Dyke)

When you look at those hour long episodes and the wide variety of special guest stars you'll see that some celebrities made multiple vocal appearances. You'll also notice that in some cases Scooby Doo and the gang meet celebrities mostly representative of a by-gone era. The Three Stooges, by 1972, were still hugely popular on television through repeated play of their classic live action short subject films. There were comic book adaptations and animated cartoons depicting The Three Stooges along side the television airings of their Columbia Studios films during the 1960s (they made 190 short subject comedy films for the studio). The Stooges themselves, however, professionally retired in 1970. By this time the third stooge was Joe DeRita, who went by the stage name Curly Joe. The vocalization for Moe Howard was supplied by Pat Harrington, Jr. while Daws Butler supplied the vocals for Larry Fine and Curly Joe. The irony is Daws incorporated a few 'nyuk, nyuk' catchphrases associated with the original Curly (played by Moe's brother) which weren't part of the 'Curly Joe' character. Larry Fine and Moe Howard died in 1975.

Laurel and Hardy are an iconic comical duo and it's safe to assume that in 1972 their likeness and name were still synonymous with classic film comedy, as were The Three Stooges. However, by the time The New Scooby Doo Movies came along in 1972 both of those comic icons had passed away. Stan Laurel, born in 1890, died in 1965 (74 years old) while Oliver Hardy, born in 1892, died in 1957 (65 years old). Nevertheless the iconic comedy duo were still popular and so they, too, made an appearance on this 1972 animated series. The voice of Oliver Hardy was performed by Jim MacGeorge while Stan Laurel's voice was performed by Larry Harmon. The two voice actors had previously provided the vocals for Laurel and Hardy in a syndicated cartoon series which aired during the 1966-1967 season. There were 156 five minute adventures produced. In the 1980s Jim MacGeorge, who visually looks like Stan Laurel, appeared in live action commercials as Laurel along side Chuck McCann as Hardy.

In addition to the episodes guest starring The Three Stooges (2 episodes) and Laurel and Hardy (1 episode) there are guest appearances by characters who had appeared on animated series of their own. The cast of Josie and the Pussycats guest star in an episode. The cast of Speed Buggy guest stars and then there's an episode featuring the cast of Jeannie (Jeannie, Cory, Henry, and Babu). Animated versions of The Harlem Globetrotters had been depicted on television prior to this 1972 Scooby Doo series but the exhibition basketball team known for their tricks and skills hold the record for most appearances on this series...three episodes. The real-life Globetrotters didn't provide their voices for the animated appearances. Scatman Crothers, most notably, provided the voice of Meadowlark Lemon and Eddie "Rochester" Anderson voiced Bobby Joe Mason. Batman and Robin appear as guests in two episodes. Their animated history dates back to 1967 when the Filmation Studio released The Superman/Batman Hour of Adventure. The voice of Batman was supplied by legendary radio and television character actor, Olan Soule. Robin was voiced by disc jockey Casey Kasem...several years before taking on the role of Shaggy in the Scooby Doo cartoons in 1969 and eventually becoming nationally and internationally famous as the host of American Top-40 beginning in 1970. In the two Scooby Doo episodes guest starring Batman and Robin both Olan and Casey reunited as the Caped Crusaders. Ted Knight returned as the voice of Penguin and Joker. Olan and Casey would continue to voice the Dynamic Duo on ABC Television's Super Friends series (produced by Hanna-Barbera) throughout the rest of the 1970s and into the mid 1980s.

The rest of the episodes in the 1972 Scooby series feature the actual celebrities voicing their animated versions. The main vocal performers are Don Messick (Scooby Doo; Sebastian; additional voices); Casey Kasem (Shaggy; Robin; Alexander Cabot II; additional voices); Frank Welker (Fred; additional voices); Nicole Jaffe (Velma); and Heather North (Daphne). This series would mark the final time Nicole Jaffe voiced Velma on a regular basis. She reprised the role several decades later in a direct-to-video animated Scooby film but as far as the television episodes are concerned this 1972 series was her last as Velma. John Stephenson, a vocal legend for Hanna-Barbera, was on hand for this Scooby series providing vocals for an assortment of villains and an occasional good guy.

A modern-day version of this series is the most recent incarnation of the Scooby Doo franchise. That series is called Scooby Doo and Guess Who?. I'm not into modern-day celebrities or contemporary television productions (beyond news and sports programs) and so I've never watched too many episodes of that current Scooby series but my guess is it captures the essence of the 1972 series but places it squarely into modern times.

Gary Owens: 1934-2015

Longtime voice-over specialist, disc jockey, radio and television personality Gary Owens has died at the age of 80. The cause of death is Diabetes related.

The first time I remember hearing the voice of Gary Owens is back in the 1980's most definitely. Although at that point in time I wasn't really into learning the names of the voice actors and actresses, I had been unknowingly hearing Gary's voice for several years before I found out. My first memory of hearing that voice is on the cartoon series, Space Ghost. I found out the name behind the character in the late '80s on Nick-at-Nite. Although the cable channel aired it after most kid's bedtimes, I couldn't help but stay up just a little longer and see a particular program that aired at 11pm called Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In.

Does someone around 14 or 15, seeing the program for the first time in the late 1980s, really comprehend all of the one-liners and late 1960s topical jokes? Unless the child is amazingly gifted in American culture history at that age then my answer is "no". Why did the series appeal to me? I think it appealed to me because of it's cartoonish delivery and it's zany atmosphere. Also...the presence of that voice...the voice of Gary Owens and his hysterical seriousness amongst all the chaotic happenings around him.

He served as the program's off-screen announcer, calling the names of the host and cast members, but doubled as an on-screen broadcaster, cupping one hand to his ear, and delivering all sorts of insane dialogue in the guise of a serious news bulletin. Most often a scene would cut from one joke and then to Gary and then to another joke or back to a cast member just looking into the camera and not saying anything until they break up in laughter and leave the stage.

The comedy series had a major impact on television viewers and created several catchphrases. It ran 6 seasons, 1968-1973. Due to it being a mid-season replacement series it had the opportunity of having roughly half a season's worth of programs on the air several months before the start of the official 1968-1969 season. It premiered on January 22, 1968 and initially ran until April 29, 1968. It returned in the fall of 1968 to begin it's first full season and it officially remained in production until early 1973. Gary appeared on every episode during it's five and a half season run. Some of the notable guests that appeared were Richard Nixon, John Wayne, Tiny Tim...and most of them appeared in split second fashion on-screen uttering a one-liner or one of the program's catchphrases. John Wayne appeared in a much longer clip, by comparison to the usual rapid fire pace of the surrounding clips, and delivered a poem in a manner parodying Henry Gibson. Laugh-In also aired, originally, as an hour long program. During it's rerun life on Nick-at-Nite those half hours were cut and edited and spliced into individual half hours.

Unfortunately by my living in the Midwest I didn't get to experience hearing Gary's legendary radio programs that aired in California throughout the '60s, '70s, and into the '80s. His most durable role is that of disc jockey/radio personality and in between songs there'd be comical sketches or banter heard on the air. I wouldn't call him a shock jock, based on today's definitions, but he certainly became legendary for the insertion of humor and intentional blatant nonsense in his broadcasts that you just didn't hear that much of anymore on radio. I've heard snippets of a couple radio broadcasts from his Los Angeles program and the closest thing the Midwest had to Gary Owens happened to be a Cincinnati radio personality named Gary Burbank. The Cincinnati radio entertainer has since retired but he often replied, if asked, that his on-air name is inspired by "Gary" as in Gary Owens and "Burbank" from Gary Owens' Laugh-In catchphrase "...beautiful downtown Burbank". After hearing snippets of the radio program from Gary Owens and being familiar with Gary Burbank's style of radio comedy for so many years I can definitely hear the influence.

Here's an air-check from a 1969 Gary Owens radio program...click HERE. It features the sort of comical banter he'd fill his programs with between songs or introducing commercials and it includes real and fake commercial readings. It's nearly half an hour. Scroll down to the audio button after you click the link. Gary makes on air mentions of Geoff Edwards, Dick Enberg, and more. It's a fabulous audio time capsule. After listening to that, you can click HERE for an air-check from 1970. You'll hear the voice of another Los Angeles DJ, Dick Whittinghill, in that audio clip and other personalities at KMPC in that era. A promo for the California Angels baseball game from Dick Enberg is included in that air-check.

His radio career can be traced back to the early 1950s. He held his KMPC job for 20 years (1962-1982). In his career he had stints at KORN, KMA, KOIL, KROY, KEWB prior to KMPC. After KMPC he found himself working at several stations throughout the 1980s. Those included KKGO, KPRZ, and much later for a brief time on KFI. He continued being associated with radio, on and off, and throughout the late 1990s and into the 2000s he was part of the Music of Your Life format of programs. The series, by the time Gary came aboard, featured celebrities and former AM radio disc jockeys hosting individual radio programs of their own and so Gary happened to be a natural choice. He remained hosting radio programming for Music of Your Life until 2004 according to most sites I've read over the years.

I purposely haven't included a really thorough detailed time line (such as providing specific months, dates, or years) about his radio, voice-over, and television careers because the information is easily available on other sites and blogs all over the internet. This short tribute is more about my thoughts, opinions, and memories.

Along side his radio career he did the announcing on a diverse list of programs and did voice overs for commercials for both radio and television. Myself being a cartoon fan, Gary had the biggest impact on me through not only his Laugh-In appearances but through his vocal performances as Space Ghost and Blue Falcon. Later on in the 1990s I learned about Roger Ramjet thanks to the reruns that were airing at the time on The Family Channel. You can click the collage for a bigger examination. Space Ghost used to air in reruns on a USA Network program called Cartoon Express. This USA series is also where I first seen episodes of Blue Falcon. Technically, though, Blue Falcon didn't have his own self-titled program. Blue Falcon appears on the series, Dynomutt, Dog Wonder. In each series Gary provided the voice for the superhero...Space Ghost is more of a legitimate action-adventure series. It's set in outer space and the plots typically revolve around Space Ghost and his team of helpers (Jan, Jace, and Blip) fighting all sorts of monsters, creatures, and dictatorial leaders from far off galaxies and universes. Space Ghost travels in a ship called The Phantom Cruiser and all members of the crime fighting team have the ability to turn themselves invisible if needed.

The series aired for one season, 1966-1967, and it contains 42 individual adventures. It remained in reruns for another season, 1967-1968, prior to it becoming a long running series (in reruns) in local syndication for the next 10+ years. The Space Ghost series was revived in 1981 as part of a package series called Space Stars. Gary returned as the voice of Space Ghost and an additional 22 episodes aired. So, altogether, Gary voiced Space Ghost on 64 episodic adventures.

Blue Falcon, by contrast, appeared on a comical action-adventure series. Although Blue Falcon is depicted as a serious crime fighter and his vocals provided by Gary Owens in that deep baritone bravado, his sidekick Dynomutt is a klutzy robotic canine that's forever messing up Blue Falcon's strategies and getting the duo in all kinds of predicaments. Gary voiced Blue Falcon during the 1976-1977 television season and later the character surfaced on Scooby's All-Star Laff-a-Lympics and it's sequel, Scooby's All Stars during the next couple of seasons on Saturday morning TV. In those series Blue Falcon and his sidekick had recurring scenes as part of the Scooby Doobie team. The latter two programs are a parody of the Olympics and ABC-TV's Battle of the Network Stars. In all, Gary performed the voice of Blue Falcon on 20 individual episodes during the 1976-1977 season. The adventures are most often aired in reruns as part of package programming due to the limited number of episodes available.

In his later years Owens often appeared on nostalgia programming centered either on AM radio or on the television series, Laugh-In. He had a fascination about Dinosaurs, too, that isn't as widely known as his TV and radio work happens to be. He wrote a book about being in the voice-over business and you can see that book in the above collage I posted. It's available at Amazon. He provided the voice-over messages for classic television network, Antenna TV, during the final years of his life. 

Here's an ARTICLE that features commentary from Barbara Eden and Wink Martindale about their thoughts on Gary.

Gary Owens passed away on Thursday February 12, 2015. The news didn't reach the public until Friday. In a bizarre chain of events the story of his death appeared in a post from Variety magazine early in the morning hours on Friday. There as not a single story confirming the news Variety posted and I immediately assumed it must be one of those death hoaxes that seem to be commonplace particularly with yesterday being Friday the 13th of all days.

Strangely enough more than 8 hours after the news of his death appeared in a social media message from Variety, the publication re-posted the news once again. Suddenly, not long after that re-posting, reports started to pour in from all news sites and from there it became a snowball of reports about him passing away. In the link I posted, if you look at the time it appeared on-line, note it's late in the day on Friday. It happened to be the 5-6pm time frame in which the news of his death spread all over the internet.

Here's something to think about...

Some sites state that he was born in 1936 and others say 1934. All over the internet the various reports say he happened to be 80. His birth month and date is May the 10th and if his true birth year is 1934 then indeed he really was 80. The funny thing is, prior to Friday, all the internet sites listed May 10, 1936 as his birth date. I'm sure 1934 is his accurate birth year...and all of those sites I'd taken a look at Friday have since changed their year of Gary's birth from 1936 to 1934. I'm using the 1934 birth year because that's the one reported by so many outlets and there isn't any conflicting stories using 1936 as his birth year. In the future should it be revealed that 1936 is his true birth year I'll correct the title of this blog entry.

Gary Owens: 1934-2015

Bob Newhart in Bob...Now On DVD...

I thought I'd pass along some news. I am not subscribed to any DVD release alerts by Amazon or other on-line stores and so whenever I come with news about upcoming DVD releases or I write about recently released DVD's it's basically due to my visiting on-line stores and finding the information on my own. This is why I'm nearly a month late in reporting the availability of Bob Newhart's Bob sitcom from 1992. In my opinion this series deserved much better and the fact that it's gained something of a cult following proves my point. There aren't too many series, whether it's comedy or drama, that airs just 30 episodes in it's original network run, September 1992 through December 1993, and get a DVD release 19 years later but that's exactly what has happened. The DVD features 33 episodes...adding 3 episodes that didn't air following it's cancellation two days after Christmas. Those 3 episodes later aired during a TV Land marathon in 1997. You can purchase the DVD, which was released on April 3, 2012, in a link at the bottom of this blog entry.

The show centered around Newhart as an artist named Bob McKay who had worked on a comic book in the '50s titled Mad Dog. After the comic book scandal came and went, McKay was forced to go into a different profession: greeting cards! At the start of the series, Mad Dog is being revived as a comic book again with the clashing of the minds soon at play: Bob wants the character to remain loyal to it's origins while hot-shot newcomer to the field, Harlan, wants the character to be a blood-thirsty vigilante and feature sexual overtones throughout the story-lines. Bob's wife is Kaye McKay and their grown daughter is named Trisha. The other supporting characters in the earliest of episodes were the previously mentioned Harlan, as well as the senior artist named Iris, the errand boy Albie, and inker, Chad. In one of the episodes, a spoof of a Comic Book Convention's awards ceremony featured Bob Kane, co-creator of Batman. Real-life comic book artists Jack Kirby, Jim Lee, and Sergio Aragones also had cameo appearances. To everyone's surprise, Mad Dog won an award, and Bob McKay greeted the audience with a brief "thank you" and walked off the stage. He was trying to point out that attempting to thank everyone will eventually create animosity as it's almost inevitable that somebody gets left out. Bob lectured his co-workers at the ceremony table that a simple "thank you" is implied to everyone...but given the delivery of the acceptance speech(?) Bob came off egotistical rather than generous. It was a hilarious episode...and there was a very funny pay-off ending as well that I won't spoil for those who hadn't seen the episode...but let's just say Bob learned his lesson.     

The playing around of the time-slot by CBS is what did the show in. The show would've had a much better chance of succeeding in a more desirable time-slot. Friday nights at any point during the late '80s through the mid '90s for both CBS and NBC was brutal as far as ratings go...the viewing habits for much of America at that point in time was on ABC which featured Family Matters and Step by Step on Friday nights amongst many other programs as time went by.

It took those shows leaving the air for other networks to really make any serious high ratings attempts on Friday night.

CBS moved Bob from Friday night to Monday night by the spring of 1993...and according to on-line sites the ratings of the show improved somewhat but then in the fall of 1993 CBS moved the show back to Friday nights...then they moved it back to Monday, one last time, before ending the show in December 1993.

I don't blame the show's concept or it's writers or anyone else connected to the show for the poor performance in the ratings. All anyone has to look at is the scheduling factor. If these episodes were to have aired on a Monday, preferably at 8:30pm, or a Tuesday night...or even a Wednesday or Thursday...it would've had a chance. Friday nights were owned, ratings wise, by ABC's sitcoms while Saturday nights were owned by NBC and their Florida-based sitcoms.

Placing Bob on either of those two nights, in 1992, was a recipe for disaster in my opinion. I have the TV Guide issue where Bob appears on the cover in a Superman-like pose and the article about the show obviously mentions the time-slot. When I saw that it would air on Friday night...even back then at age 15 I rolled my eyes because I felt that it would be ignored by the masses who were either not home on Friday night or were watching ABC's massively popular T.G.I.F. programs.

I remember when CBS yanked Murder, She Wrote from it's long held Sunday night time-slot and placed it on Thursday night in the fall of 1995...up against NBC's Friends. Landsbury's program was canceled by season's end. So, yeah, time-slots make a huge difference in ratings success and failure. If I were cynical enough I'd suspect that CBS deliberately moved Murder, She Wrote from Sunday to Thursday to, I think, justify it's predetermined cancellation (using the ratings as a scapegoat) .

The same could be said for Bob...perhaps the management at CBS at the time didn't want the program to succeed because of demographics!? Bob's follow-up, George and Leo, also on CBS, was a funny sitcom, too, that had potential but was placed against Monday Night Football (when that show still aired on ABC).  Some may read this and go "what kind of network plots the demise of their own programs?". I happen to think that it goes on quite often...perhaps a show that's green lit by a network attracts the wrong audience or maybe the demographics aren't exactly what the advertiser covets...and in spite of critical praise and positive build-up the program is put through a series of time-slot changes...effectively resulting in the program never finding any sizable audience and, yes, you guessed it...the ax falls on the series.

Unfortunate time-slots for Bob as well as George and Leo hurt their potential, for sure, but luckily Bob is available on DVD for millions of people to discover and enjoy just as we enjoyed it the first time around 20 years ago! Here's the link to Bob Newhart in Bob...

Amazon's Bob page