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.