Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		3.0
Audio		2.5
Extras		4.0
Overall		4.0

Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie Review

ROVER HERE!

Reviewed by Randy Miller III September 3, 2019

Aside for Tom and Jerry or maybe The Flintstones, Hanna-Barbera's Scooby-Doo just might be the studio's most recognizable and enduring creation. Celebrating its 50th birthday this year, the franchise has enjoyed a popular run across several different media, including more than a dozen different cartoon shows. The first and arguably best was Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, which aired for two seasons on CBS' Saturday morning lineup during 1969 and 1970. These original 25 episodes established a formula that still endures, combining horror and comedy in a way that's almost irresistible to young kids, teenagers, stoned college students, and parents alike. Where Are You kinda-sorta continued in 1978 when 16 more episodes from two different shows -- Scooby's All- Stars and The Scooby-Doo Show, which both aired on ABC -- were shown on CBS under that re-branded banner. This unofficial third season became canon after Warner Bros. released all 41 episodes on DVD under the same name, which now continues with its Blu-ray debut.

Either way, this is a great show and one that you don't need nostalgia goggles to enjoy. Of course, I'm saying that as an unabashed fan of the original series, having caught it in reruns during my single-digit years long before savoring later variants like A Pup Named Scooby-Doo and the much more recent Mystery Incorporated. While I never really cared for most of The New Scooby-Doo Movies, still don't see the appeal of Shaggy & Scooby-Doo Get a Clue, and left almost everything involving Scrappy-Doo back in elementary school, Where Are You has remained more entertaining and watchable than most animated shows of its era. Like the franchise itself, it's got serious staying power.

The franchise's original formula was never more purely enjoyable than when it was still new; despite Where Are You's highly predictable nature and extra-cheese mysteries, the combination of genuine creep-out moments and goofball comedy was (and still is) immensely entertaining. Not to be outdone are the main characters themselves...or perhaps more specifically, their voices. All five members of Mystery Inc. are great in their respective roles, but three are obvious standouts: Frank Welker as Fred (his first animated gig!), rising radio star Casey Kasem as Maynard G. Krebs Shaggy, and of course Don Messick as ol' Scoob himself. They bring a lot of life to their respective characters, imbuing them with such distinct and likable personalities that it's hard to imagine Scooby-Doo without them. Of course, the monsters are nothing to sneeze at either; in fact, just naming a few of the more memorable villains -- The Creeper, Headless Specter, Mr. Hyde, Captain Cutler's Ghost, The Black Knight, Spooky Space Kook, Ghost Clown, The Mummy of Ankha, Charlie the Funland Robot, etc. -- is likely just as useful as typing out their respective episode descriptions.

If you have fond memories of these characters, or even if you grew up on later variants and are intrigued by their origins, everything (still) plays great on home video. What's more is that these episodes are largely left intact from their original broadcast versions: the laugh tracks, title cards, and openings are all in order, including the fact that all 16 "Season 3" episodes are still grouped under the Scooby-Doo Show banner. Collectively, this maintains the time capsule atmosphere established by Warner Bros.' earlier DVD releases, which divided all 41 episodes into two separate boxed sets released in 2004 and 2007 with a full-series collection arriving three years later. The only difference here is that the final two episodes -- "The Beast is Awake in Bottomless Lake" and "The Warlock of Wimbledon" -- are reversed for unknown reasons, but the show is not serialized so it's hard to get worked up over such a small mistake.

For a full list of included adventures, please refer to Warner Bros.' June 26th press release for this title.

This long-awaited Blu-ray debut of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You jumps right in to collectible Limited Edition territory with no sign of a standard edition yet. (Luckily, this four-disc set doesn't hog as much shelf space as you'd think, taking up the total footprint of four or five DVD cases.) It's got a few good-to-great goodies inside, but I'd imagine that most folks are rightly in it for the actual discs...and for the most part, Warner Home Video has done a decent job of bringing the show to Blu-ray. Although the A/V presentation could have used a bit of fine tuning, the extras offer a great mixture of old and new content that explores the history and entertainment value of this enduring animated series.

Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

I've got good news and bad news: Scooby-Doo, Where Are You looks better than ever on Blu-ray, but it'll never shine as brightly as other Hanna-Barbera productions from the same decade like Jonny Quest or even The Jetsons. Although shot on 35mm film like most of the studio's output from that era, the series always featured very questionable line work and relatively stiff, cheap-looking animation that's often reused several times during a single episode. Only the backgrounds and (again, reused) walking/running cycles look smooth and halfway impressive -- just about everything else has that sloppy, cut-corners appearance made popular/acceptable by a Saturday morning time slot.

Anyway...let's not beat a dead horse, because I'm pretty fond of Scooby-Doo's scruffy aesthetic and, for the most part, it doesn't really hinder enjoyment of the show. And, as mentioned earlier, it looks better than ever here: colors are clean and bright -- or dark and muted, depending on the situation -- with solid shadow detail and black levels. Bit rates are generally low (usually hovering right over 10-12 Mbps, much like the similar-looking New Scooby-Doo Movies) but the 1080p transfer doesn't seem to suffer from it, largely due to the show's simple animation and 1.33:1 aspect ratio. Compression artifacts and banding are kept to a bare minimum here and, aside from trace moments of aliasing during a few stray sequences, that's about it for any encoding-related issues. Dirt and debris are somewhat reduced from the studio's earlier DVD collections, although mild to moderate amounts of both are still clearly visible at times. Grain levels are a bit lower than expected, and it's pretty obvious that occasional amounts of noise reduction and sharpening were used. This might sound bad, but let's keep things in perspective: I compared a handful of episodes and stills to their DVD counterparts, and the latter look worse than I remembered with frequent combing and heavy compression artifacts. While this Blu-ray doesn't sit in the highest tier of classic animation on Blu-ray (unlike, say, almost anything released by Warner Archive Collection), it still offers an improvement that should satisfy most fans.

Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Like The New Scooby-Doo Movies, Warner Home Video forgoes lossless audio in favor of a Dolby Digital 2.0 track, which puts it more or less on par with its DVD counterpart. That's clearly a disappointment on paper, though its relatively plain-wrap audio presentation honestly wouldn't benefit all that much from a higher bit-rate. As it stands, the dialogue sounds crisp and clear, maintaining a nice balance with the classic sound effects and frequently looped music cues. It's a basic two-channel replication of the original source mono that gets the job done; nothing more, nothing less. That said, I'd imagine there was more than enough room to squeeze a measly DTS-HD 2.0 Master Audio or PCM track on these discs, and skipping this step reeks of pure laziness more than anything else.

Optional English (SDH) and French subtitles are included during the episodes and applicable bonus features, and they're formatted nicely in proper case format with no obvious sync issues. A French dub is also on board during the episodes; interestingly enough, it omits the annoying laugh track hard-wired into its American counterpart.

Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This Limited Edition of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You is numbered out of 50,000 units with a "haunted house" design that takes up a bit less space than expected on your average shelf; there's no word of a standard edition yet, but we'll see. Included in the box is a four-disc, CD-sized gatefold digipak with individual disc hubs (thank goodness!) and a handy episode list, as well as physical goodies including an abridged version of the upcoming Scooby-Doo Encyclopedia -- kind of lame, as the full version is only 128 pages - - as well a Digital Copy redemption slip and Funko Pop keychain modeled after the titular pup. (One more Funko could've fit in with room to spare, so why not include Shaggy too?)

A few spooooky packaging photos can be seen at the tail end of this review's 40 screenshots.

Surprisingly enough, the on-disc extras are the real star of the show. All told, we get three brand-new featurettes in addition to all the DVD-era bonus features, which makes this a thoroughly enjoyable package overall.

• NEW - My Life with Scooby: Frank Welker's Animated Journey (17:24) - What a nice tribute to this Emmy Award-winning voice actor, who has contributed to just about every version of Scooby-Doo since 1969...not to mention dozens of other classic and current cartoons, from The Transformers to Futurama. During this interview, Welker speaks about his early days doing stand-up comedy, transitioning to Friskies cat food commercials (and soon after, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You), meeting Joe Barbera for the first time, working with Don Messick and Casey Kasem, finding the right voice, turning pages, taking over Scooby's voice after Don's death, tons of animal noises, and more. There's even a laugh track! Also appearing are Sam Register (president of WB Animation), voice actors Kate Micucci and Grey Griffin (Velma and Daphne on Be Cool, Scooby-Doo), film director Tony Cervone (Scoob!, coming next year), and writer/producer Jim Krieg (What's New, Scooby-Doo? ).

• NEW - A Scooby-Doo for Everyone (7:27) - A quick run-through of the various incarnations of Scooby-Doo through the years -- some of which were brand-new to yours truly -- as well as the common tropes that link them together. Several participants from the previous featurette return here, as well as a few others including animation historian Jerry Beck, writer Tim Sheridan (Scooby-Doo and the Curse of the 13th Ghost), director Rick Morales (LEGO Scooby-Doo: Haunted Hollywood), and producer Zac Moncrief (Be Cool, Scooby Doo).

• NEW - 50 Years of Scooby Snacks (9:04) takes a look at the glut of Scooby- related merchandise and pop culture paraphernalia over the years: board games, clothes, food, theme park rides, and also extends to guest stars appearing in animated shows and movies, which doubles as a promotion for The New Scooby-Doo Movies and the recent Scooby- Doo and Guess Who?, which can be seen on Cartoon Network and Boomerang.

• NEW - Scooby-Doo and the Lost City of Gold Trailer (2:26) - A look at the forthcoming live stage show (opening March 2020), which exists and is no way related to Dora and the Lost City of Gold.

• Scooby-Doo, The Whole World Loves You! (17:26) is a DVD-era appreciation of the franchise as a whole, featuring input from then-current cast and crew members discussing their early experiences with Scooby-Doo.

• The Eerie Mystery of Scooby-Doo History (10:19) - This is a more informative piece than others, shining a light on the show's earliest years and how it fit in to the late 1960s television landscape. Many other Hanna- Barbera properties are brought up including Jonny Quest, Huckleberry Hound, and The Flintstones, but the best bits are early sketches and concepts that would eventually become Scooby-Doo, Where Are You.

• The Scooby-Doo Gang: In Their Own Words (4:54) features the primary Where Are You voice actors during most of its original run -- Frank Welker, Heather North Kenney, Nicole Jaffe Daivd, Casey Kasem, and of course Don Messick -- as they reminisce about their characters and the casting process. Not appearing are Stefanianna Christopherson (Daphne, Season 1 only) and the late Pat Stevens (Velma, Season 3).

• Hanna-Barbera: From H to B (20:59) is another historically-minded featurette, this one focusing on the long and successful partnership between William Hanna and Joe Barbera. Lots of great photos and clips are included, as well as words from the duo themselves and a few of their friends and contemporaries.

• Scooby-Doo's Ultimate Fans (11:53) - A neat but kind of creepy piece featuring three of the franchise's biggest fans, all of which are not shy about showing off their massive Scooby-Doo collections.

• Get the Picture (2:20) is a quick drawing lesson for aspiring artists.

• Funky Fashions (4:51) takes a look at the unique wardrobes of the Mystery, Inc. gang.

• America Loves Scooby-Doo (2:32) - It took three people to write this song? Next!

• Scooby-Doo Street Smarts (2:36) - Average Joes -- and I do mean average -- gush about Scooby-Doo. OK, I think we're pretty much out of good bonus features at this point. Anyone still here?

• Trailers (3:12) for LEGO Batman: Family Matters and Scooby-Doo and the Curse of the 13th Ghost.

Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Scooby-Doo has been a pop culture institution for decades; hard to believe it's celebrating its 50th birthday this year and still going strong, but the franchise's memorable characters and flexible format has made it all but inescapable for the past two or three generations. I've got a soft spot for several of the show's different iterations over the years, but Where Are You just might be my favorite: featuring terrific voice work, a wonderful mix of comedy and horror, great characters, and just the right amount of extra cheese, it's the rare show that captivated me as a kid and still holds up to adult eyes. Plain and simple, I could watch these things all day. Warner Bros.' Limited Edition set contains the first two seasons of Where Are You (1969-70) and 16 more from a second run in 1978, as well as nifty packaging and a generous assortment of extras. The A/V presentation is good with a few mild reservations but, as a whole, it's a solid effort that fans should enjoy. Recommended, unless you'd rather wait around for a possible standard edition.