Look, I don’t watch a ton of TV[1]. It takes a lot to get me invested in a TV show, because it is a considerable time commitment, and if I plan on devoting that many hours of my life to watching something, it had better be good[2]. So far this decade, I have only watched…
Last week, before exploring the dark, dark place known as the two live action Scooby-Doo movies, I gave a brief review of Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island, a 1998 straight-to-video film that just about singlehandedly revived the franchise after—depending on how you count and how you feel about A Pup Named Scooby-Doo—about two decades of stagnation.…
“It was a tumultuous time for our nation. The clear beverage craze gave us all a reason to live, the information superhighway showed the average person what some nerd thinks about Star Trek, and the domestication of the dog continued unabated.” Homer Simpson’s concise scene-setting of the early 1990s is only somewhat corroborated by the…
In 1969, Scooby-Doo captured the hearts and imaginations, etc., of children all over the world, or at least definitely in America. As I discussed in last week’s instalment, the original two season run of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? built a dynasty of mystery-solving fun on a foundation of predictability and repetition, as well as a…
“Octoberween is a celebration of life and death, of the very foundation of our humanity.” -My Editor-in-Chief, Yesterday With that in mind, I bring you a comprehensive history of Scooby-Doo. In 1969, four meddling kids and their talking dog first graced the television screen, and with them they brought a gaggle of galloping ghosts, a…
You know how sometimes you see a trailer that combines so many perfectly good elements in the most spectacularly off-the-wall, inventive, horrible ways, and you think to yourself, “Well, surely that will be a good movie.” Okay, maybe “good” is the wrong word. Maybe even “movie” is a little too generous, but I will not…
A friend of mine—a wise lady of high repute—once said, with reference to Andy Samberg, “If you don’t like him, you’re just jealous.” To quote another such lady, “Haters gonna hate hate hate hate hate.” Comedy is a delicate and difficult thing, and no matter how good you are at it, you will never please…
