Very good show during the first season
"The New Scooby Doo Movies",made its premiere on CBS-TV in September of 1972 and it lasted well on until the fall of 1974. I saw this when I was a kid on Saturday Mornings and I got to see this episodes again when the show aired again in syndication during the 1980's. During its first season,the show had the kids solving mysteries with special guests and this was when the series was good,and then the show took a nose-dived during its final season and from there it said it all. Don't get me wrong here,I am a HUGE fan of the original show by the way,but when this format came about you tell that some of the stars who lend their voices here should have never committed to coming on and playing second fiddle with the kids in catching the creepy ghost or phantom who were still trying to scare them away,but still they got the suspecct at the end of each episode. Also,these were the best from the first season and here were some that were huge problems especially when the gang stumbles onto them during the first twenty minutes of the show.For instance, they met Laurel and Hardy whom both were dead 30 years prior to when "Scooby Doo" even hit the airwaves(this was back in 1972) and also one was with the "Three Stooges" which way totally far out and cool. The only thing was that Curly was dead for 20 years prior to the show's airing although Moe and Larry were still alive at the time,but in opinion it would have made sense if they could have gotten Curly Joe who was also alive at the time this episode was made,but the producers at Hanna-Barbera(which produced the series)wanted the original Curly,who was deceased! Also,there were three episodes where the kids solve mysteries with the Harlem Globetrotters,and two which featured the dynamic duo Batman and Robin as they tangle with two of the meanest villains ever devised:Penguin and The Joker....it would have been even great if the producers gotten the voices of Burgess Meredith and Cesar Romero,who were still living at the time this show aired,but nooooooo! Adam West or Burt Ward? The producers didn't even think of that,but we have radio personality Casey Kasem who does double duty with this as the voices of the Boy Wonder Robin and also Shaggy and a host of other characters.
The Globetrotters episodes are my favorites,as well as the ones which featured Phyllis Diller,Dick Van Dyke,Sandy Duncan,Davy Jones(of the Monkees),Tim Conway,Don Knotts,Don Adams,and The Addams Family(in which the producers got this right by getting the original stars of the show as voiceovers with the talents of John Astin,Carolyn Jones,Jackie Coogan,and Ted Cassidy-the weirdest and also the best of the first season)not to mention getting Sonny and Cher as guest stars with some of the best dialogue ever for a Saturday Morning cartoon show.
The worst of the bunch.....first off who would have thought that the group would work well with the gang. Jerry Reed? Josie and the Pussycats? Speed Buggy? Jeannie?(stupid idea and way out of place) Cass Elliott? Jonathan Winters? The Partridge Kids? and the worst of the bunch from the second season where the producers took the Redbeard characters from a 1969 episode and from there stripped them of their color....didn't they solve this mystery in the original? Why was it brought back from the original series? Now,that's a mystery that the producers couldn't solve nor save this show in its second season. CBS cancelled this entirely in 1974. It's replacement consisted of repeated episodes of the original "Scooby Doo,Where Are You?" series that aired on CBS from 1969-1972.
The second season was the worst of the bunch,and from there Scooby and the gang moved from CBS to ABC in 1975,and with the addition to one of the worst characters in history which destroy the franchise SCRAPPY, the series went into a flame of dog crap. Stick to the original series which ran from 1969-1972,and they were way better than this.
score /10
raysond 7 May 2003
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw0120659/15169
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