Could this have been the seventies version of the Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies with Hollywood Stars?

richard.fuller1

Why did the Mystery Machine kids suddenly start teaming up with these characters? Why not Yogi Bear or Huckleberry Hound? Why was this cartoon an hour long? Scooby Doo, at this time, was only 3 years old. The transition of these kids and their dog will be one of the most intriguing journeys in cartoon history to track. The Scooby Movies are that incredible as well.

I do recall eventually watching these back when they aired, and clearly did not watch them straight through. The New Scooby Movies aired opposite the quickly-cancelled Saturday Superstar Movies on ABC, which I did watch instead back then in '72.

Later that year, I would check out the movies and was floored. The animation for many HB cartoons at this time was poor, plots are horrible too, so the celebs were pretty much on their own. Don KNotts does seem to be the winner here with his two appearances. In this limited animation program, he does manage to deliver some one-of-a-kind lines for a cartoon.

My siblings and I did rather enjoy the Jonathan Winters one as well, mainly for the Mother Frickert character, also voiced by Winters. Phyllis Diller seemed to have extensive fun too (when the gang is trying to open a heavy door, Diller quips "what a shame I'm not strong instead of just. . . gorgeous!" she says in an alluring manner).

I had no recollection of the Cass Elliott adventure in the candy factory, but Elliott seems to have fun, as she runs with the more exciting Shaggy and Scooby. It is interesting to study who runs with the exciting pair and who runs with the dull trio, Fred, Velma and Daphne. Sonny & Cher, the Stooges and ALL of Josie and the Pussycats would go with the trio, leaving Shaggy and Scooby to save the day.

Davy Jones adventure would stand as perhaps the only time that the group split differently with Davy taking Velma and Daphne and Fred going with Shaggy and Scooby. I do recall the ghostly knight and the moat monster from Jones' Hagglethorne Hall adventure, but I didn't recall Davy Jones til I saw the show later.


Stan Laurel died in '65, Oliver Hardy in '56 so no, neither of them did their voices. The same for Larry Fine of the stooges, who had a stroke in '71. Both Moe Howard and Fine would die in '75, so they were clearly too old to do decent voices perhaps.

Also, the real Harlem Globetrotters didn't do the cartoon voices, as that is Scatman Crothers doing Meadowlark Lemon's voice, in the Globetrotter cartoon as well as in the 3 Scooby movies.

Jerry Reed ("Little Mary Sunshine") and Sandy Duncan were voted the two worst movies.

I had no remembrance of the Dick Van Dyke, Don Adams or Tim Conway movies either, probably because I was too little to know who they were.

Hands down, the Josie and the Pussycats meeting has to be the most incredible with Josie-Daphne, Alan M.-Freddie, Shaggy-Alexander cancellations taking place left and right, especially to the point of Alexander's voice changing. Not surprising, Casey Kasem has no recollection of this meeting as he must have thought he was doing the same character's voice.

Still, the meetings are head-shaking as well. Don Adams is an exterminator, Jonathan Winters was working at a service station, Tim Conway was a coach, Dick Van Dyke was the owner of a carnival.

Good or bad, there must be something to the cartoons as they are being discussed and debated over thirty years later and counting.

score /10

richard.fuller1 4 August 2003

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw0120661/