Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf

You know a Scooby-Doo feature is bad when Scrappy seems benign relative to everything else. Actually the little guy for once does a good job of refraining from irritatingly hogging the spotlight in this one, but unfortunately we just might have been better off if he had.

The basic plot is that Dracula turns Shaggy into a werewolf and forces him to win an all-monster road race to have any chance of becoming human again. The race itself tries to cross the Wacky Races with the Coyote/Road Runner shorts but after the 527th failed effort to put Shaggy and Scooby out of the race and the 83rd time Dracula whines about things not going his way (with no end in sight), it gets just the tiniest bit tedious.

This (in conjunction with the concurrent "Pup" series) was the point where the Scooby-Doo franchise hit absolute rock bottom, and the cowardly great dane and friends went into a long-overdue semi-retirement.

Following up "Scooby-Doo and the Ghoul School," the Hanna-Barbera studio churns out another made-for-TV Scooby-Doo movie for their "Hanna-Barbera Superstar" series, "Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf!" This looks different from the two previous films, but that might be because they used a digital coloring system and some cheap computer graphics here. This film seems like a cross of "Scooby-Doo," "Fangface," "Wacky Races," "The Groovy Goolies" and "Drac Pack." It is a pretty funny spoof of those old werewolf films. However, Shaggy doesn't really look much like a real werewolf (the one that "retired" at the beginning of this film (as well as Scooby's wolf mask) looks more like the Wolfman from "Van Heisling"). Plus, in this film, Scrappy-Doo is a bit useful, and not as annoying as he is in his earlier appearances! However, we could have done without Shaggy's cheesy girlfriend and have Fred, Daphne and Velma with them. The animation is sometimes a bit corny, and the various monsters in it (Dracula, Frankenstein, Crunch and Brunch, the mummy and skeleton and slime monsters) might remind you of the cast of "The Groovy Goolies!" However, I LOVED some of the jokes in it, most of them coming from Dracula himself. This is actually quite enjoyable and much better than the newer Scooby cartoons!

There are three problems I have with this movie. One deals with breaking character. When we first see Shaggy in this film, he apparently now has a career as a race car driver. At first, I thought, "Oh, that's a cool professional for a non-conformist like him!" Then I remembered something: Shaggy is a self-professed coward. What coward would take on the dangerous line of professional auto racing?

The second problem is romantic. Who is this Googie girl? Why is she Shaggy's girlfriend? I would have much rather have had Daphne, or even Velma, in the role.

The third problem is boredom. Once the big monster car race gets started, it turns into an extended version of Hanna-Barbera's other show, "The Wacky Races", and is really very tedious.

I have a lot of fond memories of this as a kid.

I suspect a lot of people will scoff at how it abandoned the Classic Scooby formula by not having a mystery or how the fantasy elements are actually real but I actually quite like that. I also personally like Scrappy. Maybe it was because I hadn't been exposed to him that long or because I hadn't grown used to the classic series for there to be anything to ruin but I like the ensemble of Scrappy, Scooby and Shaggy, emphasising the comedy part of the series alongside a brilliant homage to vintage horror.

Dracula is our bad guy here and he is a stunning one that both commands threat and doesn't dampen that when he is used for more comic moments.

There's even a cute girl who's into shaggy. It maybe not have much of a "soul" but for those who aren't the Scooby purists this is a delightful adventure with much to bring to the table.

This Scooby-Doo film came at the end of 80s era, when Hanna-Barbara, by far, produced their worst shows. Everything H-B made in the 80s stunk, because their plots were reduced to stupid gimmicks and lame humor instead of the catchy themes that kept the animation studio unique. And no other H-B creation suffered more in this decade than Scooby-Doo.

It should be pointed out that "Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf" was the last entry in the 80s era Scooby cartoons. It's actually pretty interesting that this cartoon came out in 1988, the same year as the debut of "A Pup Named Scooby Doo," which tried to radically alter the style of the 80s Scooby cartoons and return to the former 60s and early 70s glory days of actually being a detective show (while still dumbing the premise down for kids).

Beginning in 1979, it was an era of real monsters, no detective work, a loss of most of Mystery Inc. (only Scooby and Shaggy remained near the end of the decade), and most importantly, Scooby's nephew Scrappy-Doo. THE MOST ANNOYING CARTOON CHARACTER OF ALL TIME!! (And I can say that with a clear conscience, since so many people agree with me.) A character so reeking of "cuteness" his appearance was obvious from the start; to warp the minds of little children with his presence! Scooby-Doo had betrayed itself by becoming a pale version of its once former glory.

The story for "Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf", if there is such a thing, involves Shaggy (who is now a race car circuit star for some reason) being cursed into being a werewolf in order to compete in a race in Transylvania. He has a new girlfriend named Googie that is not given much personality, add that to the fact that she is never seen again in any future incarnation of the show which lets you know how awful she really was.

In order to lift the curse, Shaggy agrees to race in the competition, which is littered with so many road obstacles (some living!) and evil fellow drivers you'd think it was invented by the producers of "Survivor." It plays like a horror version of "Wacky Races", but when you have Dracula filling in for Dick Dastardly you know you're in trouble.

The film is basically a collection of lame humor, such as Dracula's race color commenter Vanna Pira's statements ("There's a red! There's a green!") Stop it, you're killing me! Literally! Dracula gets the only two funny lines in the whole movie, one about sunblock that even I'll admit made me crack a smile, and the second a riff at how "dead" his audience is since they're not laughing at his jokes. I know just how they feel, Drac.

And of course there's Scrappy, the little turd that for once I'd wish Shaggy and Scooby wouldn't save! Just let him try some of that Puppy Power on Frankenstein, I'd love to see Scrappy become a puppy pancake! The only thing good about him in this movie is the fact that this is his final appearance; once "A Pup Named Scooby-Doo" came along he was gone for good. And good riddance.

H-B has since thankfully learned from its past sins, making some excellent direct to video Scooby-Doo cartoons in the late 90s and early 00s. The whole Mystery Inc. gang is back again, and Scrappy has mysteriously disappeared (hopefully Shag and Scoob finally realized how much an annoying hanger-on he really was and just left him behind in Transylvania to be eaten by the monsters! :) ) In any case, the formula has been improved, and Scooby-Doo is once again interesting to watch.

Watch this movie as a final reminder of how off-base the series had gotten before H-B decided to take a breather and then return to the old mystery solving format. It's the last vestige of the Scrappy era stupidity, and like the other products of its time it's pretty much indistinguishable from every other 80s Scooby cartoon. In the end it was shallow, overlong and ultimately pointless, and I don't think Scrappy would want it any other way.

5 out of 10, mostly because of Dracula's two good jokes and the happy feeling I have knowing Scrappy is out of the picture!