Who Am I?

To whom it may concern:

For all intents and purposes, I am to be known merely as Mr. E…

…yeah or not. I’m Geoffrey.  You may have seen my related blog where I covered up through the Green Ranger Saga of Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers.  My friend Claudia got busy with her real life, and frankly, there was just too much with Power Rangers that was re-hashed over and over again that I got bored of it.

So…I decided to try my hand at it again.  This time, with a show that actually has a story arc (yay something to do each episode) and things to do in each episode, which brought me to this show.

I have always been a fan of Scooby-Doo and the paranormal and mysteries.  I honestly don’t remember when I discovered the show.  I know it was sometime after The Wizard of Oz and The Little Mermaid, but definitely before I got into kindergarten.   I grew up watching it on USA’s Cartoon Express and probably on TNT when I was at my grandmother’s.  The  early 1990s were a dark time for Scooby fans, frequently all that were on were the awful Scooby-Doo/Scrappy-Doo mini mysteries.  Sometimes reruns of A Pup Named Scooby-Doo and The Scooby Doo Show would turn up, but pretty infrequently (at least to my memory).

Then, sometime around 1996, they started releasing episodes of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! (Grammar freak note: I have no idea why they used an exclamation point instead of a question mark.  This seriously bothers me.) on VHS.  I began buying these with my allowance to try and capture as much Scooby in my life as I could.  Around this time the Warner Bros. Studio Store started putting out seasonal Scooby toys and I began receiving those as gifts.  And then of course came the 1998 Direct-to-Video Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island.  I was obsessed. It was dark, it was real and it was good.  I was at the age to notice that it wasn’t all the original voices (Billy West had me fooled for a little while as Shaggy, but B. J. Ward and Mary Kay Bergman were no Nicole Jaffe/Pat Stevens or Heather North), but just to have Scooby back was enough. (A sentiment I used to harbor towards the new Muppet performers, but that’s another story).

Each year we got treated to a new film, and when I was in high school, a long awaited live action film was released.  I eagerly went.  However, life, as it is wont to do, got in the way of my enjoyment of Scooby-Doo.  I went to college, and while I still bought the season box sets when they came out, they largely sat unwatched in their cases.  I’d still make a habit of purchasing the new films and watching them, and while I was vaguely aware of What’s New, Scooby-Doo? I only saw it on occasion.

And then I was at Target and discovered that they had WNSD in season sets for $7.  Well, $21 for 42 episodes of Scooby seemed good to me!  And I purchased and watched them.  I was mildly impressed by the more self-aware humor, the nice pop culture references and varying other aspects of the show.  I had warmed up to the newer voice actors (although I was quite glad to have Casey Kasem back), but in a lot of ways it felt like the same old series and I found myself kind of wanting more.

Flash forward to 2010.  Very quietly a new series appeared.  I actually stumbled upon it only because of Wikipedia, and found the pilot on YouTube.  I was intrigued, but not enough to actually keep track of when it was going to be on TV (a problem that seems to have plagued this incarnation).  My work schedule was too wonky, and frankly, I don’t watch much live TV.  Suddenly the first volume of 4 episodes was on DVD…so I bought it.  Again, I was intrigued, amused, and very interested.  But it was 4 episodes. No release date was set for the second volume, and it didn’t seem easy to locate on Cartoon Network, so I kinda forgot about it.  I took note of when releases happened, but I always seemed to have something else to buy.

Then in March of 2013, I discovered that season 1 was on Netfilx. I marked it for my instant queue (a word I hate) and opted to save it to binge watch…which 3 weeks later a throat infection caused by sinus drainage gave me 4 days off of work for.  Not only did I watch through the entirety of Season 1 within 2 days, but I spent my remaining 2 days off work were spent streaming the remainder of the show (which had ended only a few days prior).

I was blown away.  From the heightened danger to the character development to the sometimes genius pop culture references that never got in the way (like they had in WNSD), I loved it.  This was not a recycled series, this was new, this was special. I immediately had to tell everyone I could…and no one really wanted to listen to me.  Then I re-watched the series again.  And again.  After my third viewing, I thought “I need to do something with this.”  So, here we are, at my new review blog.

There are 52 episodes in Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated.  I will strive to do like I did with  Power Rangers and have a new post every Monday.  Each post will include:

• A brief synopsis of the episode.
• The Bad Guy(s)/Girl(s) in a Mask
• The Episode Review
• Relevant Clues to the Mystery of Crystal Cove (if any)
• Mayor Dad’s Strange Statements (cause they’re funny)
• My thoughts on the episode
• Pop-Culture References (I do not anticipate that I will catch every single one, but where I do, I’ll point them out).
• The Episode’s Featured Recurring Characters
• Important Episode Guest Stars

So, now that that’s out of the way, let’s get on with it.  Shall we?

Geoffrey