As many people roughly my age, I grew up watching the original Scooby Doo cartoons and thoroughly enjoying them. I loved the sheer cheesiness of them and the fact that it was always the janitor in a bad monster costume who "would have got away with it if it hadn't been for you pesky kids."
The later cartoons involving Scrappy Doo were infinitly less fun. Perhaps Scrappy was intended to revitalise the series, but I am at a loss to explain why it seemed a good idea to introduce an annoying loud-mouth puppy. Popular opinion seems to be that his introduction caused many people to cease watching. Apparently there was at least one other annoying character introduced to aid Scrappy in his quest to get the show canned due to dramatically reduced viewing figures.
Since the 1990s saw only Scrappy-era episodes being aired, the concept of a live action Scooby Doo film seemed less of a travesty than it transpired to be. The sheer amount of cash raised by people naive enough to watch the film awakened the copyright holders to the lucrative nostalgia market.
From the mid-90s there had been produced a number of straight to video Scooby Doo adventures. In the aftermath of Sarah Michelle Gellar and co's attempt, the advertising on these cartoons went up threefold. At present every video stockist in the UK is offering 2 for £10 and they are flying off shelves by the score.
I confess that I have bought several, purely because I had seen 'Scooby Doo and the curse of Zombie Island' on a wet Sunday afternoon while nursing a cold. Initially I had not had high hopes simply because the live action film had so tainted them for me, but I quickly realised that 'The curse of Zombie Island' had been ripped off wholesale by it and was actually considerably better. It was also genuinely scary despite being rated PG.
To my dismay the other Scooby Doo feature-length cartoons were not quite as much fun and contained mildly annoying elements. Obvious examples of this are Jennifer Love-Hewitt singing the theme song, and demented cackling female characters. Following some of these extended episodes were two of the original cartoons. Presumably due to the introduction of Scrappy Doo and by stealth, these appear to have been rebranded 'Scooby Doo, where are you?' To be honest, the old cartoons make little sense, with the bad guy being some completely random individual that neither the gang nor the audience have come across up until that point.
However non-sensical this may seem it is still a vast improvement of the musical accompanyment provided by the Hex Girls during the feature-length 'Scooby Doo and the witch's house.' Being self-declared eco-goths appears to have limited their musical reportoire to ripping off the 'Captain Planet' theme tune.
I feel I must warn people tempted to purchase the feautre length cartoons that Scrappy Doo is present in at least one, despite there being no indication of this montrosity on either the video box cover or description. Also, they differ radically from the original cartoons in that the monsters are real as opposed to villains in costumes. In 'Scooby Doo and the witch's house' it is a real witch that the gang come across, similarly the aliens in 'Scooby Doo and the alien invaders'.
Like all the shows that I used to watch that have now been jazzed up for a new audience, I feel mildly cheated. However, the new Scooby Doo cartoons could be far worse, something than can not be said for either the live action film or the bulk of the new look Transformers and its offshoots. They would have got away with it if it wasn't for those pesky 20-somethings.
