Scooby-Doo: Mask of the Blue Falcon, on Adult Swim

Owen Garrison sounds like Adam West, but his career has taken a worse trajectory. Like Clayton Moore and his Lone Ranger character, Garrison faces studio litigation targeting his in-character public appearances. The fact that Scooby and Shaggy are fans is sort of meta, considering there were Scooby and Blue Falcon crossover episodes in the late 1970s. Regardless, the constantly hungry Great Dane suspects his formerly favorite actor has been framed in Michael Goguen’s animated feature, Scooby-Doo: Mask of the Blue Falcon, which airs tomorrow morning on Adult Swim.

Frankly, Moore is the reason you usually see former cast-members making cameos in big budget remakes of old properties, like the ailing Jonathan Frid briefly appearing in Tim Burton’s Dark Shadows. It is a way of signaling to fans that the old guard was respected by the new production, unlike The Legend of the Lone Ranger, which flopped hard, partly because the fanbase sided with Moore. Producer Jennifer Severin never got that memo. Instead, she wants to ban Garrison from all things Blue Falcon at the Mega Mondo Pop Comic ConApalooza, where her new, darker Blue Falcon movie will premiere.

Naturally, when a giant robot modeled on the Blue Falcon’s super-villain nemesis, Mr. Hyde, starts terrorizing the ComicCon analogue, suspicion immediately falls on Garrison. Disappointingly. Velma is reluctant to explore other possibilities, because of her ironic resentment of geek comic culture. Scooby and Shaggy will be the washed-up thesp’s best hope, but his self-destructive behavior won’t make it easy for them to clear his name.

If you know your Hanna-Barbera, Mask is quite clever, because it features many H-B characters the Scooby gang previously met in crossover adventures, as fictional subjects for cos play and collectibles at the con. Garrison’s career-threatening indignities also parallel those of Moore and West (who turned down offers from Burton’s Batman productions and was subsequently frozen out of Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy). It is also sufficiently hip to portray the mayor of San De Pedro as grotesquely corrupt. Plus, for extra added irony, James Becker, the chief of Con security, was transparently inspired by Paul Lynde.

It also takes care of its Scooby business, including the famous “meddling kids” line. So far, Warner Bros. Animation has released 38 of these direct-to-DVD animated Scooby-Doo films—and it is easy to see why they have maintained their profitability. They serve as fun gateways to the spooky genre for young viewers, while delivering ample nostalgia and sly Easter eggs for older viewers who grew up with Mystery, Inc. It sounds comforting too, thanks the voice of Frank Welker, returning as both Fred Jones (who he has performed since the original series premiered in 1969) and Scooby.

Admittedly, these Scooby-Doo movies are not quite up to the level of the animated DC films, but they are of considerably higher quality than you might assume. More to the point, they are consistently fun, which especially true in the case of Mask of the Blue Falcon. Affectionately recommended, it airs tomorrow morning (11/30) on Adult Swim (and it is not currently available for free streaming, so this is a chance to watch without paying).