Scooby-Doo! & Batman: The Brave and the Bold, on Cartoon Network

Batman has many nicknames: the Caped Crusader, Dark Knight, and World’s Greatest Detective. Mystery Incorporated also has a few: the Scooby Gang and those “meddling kids.” Frankly, Batman kind of likes the last one. They get along fairly well—maybe because this isn’t their first meeting. The characters had crossover team-ups in “The Dynamic Scooby-Doo Affair” and “The Caped Crusader Caper,” two installments of The New Scooby-Doo Movies, which was really just another Scooby TV series, even though it pretended its episodes were movies. Their most recent on-screen collaboration really is a movie—that even had a theatrical premiere before releasing direct-to-DVD. Having laid the groundwork for the Batman & Scooby-Doo Mysteries comic book that launched in 2021 (and still regularly revives with special issues), Jake Castorna’s Scooby-Doo! & Batman: The Brave and the Bold airs this coming Saturday on the Cartoon Network.

Mystery Incorporated’s unmasking successes finally convinced Batman to recruit them for the Mystery Analysts of Gotham City. They simply had to pass a test he arranged with the help of Martian Manhunter and Detective Chimp. Honestly, the real mystery is why Warner Animation hasn’t used Detective Chimp more often. (His guest appearance in Wonder Woman #16 was a delight.) Then, they gang also must sleuth their way to the meeting, where they also meet the Question, Plastic Man, and Black Canary. As it happens, Fred Jones is totally gob smacked by her, which should put to rest a lot of rumors. For the record, the ascot does not help his cause.

Naturally, they want to help solve Batman’s only unsolved case, which coincidentally might be related to Gotham’s latest break-in. It seems the spectral Crimson Cloak’s theft of radioactive isotopes might be related to the unstable teleportation device from Batman’s notoriously open case. It turns out he saved the wrong lab assistant. The innocent one remains missing in the ether, but the other has been remanded to Arkham Asylum, under the name The Riddler. So off to Arkham they go, even though bad things always happen there.

Obviously, there are a lot of jokes in Scooby: The Brave and the Bold. It is a Scooby-Doo movie. However, it features the voices of Diedrich Bader and horror legend Jeffrey Combs as Batman and the Question, neither of whom get the credit they deserve for their DC animated work. Indeed, Bader’s Batman hits the right sardonic notes, indicating he is in on the jokes, at least to the extent he is constitutionally capable of acknowledging humor.

Arguably, the one character who suffers from Paul Giacoppo’s screenplay treatment is Aquaman, who comes off looking and sounding like a clumsy, obtuse meathead. Plastic Man is the same Plastic Man from the 1979 Plastic Man Comedy/Adventure Show. On the other hand, Black Canary and the Question should have seen their fandom stock rise from their appearances in this film.

Happy Halloween, Scooby Doo!, on Cartoon Network

The nice thing about media mergers is that it makes it so much easier to produce franchise crossovers. For instance, a major DC super-villain appears in this Warner-produced Scooby-Doo movie—and it isn’t even a major call-out on the key art. If Paramount bought Warners, they could team-up Nickelodeon characters with DC and Hanna-Barbera favorites. Regardless, Mystery Incorporated manages to trap Dr. Jonathan Crane, a.k.a. The Scarecrow, but that is only the start of their troubles in Maxwell Atoms’ Happy Halloween, Scooby Doo!, which airs tomorrow on the Cartoon Network.

The Scarecrow escaped from Arkham again, which is generally very bad news. However, once trapped, he insists he had nothing to do with the drone attack, even though they were armed with his fear toxin. Something about the way Crane protests his innocence unsettles Velma, but she takes the bows in front of the media anyway. Scooby and Shaggy go off trick-or-treating to celebrate, but nobody initially believes them when they return to warn Crystal Cove the combination of Crane’s serum and leaked toxic waste has created an army of mutant pumpkins.

The gang must admit they were wrong to doubt when the pumpkins attack the Halloween revelers on Main Street. Soon, Mystery Incorporated and the Halloween parade grand marshal, Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, flee the mutant pumpkins in extended chase scene that nearly constitutes one third of the film.

The Scarecrow (voiced by Dwight Shultz) and Elvira (naturally portrayed by her real-life alter-ego, Cassandra Peterson) are welcome guest stars and co-conspirators in this Scooby misadventure. However, the gags involving Bill Nye the Bachelor of Science Guy fall pretty flat. Since the Mystery Machine suffers damage from the first act drone, Nye supplies a high-tech replacement that comes with his own annoying hologram.

Chill Out, Scooby-Doo, on Cartoon Network

You might think Casey Kasem was from Shangra-La, considering the voice-over artist dubbed that “meddling kid,” Shaggy Rogers well into his eighties. Unfortunately, time catches up to even the eternally youthful. Although Kasem once again performed as Shaggy in this feature, it was animation legend Josph Barbera’s final Scooby project. It was also dedicated to the memory of late Disney and Hanna-Barbera animator Iwao Takamoto, a longtime contributor to the Scooby franchise. Scooby and Shaggy have outlived them all, presumably thanks to diet and exercise (all that running from monsters). They get another workout (this time at high altitude) in Joe Sichta’s Chill Out, Scooby Doo, which airs on the Cartoon Network.

Fred, Daphne, and Velma thought they were meeting Scooby and Shaggy in Paris for a well-earned vacation. Instead, Rogers and our favorite Great Dane are lured to the Himalayas by cryptid-hunter Alphonse LeFleur, by the promise of an all-you-can-eat flight. He intends to use the duo as bait for the Yeti.

Fortunately, Scooby and Shaggy quickly ditch LaFleur, reconnecting with an old friend, cryptozoologist Del Chillman, who now happens to be the local DJ, even though he only has one regular listener, Minga, the sister of Pemba the sherpa. Unfortunately, Pemba’s latest client is clearly up to no good. Professor Jeffries hopes to plunder the crystals of Shangra-La, right under the nose of the High Lama. There is also the Yeti, who clearly enjoys chasing Scooby and Shaggy. In fact, he pursues them right into Shangra-La.

As straight-to-DVD features go, Chill Out really plays like an extended episode of the various Mystery Incorporated series. Even by the franchise standards, the humor is shamelessly goofy and logic immediately goes out the window. For instance, the rest of the meddling kids manage to drive their van from Paris to Himalayas, within the first act.

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.

Scooby Doo! Ghastly Goals, on Tubi

While they are in Brazil, maybe the Scooby gang can solve the mystery of the missing light-rail. They started construction to service the 2014 World Cup, but it remains unfinished. At least you can see long stretches of rail going nowhere. That is more than the state of California has to show for the $15.7 billion spent on its light-rail boondoggle. However, Mystery Incorporated has a more pressing monster to unmask in Victor Cook’s Scooby-Doo! Ghastly Goals, which premieres tomorrow on Tubi.

If ever there were a man and a dog who could appreciate Brazilian churrascaria, it would be Shaggy and Scooby. Instead, they partake of that famous Brazilian street food, pancakes-on-a-stick. Seriously? Frankly, every Brazilian who visits America wants to have a big lumberjack stack of pancakes because they believe (not unfoundedly) that is a very American thing to do.

However, there is plenty of soccer/football. Ghastly Goals was an original episode-length Scooby mystery commissioned for a sports-themed boxset to tie-in with the then upcoming World Cup in Brazil. To be fair, they do a decent job recreating the sights and colors of Rio. The monster, the Eshu, is of Yoruba origin, which does indeed have a place in Afro-Brazilian tradition and lore. Perhaps the lab they visit, thanks to an empty test-tube clue, also appears to be somewhat inspired by Oscar Niemeyer’s flying saucer-looking Niteroi Contemporary Art Museum.

Obviously, this is a cartoon featuring a talking dog who likes to eat, so you should judge it by those standards. However, screenwriters Eric Maher & Kay Reindl’s ultra-frenetic caper, involving a missing autographed football injected with a dangerous super-bouncy formula, lacks the spookiness of the best Scooby episodes. It also ignores the best of Brazilian cuisine, like feijoada, coxinha, pao de queijo, and picanha. They can blame the Eshu, but Scooby and Shaggy do Brazil all wrong.

Scooby-Doo, Where are You Now? (Halloween Special)

For 52 years, Scooby and Mystery Incorporated have been unmasking monsters. If you haven’t kept up with their recent Cartoon Network series and straight-to-DVD animated features, you might not realize they are as busy now as they ever were. They haven’t aged a day in all that time—it must be those giant dagwood sandwiches keeping Scooby and Shaggy youthful. There is a diet book somewhere in that, but their next project is a reunion special. They never broke-up, but reunion specials are hot, so Warners booked studio time for their reminiscences. Yet, wouldn’t you know it, they end up with a haunted soundstage in Scooby-Doo, Where are You Now?, a new hybrid animated-live-action special premiering Friday on the CW.

A gig is a gig for Mystery Incorporated, so they are happy to sit down with the host and producer (both “real” people) in their old soundstage to discuss their past cases. However, weird noises keep interrupting them. The Warner employees did not want to admit it, but reportedly the studio is haunted. Recently, their old nemesis the “Snow Ghost” has been scaring away productions, so they naturally ask Mystery Incorporated to sleuth it out.

Even by the standards of the early Saturday morning cartoons, this mystery is pretty simple, but the “reunion” format facilitates some amusing self-referential humor, including testimonials from the likes of Batman, Johnny Quest, Jabberjaw, and the Power Puff Girls. There are also clips and soundbites from the real-life voice-over artists, including Frank Welker, who has portrayed Fred since the show’s inception and Scooby himself, for almost twenty years.