Scooby Doo!
Mystery Incorporated
Warner Brothers
Season 1 (2010-11)
If you find yourself disenchanted after the scores of bad Scooby-Doo re-boots like The New Scooby-Doo Movies with special guest stars, Scooby & Scrappy-Doo, and The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, rest assured, the best isn’t over! In 2002 there finally came What’s New Scooby-Doo, with its self-aware tongue-in-cheek humor, and that was pretty satisfying for those of us who grew up loving Scooby and can’t get enough mysteries in haunted houses. But there was always so much potential it seemed to be missing out on. What if Scooby were done right, by the post-modern generation, what would that look like?
With monsters that are just-scary-enough, in-jokes about famous horror movies, a mysterious opening theme by Matthew Sweet, and a slick new green-and-purple color theme, where a red neon glow is applied to spookier scenes to produce an effect never before seen in cartoons, Mystery Incorporated finally foots the bill! Best of all: It is hand-drawn, not computer generated (for the most part,) as so many cartoons are these days.
Welcome to the Crystal Cove Haunted Tour. I’m your ghoulish guide, Velma. The first documented case of the Curse of Crystal Cove is from 1630 when a garrison of Spanish conquistadors mysteriously vanished from the harbor… The curse struck again in 1765 when an entire town of missionaries likewise disappeared.
Anyway… Things were pretty quiet until 100 years later when Cletus Darrow found gold here and renamed the town Crystal Cove. Most people thought the curse had been lifted until the entire Darrow family disappeared one Halloween and was never seen again. [Horrified screams are heard.] Moving on… Since the disappearance of the Darrow family, Crystal Cove has become a hub of paranormal activity.
The continuity is broken, but the characters are kept intact, though, thankfully, more realistic (or at least played over-the-top in recognition of the silliness.) The gang is back in high-school where they began, and there is reference to the original episodes of Scooby-Doo, Where are You? but the characters are now all residents of a town called Crystal Cove, “The Most Hauntedest Place on Earth,” (rather than Coolsville, as in A Pup Named Scooby-Doo.)
Here in Crystal Cove, many men wear ascots, there is no mention of Scooby-Snacks, and the monsters crazed citizens masquerade as are more frightening, for certain. Whereas a six year old would probably not be bothered by The Creeper or Captain Cutler’s Ghost, the glowing eyes of Que Horrifico’s minions or the twisted face of Alice May might inspire some heavy nightmares. There are cameos by Don Knots as a nameless extra in at least four episodes, Mama Cass in one audience, and probably many more nods to the past I didn’t recognize.
After the first few episodes aired, the opening sequence was changed from The Mystery Machine traveling down a road past cut-out images of the gang to individual spotlights of each character. Lost in the change was the image of Daphne in a bikini. (Did you think we wouldn’t notice?) I agree with the change, Daph’ shouldn’t be objectified; it diminishes her character, who may be fashion-conscious and wealthy, if clumsy, but also a key sleuth in the club. I mention it here only because the original opening seems to have been erased from existence, on the aired episodes, on the DVDs, and even from YouTube.
The gang, at first known as the Crystal Cove Mystery Solvers Club, is following in the footsteps of the original Mystery Incorporated, whose name they take on, and whose disappearance is related to the Mystery of Crystal Cove. But towards the end of the series, it becomes increasingly apparent that the members of the original Mystery Incorporated were more than a bit “ethically challenged.” In fact, some of them might be considered downright bad-guys. Certainly Professor Pericles finds no shame in referring to himself as an “evil genius,” and Ricky Owens now has something to do with the polluting corporation Destroido.
Crystal Cove High School’s Mystery Solvers Club:
Fred Jones – Lives with his dad, the Mayor of Crystal Cove. This depiction of Freddie has what might be considered Asperger’s Syndrome, though it’s played out over-the-top: Fred is obsessed with Rube-Goldberg type traps, his special interest, (he even has a subscription to Traps Illustrated,) and he doesn’t have a clue about romance or how Daphne feels about him, though she nearly beats him over the head trying to give him an easy path to a meaningful relationship.
Daphne Blake – Daphne comes from a wealthy family that does not like her running with “that Jones boy.” “Danger-Prone Daphne” is just a regular, attractive, home-town girl; not dumb, not a genius, not a martial-arts master, but she has mystery solving in her blood. Her parents underwrite the gang’s exploits, loaning them their boat on occasion, (and it isn’t spoken of, but they probably purchased the Mystery Machine, regardless of Fred’s affection for it.)
Is it possible that the voice of Daphne could be a woman even hotter than the idealized cartoon character?
Grey DeLisle:
Velma Dinkley – Velma’s parents own the The Crystal Cove Spook Museum, The Crystal Cove Mystery Tour, and The Broken Spine occult book and gift shop, trading on the haunted tourism of the town. She’d be proud to wear the moniker ‘nerd,’ and has a rivalry with a girl nick-named Hot Dog Water on the Science Fair circuit.
Shaggy Rogers – Your standard teenage boy who just can’t get enough to eat, Shaggy has a constant case of the munchies.
Scooby-Doo – The lovable Great Dane, also constantly hungry, (ever try to feed a Great Dane?) uses his nose to track down clues. “Ownership” of Scooby is never clearly discussed, he is “a member of the gang.” But he has a bond with Shaggy that is never broken, even when the gang splits up.
Supporting Characters:
Angel Dynamite – Originally introduced as a kind-of parallel to the radio voice in the movie The Warriors, it turns out that Angel was once a member of the original Mystery Incorporated! She may have been nerdy once, but now she loves action.
Mayor Jones – Fred’s father. (Fred’s mom left when he was just a baby.) He is extremely focused on marketing Crystal Cove as The Most Haunted(est) Place on Earth. He often seems to care less about Fred than he probably should.
Sheriff Bronson Stone – The voice of Puddy from Seinfeld (Patrick Warburton) makes the perfect small-town conservative cop: not sophisticated, somewhat conceited, but always in-charge.
Mister E – Gives the gang clues to solving monster-involved mysteries each episode, but also drives them, for his own reasons, toward the over-arching mystery of the disappearance of the original Mystery Incorporated.
Skipper Shelton – Runs the Crab Shack on the beach. Usually he’s the first to see whatever fish-freak crawls out of Crystal Cove harbor. (Also from Seinfeld, he has the same voice as Mr. Pitt at J. Peterman.) He’s one of my favorites.
MYSTERY INCORPORATED
Season 1
S1, Ep1
Beware the Beast From Below
If you find radioactive barrels like the ones in Revenge of the Living Dead… DON’T OPEN THEM!!! Daphne finds a magnifying-glass shaped pendant in the caves below Crystal Cove. Mr. E introduces himself a la Charlie’s Angels—by a tape recording sent to the KGOUL radio station, one of the gang’s hangouts.
S1, Ep2
The Creeping Creatures
The gang heads to nearby Gatorsburg, where they’re terrorized by gator people!
S1, Ep3
Secret of the Ghost Rig
Scary Mack Truck! The Mystery Machine gets in a car chase and the Speed Racer sound effect is heard.
S1, Ep4
Revenge of the Man Crab
Fred begins to realize his feelings for Daphne when she is kidnapped. This is also the first episode where Daphne appears in a bikini. At the end, the kids receive a newspaper article from Mr. E (though one person has been ripped out) while hanging out with Angel at KGOUL.
S1, Ep5
The Song of Mystery
Monster: Que Horrifico (Evil Mayan Pied Piper). The cool red filter is added to create a truly creepy dusk-like effect.
Sheriff Stone: “All the kids on the block have been inexplicably ‘Spookified!'”
S1, Ep6
The Legend of Alice May
Alice may looks just like Gwen Stacy. The whole episode is apparently a setup by Mr. E to get the gang to look deeper into “The Mystery of Crystal Cove,” and when Alice is taken into custody, she leaves behind an old High School yearbook with a picture of the original Mystery Incorporated in it. They are the same students from the newspaper clippings and the locket: Brad Chiles, Judy Reeves, Cassidy Williams, Ricky Owens, & Professor Pericles.
S1, Ep7
In Fear of the Phantom
The Hex Girls are menaced by a phantom! This episode features Daphne as a Hex Girl, looking even more like The Cruxshadows than they did in Scooby Doo and the Witch’s Curse. She gets lowered from the ceiling in a giant gothic throne just like Ozzy Osbourne in his Ultimate Sin tour.
S1, Ep8
The Grasp of the Gnome
An evil gnome paralyzes patrons of the Renaissance fair using jellyfish toxin, harking back to The Serpent and the Rainbow and the Voodoo ethnology of Wade Davis. (I think the Queen looks like T’Pau, too.) Mr. E’s henchman drops another note that reads “This has all happened before!” with another picture, this time with Professor Pericles circled.
Velma: “Hey, Jerk-weed– you dropped something!”
S1, Ep9
Battle of the Humungonauts
War of the Gargantuas meets Scooby-Doo!
S1, Ep10
Howl of the Fright Hound
A black shuck? The Hound of the Baskervilles? No, a Mecha-Scooby attacks the gang! Scooby fights it using a forklift as a mech (reminiscent of the end of Aliens,) then after the robot’s skin burns off like Mecha-Godzilla, they trap the Hound in a factory and it goes out like The Terminator.
This is a key episode in the over-arching mystery: Professor Pericles escapes from the Crystal Cove Animal Asylum for the Criminally Insane, having been incarcerated there in an X-men-like psi-prison. He speaks with the gang previous to his escape, warning them of the “secret that feeds on Crystal Cove.”
Pericles: “Beware those who are closest to you. I’m speaking specifically to you, Frederick.”
S1, Ep11
The Secret Serum
Fred uses a dummy, that looks kinda like the one from Saw, as bait for a vampire babe seeking eternal life.
Vampire: “That potion was gonna make me young and beautiful forever. You see, in college I majored in zoology and acrobatics, studying the habits of flying squirrels. I propelled myself into the air with my quad and glute muscles. All this gave me the illusion of a real, flying vampire.”
S1, Ep12
The Shrieking Madness
Enter H.P. Hatecraft! Crystal Cove does seem to parallel Innsmouth… Howard E. Roberts asks special guest star Harlan Ellison his opinion of Hatecraft (played by Jeffery Combs, the voice of Weyoun from Star Trek –-a cloned character who was, in turn, a DS9 ‘tribute’ to the gholas of Frank Herbert’s Dune series,) and Char Gar Gothakon, The Thing Without a Name. At the end, the lost Darrow Family Archives turn up… Mr. E has stolen them for the gang’s benefit. Strangely, we don’t see or hear any more about the archives until the final episode.
S1, Ep13
When the Cicada Calls
Here we see the first real evidence that the gang really are high school students. From here on, we see them in the halls and in class more often. A swarm of cicadas, which are creepy enough on their own, morph into a giant insect.
S1, Ep14
Mystery Solvers Club State Finals
This time the sidekicks do it themselves! The Mystery Solvers from all the Hanna-Barbera shows team up: The Funky Phantom, Scooby-Doo, Speed Buggy, Captain Caveman and Jabberjaw. Thank god, it was all just a dream. It was cool that the old, not-so-shapely Velma came back for a sequence.
S1, Ep15
The Wild Brood
A charming play on The Wild One. Fred and Shaggy are emasculated by a bunch of nerds who steal their girlfriends. We see Daphne asleep in a negligee as the sheriff and the rest of the gang in a surreal visit to her bedroom.
S1, Ep16
Where Walks Aphrodite
Aphrodite looks like a scarier version of Alice May (shudder) in this nod to Stephen King’s Carrie. Scooby teams up with Professor Pericles to find a cure to her love potion that is turning Crystal Cove into a town of love zombies.
Pericles: “As much as I enjoy seeing my captors tormented, I will not let my home be destroyed by some tarted-up hippie.”
While Scooby gets the elements of the cure, Pericles gathered the items needed for his own agenda: an ancient conquistador’s ship manifest, a stone-piercing industrial-grade diamond drill bit, and the geological reports of the Darrow Mining Company.
E’s henchman explains The Curse of the Haunted Treasure: An ancient fortune left behind by the conquistadors who first settled the area, buried somewhere beneath Crystal Cove. By the sound of Pericles’ recorded message, it becomes obvious that he is in a game of chess with Mr. E, a race to see who can reach the treasure first.
S1, Ep17
Escape from Mystery Manor
The gang investigates the Darrow Mansion, now sunken underground below the college. This episode is a tip of the hat to the Saw series, when Fred matches his wits with a hostile, yet kindred spirit in a “master trapper showdown.” We see that a corrupting piece of an unknown artifact causes the Darrow family to go mad, much like The One Ring of the Lord of the Rings does to Smeagol.
Daphne calls Fred “swarthy…like a trucker wearing an ascot!”
S1, Ep18
Dragon’s Secret
One of the best episodes. This one a tribute to Big Trouble in Little China, we return to Crystal Cove’s Chinatown, (originally seen in The Wild Brood, which is really just Chen’s Coffee House.) Red Wizard vs. White Wizard, guest-starring the voice of Walter Koenig! (And a little magwai in the shop.)
S1, Ep19
Nightfright
Vincent VanGhoul invites Shaggy and Scooby-Doo to his house for fondue after they win a writing contest. The continuity is broken here, as the entire series The 13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo has not happened. (However, there is a wax statue of Scrappy-Doo in the Haunted Museum.) They are stalked by a demon called Nightfright! Cameo by a Dr. Phibes look-alike!
S1, Ep20
The Siren’s Song
The Deep Ones finally appear in Crystal Cove! (Along with Amy, the siren mermaid.) Velma confronts Angel Dynamite about being Cassidy Williams from the original Mystery Inc.
S1, Ep21
Menace of the Manticore
Angel goes to visit Mr. E and express concern over the safety of the kids. He convinces her to seek the “piece” the gang found in the Darrow Mansion. Fred’s dad is seen working on a strange coded map and going through Fred’s drawers, also probably for the piece. Hot Dog Water’s dad owns Super Scary Terror-Land and explains that he actually recycles the amusement park’s concessions stand water for their bathing.
E: “Scooby is a far more trusting companion than Pericles was to me.”
S1, Ep22
Attack of the Headless Horror
Rick Spartan, a Doc Savage type, fights an Anthropophagi (from The Monstrumologist books by Rick Yancey) while the writers poke fun of the racism inherent in the idea of the “Great White Hunter.”
Anthropophagi: “The Headless Horror costume was the final piece of the puzzle. I had it specially designed, and took months of Pilates to train my abdominal muscles to the point where I could control the mouth with my abs.”
S1, Ep23
A Haunting in Crystal Cove
It appears that Fred’s dad found the “piece.” Is this episode a play on Hill House or Poltergeist? More like Paranormal Activity, I think. The Mayor is haunted by “an old friend.” and the gang ends up with a second piece of what Professor Pericles finally names: The Planispheric Disc.
S1, Ep24
Dead Justice
Crystal Cove’s legendary Sheriff “Dead Justice” comes back from the dead to put Sheriff Bronson Stone out of business. A zombie Jonah Hex, and… Freddy proposes to Daphne!
S1, Ep25
Pawn of Shadow
Professor H.P. Hatecraft faces the horror of the Dusk (read: Twilight) movies. The Obliteratrix attacks the gang, –but Kills the Mystery Machine! The climax is a king-fu fight between the Obliteratrix and Angel Dynamite! The soundtrack to this episode is something special, too.
We see the original Mystery Incorporated discover a diagram of the Planespheric Disk in a the ruins of an old Spanish Church while chasing The Freak, and learn that the disk was used by the Spanish Conquistadors to navigate anywhere in the world in order to hide their cargo. Then, the new Mystery Inc. uncovers a locket, identical to the one Daphne found in the caves below Crystal Cove, while searching the very same church.
Cassidy: “We thought we’d found a treasure map, but it wasn’t treasure, it was a threat: to not just our lives, but the lives of our families. The thing in those caves forced us to leave Crystal Cove, or those who loved us would pay the price. He called himself ‘The Freak.'”
S1, Ep26
All Fear the Freak
The original Mystery Incorporated explores a cave filled with a booby-trapped mountain of skulls, (picture the cave in Pirates of the Carribean,) but the treasure chest on top gives up only a single piece of the Planispheric Disc, no Spanish gold. It does release one other thing, however: The Freak!
When they are caught breaking into the Mayor’s office, the kids are split up by their parents. Shaggy is sent to a military academy and Scooby is sent to a “nice farm, up-state.” (Read: the pound!) Fred discovers that his mother’s memory and his entire family has been a sham, and the engagement with Daphne is broken off. In the end, Professor Pericles escapes, and he now has two pieces of the disk. But where are the other four?
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