The newest "Scooby Doo" incarnation "Mystery Incorporated" is an insult to every real Scooby fan. Okay, technically it's still better than "The 13 Ghosts Of Scooby Doo" or "Shaggy & Scooby Doo Get A Clue", but these two never tried to be the definitive version of Scooby Doo. And as hard as "Mystery Incorporated" tries to be it, as hard it fails.
Let's start with the good stuff: Matthew Lillard, who recently became the official voice of Shaggy after Casey Kasem retired, does a very good job! That's no big surprise, considering how good he already was in the live action movies, but since then he got even better. Also the art direction of the show is awesome! Seriously, "Mystery Incorporated" is maybe the visually most stunning cartoon on TV right now! The background design is brilliant and how the show plays with colour and shadow is mind blowing! Too bad that that's everything good I can say about it.
As wonderful as the background art and colour pattern are, the character design is just plain awful. Fred has now such a huge, rectangular chin, that even Jay Leno would make fun of it. And Velma became way too skinny. (I guess there is no place for chubby girls in modern kids TV anymore. Hooray for anorexia!) And if the changes on the outside weren't bad enough, they also changed them from the inside too!
Fred is now a bumbling idiot. If you belong to the people who think that he was already in "What's New" too dumb, "Mystery Incorporated" could make your head explode! We are talking "A Pup Named Scooby Doo" stupidity here! He not just has a way too creepy obsession with traps of all kind, that makes him blind for everything that goes on around him, in one episode he even tries to play an 8-track tape on a turntable! Daphne made a few steps backwards in terms of emancipation and is now doing nothing else than adoring Fred, like a 10 year old girl adores a boygroup star. 99% of her dialogue in this show is about nothing else than how much she loves Fred. And he is of course too dumb to get it. And don't get me started with Velma. They took the smart and lovable girl we all know and turned her into an angry, mean-spirited, shallow sitcom nag, who is now Shaggy's girlfriend (Yay!), but is criticizing everything about him. How he talks, how he dresses, how he eats - and even how close he is with Scooby! Not to mention that she never used her brain in this show so far and even desecrated a cemetery when she got mad at Shaggy!
All this is wrapped up into some lame, cliché-filled and heavy handed teeny-drama, which is full of sitcom plots like "I heard a short, completely out of context bit of something you said and now I think you hate me". The writers call it "character development", but stripping everything that we liked away from the characters and turning them into hollow personalities, who only act like the next cheap plot device commands them to, is more a stultification of the audience.
Seriously, if you love Scooby Doo and especially the characters, don't watch "Mystery Incorporated". It will give you a headache and make you feel insulted. Too bad that the kids, who eat up every bad fanfiction and teen bopping drama on the CW will love it.
Let's start with the good stuff: Matthew Lillard, who recently became the official voice of Shaggy after Casey Kasem retired, does a very good job! That's no big surprise, considering how good he already was in the live action movies, but since then he got even better. Also the art direction of the show is awesome! Seriously, "Mystery Incorporated" is maybe the visually most stunning cartoon on TV right now! The background design is brilliant and how the show plays with colour and shadow is mind blowing! Too bad that that's everything good I can say about it.
As wonderful as the background art and colour pattern are, the character design is just plain awful. Fred has now such a huge, rectangular chin, that even Jay Leno would make fun of it. And Velma became way too skinny. (I guess there is no place for chubby girls in modern kids TV anymore. Hooray for anorexia!) And if the changes on the outside weren't bad enough, they also changed them from the inside too!
Fred is now a bumbling idiot. If you belong to the people who think that he was already in "What's New" too dumb, "Mystery Incorporated" could make your head explode! We are talking "A Pup Named Scooby Doo" stupidity here! He not just has a way too creepy obsession with traps of all kind, that makes him blind for everything that goes on around him, in one episode he even tries to play an 8-track tape on a turntable! Daphne made a few steps backwards in terms of emancipation and is now doing nothing else than adoring Fred, like a 10 year old girl adores a boygroup star. 99% of her dialogue in this show is about nothing else than how much she loves Fred. And he is of course too dumb to get it. And don't get me started with Velma. They took the smart and lovable girl we all know and turned her into an angry, mean-spirited, shallow sitcom nag, who is now Shaggy's girlfriend (Yay!), but is criticizing everything about him. How he talks, how he dresses, how he eats - and even how close he is with Scooby! Not to mention that she never used her brain in this show so far and even desecrated a cemetery when she got mad at Shaggy!
All this is wrapped up into some lame, cliché-filled and heavy handed teeny-drama, which is full of sitcom plots like "I heard a short, completely out of context bit of something you said and now I think you hate me". The writers call it "character development", but stripping everything that we liked away from the characters and turning them into hollow personalities, who only act like the next cheap plot device commands them to, is more a stultification of the audience.
Seriously, if you love Scooby Doo and especially the characters, don't watch "Mystery Incorporated". It will give you a headache and make you feel insulted. Too bad that the kids, who eat up every bad fanfiction and teen bopping drama on the CW will love it.