(courtesy IMDb)
I have been watching Scooby-Doo! cartoons in their multitudinous iterations since the 1970s – not that long after the franchise debited in 1969 so yes I am hauntingly old, thank you – and one thing that has struck all the way through is the way the show manages to stay very true to its roots while having a lot of fun reinventing itself (and not just in cartoon form too – see Scooby Apocalypse).
While it’s fun to see all the usual tropes in play such as the musically-backed montage running scenes, the Big Bad of the day rueing the interference of the meddling kids (aka, Fred, Daphne, Velma, Shaggy and of course “Scooby-Doo) and the intake of huge amounts of high-caloric foods by Shaggy and Scooby, you also don’t want Scooby-Doo! to fossilise in place.
Where would be the fun in that? You might as well just watch repeats.
While Be Cool, Scooby-Doo! was the most out-there of iterations – I loved it, lots didn’t but it really pushed the envelope and enjoyed doing it – Scooby-Doo! and the Curse of the 13th Ghost, released digitally and on physical media in 2019, has a ball tinkering with the established format, going delightfully meta at certain hugely fun points.
Released as a sequel to 1985’s The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, which saw the gang (minus Fred and Velma who went to summer camp apparently) in the Himalayas where they had to get 13 rather nasty ghosts back into the evocatively named Chest of Demons after Shaggy and Scooby were tricked into opening it and releasing its nightmarish inmates.
Daphne, Shaggy and Scooby were joined on their Himalayan adventure by a young boy called Flim Flam (Susan Blu) and Vincent Van Ghoul, voiced by the legendary Vincent Price; Flim Flam and Van Ghoul, who loves a horror pun and is now voiced by Maurice LaMarche following Price’s death in 1993, are back in Scooby-Doo! and the Curse of the 13th Ghost which also sees Fred and Velma along for the ride.
At the start of Scooby-Doo! and the Curse of the 13th Ghost, the gang are at a massive existential crossroads – the local police chief wants them to leave sleuthing alone and so they sell the Mystery Machine (!!) and all their artefacts, only holding onto a crystal ball when Van Ghoul’s face appears in it begging for their help.
While they have technically retired from ghostly investigations, they don’t hesitate for a second and they race off to the Himalayas, with Daphne, in her The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo outfit and bringing on her red Miss-tery Machine, leading the way, triggering a substantial bit of souls searching by Fred as he wonders why he’s around when he doesn’t contribute anything to the group now.
It’s this reversal of Fred and Daphne that’s the first big sign that Scooby-Doo! and the Curse of the 13th Ghost is not going to be strictly business as usual and it ushers in a special which ticks many of the franchise’s well-loved boxes while refreshing things and proving it is absolutely possible to honour the history and characters of a franchise without endlessly repeating yourself.
While the movie does fill in more than a little bit of time with endless running from avalanches, a sign that the story, while fun, is a little slight, Scooby-Doo! and the Curse of the 13th Ghost is still a hugely enjoyable entry into the Scooby-Doo! canon.
Velma is also someone who finds herself asking whether what she’s believed up to this point is right; for much of the special, it seems like ghosts are real (and honestly it never really lands definitively either way on the issue) and all the unmasking they’ve done ignores all the actual supernatural activity out there.
It’s a hoot watching Velma wrestle with this direct sizeable challenge to her long-held beliefs, and it’s adds another dimension to her character and to the show overall.
While Scooby-Doo! and the Curse of the 13th Ghost may not exactly set the world on fire, it’s still enormous fun to watch, both honouring its predecessor while striking out in its own voice and tone and enlarging what we know about the characters that we all love and are happy to spend time with, no matter where they are (and pssst! spoiler alert: the gang decides to stay in the mystery solving game at the end of this adventure).
Scooby-Doo! and the Curse of the 13th Ghost streams on Stan in Australia.