If the title The Power of the Dog did not already belong to a few unrelated book/film properties, it could well apply to Scooby-Doo, one of Hanna Barbera’s most enduring original TV properties. The cartoon about the teen ghostbusters of Mystery Inc. and their cowardly dog (almost always unmasking the ghost/monster/whatever as a criminal hoax in the end) premiered in 1969 and has gone through more than a dozen iterations. The good news is the corny and formulaic scripts gain a certain sophistication over the years (not to oversell it; this is still for the J-level viewers overall).
Premiering in 2019, the Scooby-Doo and Guess Who variant series goes all-out with a '70s Saturday-morning TV gimmick: an occasional guest celebrity (Sonny & Cher, Phyllis Diller, Sandy Duncan, the entire Harlem Globetrotters) did cartoon cameos. In this 21st-century collection, Cher and Sandy Duncan return in encores that heavily reference their old episodes.
Other actors, musicians, athletes, and...whatevers...who pop into the Scoobyverse to solve mysteries (usually, but not always, written to their personas) include competitive-eating champ Joey Chestnut, rapper Macklemore, reality-TV "style" expert Tim Gunn, C&W thrush Kacey Musgraves, boxing royalty Laila Ali, and actors Jessica Biel, Lucy Liu, Sean Astin (a lot of Lord of the Rings gags in an otherwise carnivorous-plant caper), and so on.
Surprisingly enjoyable — or were we just inured to it by then? — is the segment with supermodel Gigi Hadid, revealing she was brainy Velma's classmate and study partner (do not ask how that timeline works out). Morgan Freeman's bit materializes as a mock nature-history-anthropology documentary, Freeman's storied narration poking fun at the series' repetitive catchphrases and ritualized plotting and slapstick. A standout is the late Alex Trebek guesting in a "Jeopardy!"-centered adventure that is actually pretty funny. And educational.
No material goes as far out as bringing back Sonny Bono as a faux ghost. But surely someone might have been tempted. A must-have title for mainstream and children's entertainment library shelves where Scooby-Doo cartoons and movies already haunt.