Warner Bros. Animation has done a fair (and certainly audience-pleasing) job taking the venerable Scooby-Doo franchise out of its 1960/70s time warp and writing scripts at a notched-up IQ level; this one throws in jokey references to Richard Matheson's famous "Nightmare at 30,000 Feet" short story/Twilight Zone episode, Barney Rubble and even the early Hanna-Barbara fantasy kitsch Thundarr the Barbarian.
Here, the Mystery Inc. gang are rewarded with a trip to the United Kingdom, where, at an English village capitalizing on being the reputed location of fabled Camelot, it turns out Shaggy has royal relations (viewers are rewarded to learn Shaggy's real name is Norville Rogers—never mind vintage cartoons in which his family name was a now giggle-inducing "Shagworthy").
Suddenly the sorceress Morgan le Fay—or someone claiming to be her—materializes and sends the whole gang back to the age of King Arthur Pendragon (voiced by Harry Potter actor Jason Isaacs and depicted as a muscle-bound, semi-buffoon type) and the Round Table.
Although confronted with magic, dragons, and other seemingly supernatural wonders, Velma stubbornly insists that all of this is some sort of high-tech deception. Meanwhile, Daphne, in one of the clever bits in Jeremy Adams' script, appears to subscribe to the Matrix theory that all reality is a vast computer simulation, so anything can happen. UK comic and writer Nick Frost also contributes a voiceover as Merlin.
Viewers can do a compare-contrast with the disc thanks to Warner including no fewer than three vintage Scooby-Doo episodes (okay, two from the original "Scooby-Doo, Where are You?" and one from the "Scooby-Doo/Dynomutt Hour," if one must be technical about it) as extras, and these trade in Anglo-Saxon castles, Arthurian lore, and Black Knights. The cut-rate, pre-CGI Xerox animation and Squaresville, non-ironic writing of Saturday-morning cartoons of yesteryear may seem endearingly nostalgic for some, but make viewers appreciate 21st-century Scoob all the more. Recommended for J shelves. (Aud: P)